For the first time in 25 years, Westword's readers showed the collective good taste to choose something other than McDonald's french fries as the Best French Fries.Their choice? Bistro Vendome, which makes its delicious fries even more addictive with a salty/sweet sprinkle of spices.
The editorial choice for Best French Fries wasn't nearly as smooth a process. Since we're not big fans of sweet potatoes, we'd initially passed over the fries at Bistro Vendome for those at Fruition, a great restaurant made even greater by the spuds, fried in deliciously rich duck fat, that once attended the kitchen’s culotte steak. But one of Fruition's frequent menu shifts ditched the fries (the steak is still on the board), and in a category this contentious, we needed to find a fry that readers could try for themselves.
After some last-minute eating, Jason Sheehan found his Best French Fries: at Encore, the restaurant that opened last December in the Lowenstein project. Fine on their own, these fries are made even better by the squiggle of mustard the kitchen squirts on the spuds before sending them out.
Read about those fries here. And then run, don't walk, to brunch at either Encore and Bistro Vendome, and fry some spuds on for size. -- Calhoun
