Years ago it was always a family treat to stop at the A&W to get root beer in a frosty mug. I remember as a kid getting the little ‘baby’ mug. I never thought it held enough root beer.

Slowly those stands started to close and were fewer and farther between. When I was in College, I only knew of two such stands in the ‘local’ area. One was in Delta Ohio and the other in Antwerp Ohio. The Delta Ohio A&W closed many years ago.

With my wife and children, we would sometimes make a slight detour on trips to Fort Wayne and stop at the Antwerp A&W. The children got the mini ‘baby’ mugs until they got a bit older. Always a good time and always good root beer.

In the past few years A&Ws have been making a bit of a comeback in NW Ohio. I know of two restaurants that are a combined A&W and KFC. Interesting letter combination. 😉 These aren’t the old drive ups, but the root beer is still as good. The charm of the place is somehow missing.

Now in a local town there is a Sonic drive-up. They have car-hops on roller skates and a fun atmosphere. But there are no frosty mugs. I will say some of the drinks there are very good.

Today, on the way back from Fort Wayne, my youngest and I stopped at that A&W stand in Antwerp. It is still in business, and still serving Root Beer in the Frosty Glass Mugs. Many wonderful memories flowed. The root beer is still good.

🙂

There’s been a lot of buzz around here about a few new restaurants that are to be opening soon in our county.  One is a replacement for a restaurant that closed due to the tough economic times.  The old place had good food, but their prices were kind of high for the area, and their service was always very  slow – perhaps two reasons that led to their demise?  I don’t know much about their replacement, except that it’s to be called ‘Union Street Grille’ and will open in May sometime.  Hmm, grille.  Does that mean burgers and the like?

Next we will have a Sonic drive-in.  For those of you who aren’t familiar, Sonic is a fast food place, with burgers, french fries, chicken sandwiches and the like, but they also have outdoor booths where you can sit in your car and eat after your food is delivered to you.  I try not to eat too much fast food, but I do enjoy Sonic from time to time, and they have excellent slushies, ocean water, and especially flavored iced tea – YUM!  And Sonic has a Happy Hour from 2-4 when their drinks are half-price, so I’ll be there…

The other new restaurant in the area is a place called ‘4 Seasons’ and it’s about 20 minutes away.  They have (among other things) Greek food – my favorite!  Not a full spread, but enough to make me happy!  Their gyros are great (awesome tzatziki sauce), and they even have homemade hollandaise sauce for eggs benedict.  I think I’ve already rambled on in a few blog posts how important it is for good eggs benedict to have homemade hollandaise.  My husband and I have searched many states for good hollandaise sauce, and many places will say their sauce is homemade even if it isn’t.  I guess to a lot of people, “homemade” means that they’ve mixed the powder into the water.  But not to us – you can really taste the (ew) difference if there is powder involved.  The other night, we ate at 4 Seasons, and I made a comment – now we just have to ask them when they’re getting Saganaki (one of my favorite Greek dishes – it involves goat or sheep cheese, whiskey, fire, and yelling OPA!  Good stuff).  So my husband asked the waitress about it, and that’s when we found out that they HAVE it!  Of course – we find out when we’re way too full to even consider trying it, and on the eve of one of the busiest weekends we’ve had in a long time.  We will be up there to try it soon – no doubt!  Before that lovely piece of news, we thought the nearest Saganaki was Toledo or South Bend, Indiana!

Anyway, 3 new restaurants opening up within miles of my house is a big deal for us – especially for one to have THREE of our favorite dishes!  We eat out a lot, partly because the prices are reasonable in our area, partly because we’re very busy people and I’m not home a lot to cook, and partly because it’s really difficult to cook with 8 extra little feet in the kitchen to trip over!  Maybe some day I’ll have the time and the patience to cook more often, but until then, new restaurants opening in our area to give us more variety is a cause for celebration!  EUREKA!

There are 6 national Fast Food Restaurants that serve a Hot Fish sandwich at least during or around Lent. Yes, Subway exists and does server a tuna fish sandwich, but that is an entirely different animal. As I try them, I will give a short review.

McDonalds Fillet-o-Fish Served all year
The Fillet-o-Fish has been my perennial favorite. I’m sure this has something to do with eating so many growing up in a Catholic family, and of course spending lots of time hanging out in McDonalds. For those who don’t know, this sandwich is a square fish stick on a bun, smothered in Tartar Sauce and a slice of melted American Cheese. This sandwich, as was usual with most McDonalds products is the same year after year, sandwich after sandwich. Even though my tastes have grown up a bit, I will still get one of these on occasion. I don’t eliminate the meat from my diet during lent, or on Fridays, so the desire for fish has to out weigh my desire for beef. It happens, but the Fillet-O-Fish is not the comfort food that a cheeseburger is. 😉 These used to be a cheap sandwich at McDonalds, but the price has gone up in the past few years. There should be a two-fer sale in the next few weeks to coincide with the Lenten season. Not a bad sandwich, and it is my scale for all other fast food fish sandwiches… so it is a 7 on scale of 1 – 10

Burger King BK-fish Served all year
Been a few months since I’ve had one of these sandwiches. Always, and I do mean always overcooked. Doesn’t matter what BK I go to. I’ll stick to their Angus burger. Score 3.  I may try this one again.  I was told they got better, and it is Lenten fish sale time.

Arbys Fish during Lent
Decent fish sandwich, A large fillet with lettuce, tomato and tartar sauce. When I last had it, no cheese was offered. Since I was used to the McDs sandwich I felt it was missing. They are usually only offered in the spring, with some sales during lent. I think last year it was during the entire period, but sometimes the sale is only on Fridays. With a sale price this is a very good value, not so good if not on sale. I’ll choose it over the McDs sandwich when on sale.   Give this one an 8 when on sale, 6 when not….

Wendy’s Fish During Lent
I just had this sandwich a couple of weeks ago. I will have to try it again. On my first sandwich the fish was overcooked, but not served piping hot. Must have been sitting around a while. To give it a fair review, I will need to go back when they are busy on a Friday to make sure I get a fresh sandwich. Served with lettuce, tomato and Tartar Sauce with cheese as an option. So far the score on this sandwich is a 3.

Dairy Queen Fish Fillet sandwich (all year?)
I had the DQ Crispy Fish Fillet sandwich this week.  What can I say?  The onion rings were tasty.   As for the fish, I would almost complain of some false advertising.  It wasn’t very crispy.  That being said, it was a niced sized piece of fish.  The sandwich also contained tartar sauce and lettuce.  The bun was very fresh.  Nothing really special, but not too bad either.  I’m thinking a score of 6 fits this sandwich.

A&W/KFC Fish snackers during Lent

99 cent mini fish sandwiches. No frills, just Tartar Sauce, fish and a bun. I like these little sandwiches a lot. If our local KFC had better service, I would get it more often. Just not worth the time spent waiting to get them, unless I really want a draft Root Beer too. Interesting combination of KFC and A&W in our town, but I think that confuses the servers. Score 8

Your Favorite?

[poll id=8]

During the summer, a contest in our local community was held to determine the best burger in town. I was unable to go to that event, and I don’t even remember who won. I understand it will be a large undertaking, but I may be taking my own survey on the local burger scene. Since I really like cheeseburgers, I imagine most of the burgers will have cheese on them.

Let’s eliminate the fast food burgers first, starting with the smaller dollar menu burgers. I’ll have to make a trip to all the fast food joints in the area (Williams County), but I can start with McDonalds.

Recently to save money, McDonalds now have a new burger on the menu. It is called the McDouble. This is a standard double cheeseburger minus one slice of cheese. All this for 30 cents less than the old Double Cheeseburger. 30 cents for 1 slice of precut American processed cheese. Hmmm. Still, the Double Cheeseburger was a memory comfort food for me. Kind of like White Castle sliders only bigger. Not the best burger around, but a taste that remained the same from restaurant to restaurant. Since the introduction of the McDouble, I’ve been able to tell the difference from the restaurant in Bryan and the one in Montpelier and from the time of day it is purchased. I’m not sure what they do different, but it is no longer the comfort food I was used to. Being the cheap person I am, I’m not about to spend 30 cents for a piece of cheese. So I have to find another $1.00 burger to replace my old standby.

I’ll try to keep you posted…

Also on the list, in time for lent, Fast Food Fish sandwiches…. 😉

On another tangents.org blog, justj has been talking about cheeseburgers, namely White Castles and Burger Buddies (aka Burger Bundles), an ’80’s Burger King product.  I found an old Burger Bundles commercial on youtube and posted the link on his blog in the comments section of the cheeseburger post.  While I was looking around on youtube, I found this old vintage McDonald’s commercial where Ronald looks like something out of a horror movie.  Regardless of what his early incarnation looked like, the clown worked for them in helping to create one of the most successful companies of all time.