Best Chili-Cheese Fries

An order of chili-cheese fries is not something you leave to an amateur, to someone uneducated in the tricky chemistry of the combination of potatoes, chili and cheese. You want to go to a pro, and that's why you go to Sam's No. 3, where the kitchen has been pumping out Coney Island-style fries slathered in beans-and-meat chili and melted generic yellow cheese product for decades. These guys know that the fries must be kept in the oil a little bit longer in order to give them a good caramelized crust that's strong enough to withstand the weight and moisture of the chili. They understand that while sometimes less might be more, this isn't one of those times, and so they smother the fries with their tasty chili and enough cheese that pretty soon you're going to need a fork. This side dish is worth the center of the plate.