I love McDonald’s fries, even now. My ranking:
- McDonald’s
- In ‘n’ Out
- KFC Wedge Fries
- Five Guys
- Can’t think of a fifth
My favorite fries are from Rally’s. I love the seasoning they use. They are always sold very crisp and hot.
McDonald’s is a close second. They make the best unseasoned fries.
I’m a fan of local places that cut unpeeled potatoes and fry them immediately. That freshness is hard to beat.
In my opinion, McDonald’s fries are only good if you can get them fresh, and then eat them before they start to cool. And they’re better than most when reheated in the oven.
BK’s fries a while back were the best, but I’m under the impression they’ve changed them again since I last had them. (Not much call to eat there in general, since their patties have no flavor.) Wendy’s were never that good and needed ketchup. We don’t have the other two around here.
Without even looking at the list (but knowing they’d be on it), McDonalds hands down. I do agree they were better when they used beef tallow but even without that they’re still superior. After that:
Wendys - almost as good as McD’s, plus they have a chicken sandwich that I really like so I’ve had them more often that McD’s in the last several years. If I go to the golden arches, it’s for fries only.
Five Guys - I don’t mind a soggy fry, and in fact prefer it to crispy so eating a giant pile of greasy potato stew doesn’t put me off. Unfortunately I always feel ill afterword so I don’t eat them very often. Still, I enjoy them while I’m eating them.
Chick-fil-A - These lackluster waffle fries aren’t terrible but their lack of appeal is what keeps me from going there for the yummy spicy chicken sandwich. There’s a CfA right next to Wendy’s near my office and sometimes I’ll be craving a chicken sandwich and start driving with every intention of going to CfA, then at the last minute default to Wendy’s.
Burger King - Inedible, and that’s says a lot coming from this ff lover.
I’ve never understood the love for McDonalds fries. They’re OK (but not great) when hot, but as soon as they cool down, you might as well be eating cardboard for all the flavor they have.
Anyhow, my rankings:
Five Guys (easily the best)
[I’d insert a couple of local places in here, but it wouldn’t mean anything to anyone]
Chick-Fil-A (decent waffle fries)
BK, Wendy’s, MickeyD’s - tied for 5th, all forgettable
Hell, I was mystified by the love for McDonalds fries all the way back in the 1970s.
Yeah, the classic McDonalds fries. Made from potatoes peeled and sliced on site.
Even the current ones are still miles ahead of BK, Wendys etc. And so far ahead of Checkers it’s hardly like being in the same food category.
Thin is good!
Burger King’s fries used to be limp shoestrings, but they stepped up their game a few years back with thicker-cut fries. Still not gourmet by any means, but better than McD’s IMO.
First place by far goes to my own French fries (yes, I’m gonna be that guy).
I cut up Idaho potatoes into thick fries. Put them in a ziplock bag with oil, salt, pepper, garlic powder, etc. Mix thoroughly. Cover cookie sheet with foil (easier cleanup) and arrange fries.
Meanwhile, the oven has preheated @450 convection roast setting. Fries go in for about twelve minutes, then take out and turn them all over. Return to oven for a bit. Remove, fresh grate Asiago or Parmessan. Return to oven for two more minutes. Fries are done when the skinniest fries begin to burn.
All the other fries mentioned come in tied for last place.
I’ve never had the first two, and haven’t been to Burger King in years. I’m surprised at McDonald’s being last, not that I especially like them, they’re more like bland and inoffensive, maybe verging on tasteless at worst. Wendy’s fries can actually be good at their best, when they’re just freshly made and salted just right.
One of the interesting things about McDonald’s fries was the demonstration in the Supersize Me movie (or it might have been one of the outtakes not actually in the film) where Morgan Spurlock puts McD’s fries in a glass container and watches to see how long it takes them to decompose. The answer, so far as he could determine, was “never”! 
A week or two or three later, they looked exactly the same, as if they were made of plastic.
Around here the best fries are usually from Swiss Chalet, a barbecue chicken place. They’re not 100% consistent, but most of the time they’re great. As a bonus, they serve up a really tasty dipping sauce that’s great for both the chicken and the fries. I don’t know what they put in it, but it’s got an aromatic flavor that’s totally addictive.
I like Chick-Fil-A’s fries. It’s been a while since I’ve had Five Guys, so I don’t recall much about them. I’ve had Wendy’s recently, but I don’t recall anything special about them.
Other fries I’ve had recently. I like Bojangles. I had Freddy’s for the first time this week. The fries were good, but I don’t care esthetically for shoestring fries, preferring steak fry sizes instead.
It should be noted that the article’s author purposefully refused to compare seasoned fries, like the Arby’s curly fries (or presumably the Rally’s/Checker’s fries) because comparing a seasoned fry to a regular fry is simply unfair to the regular fries.
Burger King’s fries are decent enough out of the fry vat, nice and crispy. But they lose that beauty fairly fast, and become relatively tasteless examples of ineptitude as fries.
But NOTHING is as bad as the old Carl’s Jr. Frispos. Those things were just plain awful, and should have been illegal in several states. :mad:
I would say that is true of pretty much every fry I’ve ever had. Like most deep fried foods, once it starts to cool, it’s game over. The one exception on this list may be the Chick Fil A waffle fries. They don’t taste that bad when cooled, but regular fries are uniformly awful when cool.
The weird thing is I’m old enough to remember McDonald’s fries back when they were beef fat fried, but I don’t really remember them tasting much different. It’s like the first time I had duck fat fries. A hot dog place here in Chicago had duck fat fries one or two days a week, and I was so excited to finally try them. They were two bucks more than the regular portion of fries. I bit into one and … it tasted like the regular French fry to me. I honestly couldn’t tell the difference. Weird. Or if there was a difference, it wasn’t enough for me to wait in line again for them and spend a couple extra bucks. (Now duck fat on roast potatoes is another thing. That is definitely worth it.)
And you see, my rankings would be just about the exact opposite. I think Five Guys fries suck hard-core. That and the fact that their burgers are second-rate and over-priced is why they aren’t anywhere I’d eat.
My rankings:
Chick-Fil-A
Local places
Del Taco
McDonalds
skip a hundred places
BK, Wendys
skip another hundred places
Five Guys
skip a thousand places
In-N-Out
I see that others have already mentioned Del Taco (they totally fucking rock!), so I’ll contribute this relevant Pearls Before Swine comic.
I wish I had tried the Del Taco fries the very brief time they were here in Chicago (they lasted maybe a year or two around ten years ago.) I always went there for the fish tacos. I have long heard since that their burgers and fries are fantastic, too, but I was unaware of it at the time, thinking why would I go to a Mex-style place for burgers and fries?
Nathan’s? Yep. I have fond memories of eating them on the boardwalk. Last time I grilled dogs we had supermarket Nathan’s fries with them.
My ranking, subject to change in the next 10 minutes:
- In & Out (although I am not nearly as big a fan of their burgers as pretty much everybody else is - I have gone to other places for the burger and then In & Out for the fries)
- Five Guys
- Carl’s Jr
- Burger King
- Pretty much everybody else besides Sonic or Wienerschnitzel
You’re like the Bizarro World version of me! 
In N Out for the burger, anywhere, and I mean anywhere, else for the fries. What’s interesting to me is to see how some of these cluster for people. I see some have ranked In N Out and Five Guys as the top 2; others as the bottom two. But for me, they’re little alike, with Five Guys #1 and In N Out on the bottom. Now we need an In N Out #1 and Five Guys #Last to balance it out. I would not have thought In N Out and Five Guys would cluster like that, as they seem to me to be quite different types of fries. I guess what they both have in common is that they actually taste like potato.
Note that proper french fry cooking is two steps: First you fry them at a low temp. This drives off most of the water. Then you fry at a higher temp for the actual cooking and making them crisp.
So there isn’t going to be much water in the fries but there will be [del]blood[/del] oil. Without significant water and kept under glass, most foods aren’t going to decay. The main thing that might happen is that the oil will turn rancid. But again, under glass so that cuts that down a lot.
If the fries actually went bad (visually) under those circumstances then that would mean they weren’t cooked right and would taste bad to begin with.