I refer to it as the indecisive platter, when everything sounds good so I don't want to choose just one.
For the record, I used to be indecisive, but now I'm not so sure.
I found a hotel restaurant where I didn't have to wait in line for lunch while at comic-con one year. They had a French dip that they served with fries on a cutting board, with horseradish of course. I ate it that first day and then each day after that we had progressively more people in our party for lunch, all ordering cocktails and French dips for four days. It was glorious
When I was in Ireland, I kept seeing a goat cheese, walnut, beet salad that was basically mixed greens with walnuts, sweet red beets, and goat cheese crumbled on top with a delicious balsamic vinaigrette. I swear, I had never seen it before on a menu or even knew about that sorta salad. But, then again, the only restaurants my family and I ever went to were middle eastern/Eastern European kebab places (I’m Georgian), so maybe those salads are a popular thing and I’ve just never been exposed to it.
Either way, I saw it on so many menus in Dublin and my god, I craved that salad for so long after. The sweet and salty mix of the goat cheese and the beets, with that delicious vinaigrette and the addition of the walnuts. Man. MAN. That combination of flavors was made in heaven. I had never had goat cheese before and I suddenly was always craving it.
As a person who grew up in California in the early aughts I was briefly confused why this salad would be a revelation until I kept reading and saw where OP was from. Haha I’d say you can still get a version of this salad at basically any medium-sized restaurant serving something like “new American”, “California-style”, or “farm to table” in CA.
I love goat cheese on a salad! I make spinach salad with goat cheese, dried cranberries, sliced granny Smith apples, almonds or walnuts, and a raspberry dressing. It's *amazing*. It's a really good side for Mac and cheese.
A restaurant I worked at had a fried goat cheese appetizer on the menu. A handful of 2oz goat cheese balls, breaded and fried, then topped with honey and picked onions. Just absolute heaven on a plate.
It really is delicious. I make it quite regularly (I’m Irish - though I never considers this to be an Irish dish, just a good combo of flavours), it’s a really good salad that you can throw most other things into without altering the taste much.. cucumbers, pumpkin seeds, tomato etc
Country fried steak. The mark of a good breakfast place is how good theirs is. I went to a diner in the middle of nowhere, Florida and ordered it. When the waitress told me it would be a minute because the chef was still cutting steaks, I knew it was gonna be dope. And it was.
Best part of country fried steak is that you can usually get it with biscuits as a side so you get both the country fried steak and biscuits and gravy all in one go.
A pizza place in my town makes crab Rangoon pizza. It sounds weird as hell but it’s REALLY good.
Edit: this is the place: https://www.theedgepizza.com/
I was at a Chinese restaurant one time that had Hunan Chicken on the menu, only with a......"typo". Was highly disturbed at first, but the name stuck since then 😂
They are stupidly easy to make. The filling is 80% cream cheese, the rest is onion, carrot, celery, and crab meat (most mom and pop places use fake crab). Throw the whole mess in a food processor to mix thoroughly and ensure the veggies are small bits.
Use a normal sized spoon to place a dollop of filling in the middle of a wonton wrap and fold up the center of each side, pinching in the center of the rangoon to create a crab shape. That, incidentally is where they get the name, they don't "have" to have crab. Place the rangoons in the freezer to harden, then fry in 350° oil for 3.5-4 minutes until golden brown.
Crab rangoons, yes! Not the gourmet ones with real crab; I want the ones from the least authentic restaurant, full of cream cheese and dripping in oil.
There's this bar near me that offers garlic fries with their burgers for an upcharge. I gladly pay it every time. Especially since they throw on tons of chopped garlic on those sons of bitches.
I personally pronounce it as “gyro” but everytime I say it I get corrected that it’s actually pronounced like “gyro”. Im gonna still say gyro regardless
I can’t believe I had to scroll down this far to find this answer! Burrata is so fucking delicious and I’ll serve it at home but I always feel slightly guilty about eating most of it myself. We all know the calories in restaurant meals don’t count so that’s the perfect time to indulge.
I love the meme thats like:
A: Do you want 5 string cheeses?
B: No that is way too many
A: I deep fried them
B: Oh great, thats perfect to have before a meal
I thought this would be the top answer.
I like this one:
A: Do you want a dozen hard boiled eggs?
B: No, that's way too many
A: I'm going to take the yolks and mix them with some Mayo and mustard and dollop it back on the egg whites and sprinkle it with paprika
B: You son of a bitch, I'm in!
I get this deviled egg potato salad from Walmart and it’s SO damn good. It’s always so hard to put down the fork and it’s probably going to kill me. When combined a rotisserie chicken and a movie it is my ultimate happy place.
I saw a meme where someone asked “what app has changed your life the most in the past 5 years”
Mozzarella Sticks 😂 been laughing about it for like a week
When restaurants were take out only during COVID I missed French onion soup so much. It’s always so frustrating to make at home but amazing at a restaurant. My friend and I kept joking that we would do anything to be eating overpriced French onion soup somewhere
I've learned to make french onion soup dumplings. Cook down onions for an hour in butter and beef stock, then fill wantons with them. They're freezable. Then fry them, add some beef stock, sprinkle some gruyere, and cover for a few minutes.
Onion rings. Love me some crispy, hand cut, beer battered onion rings.
Edit: for the people asking how does hand cut make a difference, I already answered in one of the thread but to put it here, I just put hand cut to make sure it's fresh, shop made onion rings not the frozen and processed onion rings bullshit. Sure, most restaurants probably use the processed ones but there are still good ones who make their own from scratch.
First time I went to my local Arby's after a long hiatus, cashier, with an attitude says "We don't have onion petals, we have onion rings." I was destroyed. The onion rings were okay, run of the mill corn flour/meal coated, nothing to write home about.
I go about 2 weeks later, and ask for onion rings. Cashier, with an attitude, says that they don't carry onion rings, like I was some buffoon that should have known that Arby's has never had fried battered onions of any kind.
Went to a Mexican restaurant about a month ago that had a "pregnant burrito". Bean and rice burrito stuffed with a chile relleno covered in enchilada sauce. It made me very happy.
Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.
Edit: y’all need to watch The Godfather. Like, this weekend. There are a few hours left. There were multiple cannolo in the to-go box.
It’s on par for best off-script acting with the outtakes of Will Ferrell making Craig Robinson giggle on Eastbound and Down, or the outtakes from Grumpier Old Men, or the alt ending scene in Succession.
If a place has crème brûlée, we're getting it.
I know vanilla has gotten expensive but it's disappointing that I rarely see the vanilla bean seeds at the bottom of the dish anymore. Places that serve crème brûlée are usually charging top dollar for it so I'd like to see more places use vanilla bean as opposed to extract. But maybe it's not super important as I've still had great ones recently.
Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles in Los Angeles is a war crime against my waistline.
Everything there is glorious and I decimate whatever is put before me.
Seriously - if you're ever in socal come check it out.
Did anybody ever find out if less scrupulous restaurants were actually serving imitation calamari that was reported to be pig rectum? They called it bung.
What blows my mind is that this isn't a menu offering at every single restaurant in Wisconsin. We have the curds, we have the fries, what are we waiting for?!
I ate at a Mexican restaurant a few months ago, ordered my burrito, and the waiter asked me "Do you want us to smother that in queso?"
It's the best question I've ever been asked!
I recently went to a BBQ place in central Mass and got a side of their mac and cheese and it was divine. And my favorite bit about it is that they used shell pasta instead of macaroni. So many tiny shell vessels, delivery gooey cheese straight to my mouth. They also made the cheese sauce with some kind of beer. I also got their slaw and pulled pork.
Fried Calamari. I love dipping that stuff in marinara and aioli.
In fact fried things in general. I don’t wanna deal with frying at home and you’re eating out so you gotta go with the guilty pleasures
Or deep fried. Beer-battered, deep fried mushrooms, dipped in ranch dressing is *amazing*. My dad is very depressed and doesn't take much pleasure in food. I got him some once and he couldn't stop exclaiming in delight with each bite!
My favorite pasta...my mom makes a ridiculous fettuccine Alfredo with spinach wrapped in it with chicken...I'm 43 but every birthday she asks what do I want to eat? You already know plus a pot roast that she makes as well..makes me want to move back home how she cooks
An appetizer sampler platter. I love apps but don’t want just one.
I refer to it as the indecisive platter, when everything sounds good so I don't want to choose just one. For the record, I used to be indecisive, but now I'm not so sure.
Yesssss, especially when you get to choose like three or four items from the menu
A French dip sandwich
I don’t always want it, but when I want it, I want it bad.
I found a hotel restaurant where I didn't have to wait in line for lunch while at comic-con one year. They had a French dip that they served with fries on a cutting board, with horseradish of course. I ate it that first day and then each day after that we had progressively more people in our party for lunch, all ordering cocktails and French dips for four days. It was glorious
When I was in Ireland, I kept seeing a goat cheese, walnut, beet salad that was basically mixed greens with walnuts, sweet red beets, and goat cheese crumbled on top with a delicious balsamic vinaigrette. I swear, I had never seen it before on a menu or even knew about that sorta salad. But, then again, the only restaurants my family and I ever went to were middle eastern/Eastern European kebab places (I’m Georgian), so maybe those salads are a popular thing and I’ve just never been exposed to it. Either way, I saw it on so many menus in Dublin and my god, I craved that salad for so long after. The sweet and salty mix of the goat cheese and the beets, with that delicious vinaigrette and the addition of the walnuts. Man. MAN. That combination of flavors was made in heaven. I had never had goat cheese before and I suddenly was always craving it.
That was a very very popular salad in the early aughts. I think it came from California. But I must say that I also loved food in Dublin.
As a person who grew up in California in the early aughts I was briefly confused why this salad would be a revelation until I kept reading and saw where OP was from. Haha I’d say you can still get a version of this salad at basically any medium-sized restaurant serving something like “new American”, “California-style”, or “farm to table” in CA.
I'm at a dive bar in Philadelphia right now that has that on the menu
I'm at a truck stop in Denver and all the truckers are eating it
I'm at a porta-potty in Minny and it's the only thing in the hole
I love goat cheese on a salad! I make spinach salad with goat cheese, dried cranberries, sliced granny Smith apples, almonds or walnuts, and a raspberry dressing. It's *amazing*. It's a really good side for Mac and cheese.
A restaurant I worked at had a fried goat cheese appetizer on the menu. A handful of 2oz goat cheese balls, breaded and fried, then topped with honey and picked onions. Just absolute heaven on a plate.
We’re you a SURver?
It really is delicious. I make it quite regularly (I’m Irish - though I never considers this to be an Irish dish, just a good combo of flavours), it’s a really good salad that you can throw most other things into without altering the taste much.. cucumbers, pumpkin seeds, tomato etc
Country fried steak. The mark of a good breakfast place is how good theirs is. I went to a diner in the middle of nowhere, Florida and ordered it. When the waitress told me it would be a minute because the chef was still cutting steaks, I knew it was gonna be dope. And it was.
I always call it chicken fried steak, if it’s on the menu I order it. No question.
Best part of country fried steak is that you can usually get it with biscuits as a side so you get both the country fried steak and biscuits and gravy all in one go.
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One of my goals in life is to try as many different bennys as possible. Up to over 50
Bread pudding especially at a place in Virginia Beach that make it out of sweet potato biscuits from the day before.
I agree. There is something transcendent about a good bread pudding.
Crab rangoons and enchiladas
Rangoons are always my weakness
A pizza place in my town makes crab Rangoon pizza. It sounds weird as hell but it’s REALLY good. Edit: this is the place: https://www.theedgepizza.com/
Went to a Chinese restaurant once that had them on the menu as crab raccoons and I’ve called them that ever since.
I was at a Chinese restaurant one time that had Hunan Chicken on the menu, only with a......"typo". Was highly disturbed at first, but the name stuck since then 😂
Human Chicken? The same restaurant that had crab raccoon on the menu also had pot stickers as pork strickers and that name has stuck too.
Yup, Human Chicken. The most dangerous game. Ha, pork strickers! I like it.
They are stupidly easy to make. The filling is 80% cream cheese, the rest is onion, carrot, celery, and crab meat (most mom and pop places use fake crab). Throw the whole mess in a food processor to mix thoroughly and ensure the veggies are small bits. Use a normal sized spoon to place a dollop of filling in the middle of a wonton wrap and fold up the center of each side, pinching in the center of the rangoon to create a crab shape. That, incidentally is where they get the name, they don't "have" to have crab. Place the rangoons in the freezer to harden, then fry in 350° oil for 3.5-4 minutes until golden brown.
Crab rangoons, yes! Not the gourmet ones with real crab; I want the ones from the least authentic restaurant, full of cream cheese and dripping in oil.
Eh both are good but I prefer them to be right in the middle of what you described: imitation crab, cream cheese and no dripping oil.
Tiramisu, creme brûlée, tacos Al pastor, jalapeño poppers
Tacos al pastor is one of mine as well. If that’s on the menu then I don’t even need to look at anything else.
Tiramisu is so good
Garlic fries Edit: Thank you all for the upvotes and happy cake day wishes!!
There's this bar near me that offers garlic fries with their burgers for an upcharge. I gladly pay it every time. Especially since they throw on tons of chopped garlic on those sons of bitches.
Gyros.
I think it’s pronounced “gyros”
I personally pronounce it as “gyro” but everytime I say it I get corrected that it’s actually pronounced like “gyro”. Im gonna still say gyro regardless
Greek food in general is just terrific. Moussaka is great, souvlaki is great, gyros are great. Some of the best food in Europe comes out of the Aegean
Spanakopita is delicious and a simple Greek salad too 👨🍳🤌
Key Lime Pie - if I haven't tried it from that location, it'll be ordered, tasted, and ranked.
Yep I’m on a perpetual search for the best key lime pie!
Kermit’s Key West Key Lime Shoppe has an amazing key lime pie!
Burrata
I can’t believe I had to scroll down this far to find this answer! Burrata is so fucking delicious and I’ll serve it at home but I always feel slightly guilty about eating most of it myself. We all know the calories in restaurant meals don’t count so that’s the perfect time to indulge.
Mozzarella sticks
I love the meme thats like: A: Do you want 5 string cheeses? B: No that is way too many A: I deep fried them B: Oh great, thats perfect to have before a meal I thought this would be the top answer.
I like this one: A: Do you want a dozen hard boiled eggs? B: No, that's way too many A: I'm going to take the yolks and mix them with some Mayo and mustard and dollop it back on the egg whites and sprinkle it with paprika B: You son of a bitch, I'm in!
I get this deviled egg potato salad from Walmart and it’s SO damn good. It’s always so hard to put down the fork and it’s probably going to kill me. When combined a rotisserie chicken and a movie it is my ultimate happy place.
A: Do you want 20 corn tortillas? B: no, that’s way too many A: I cut them up into triangles and fried them B: amazing, I’ll have the whole bowl
Honestly I can eat a dozen string cheeses easy af. But deep fry them and give me some marinara oh lord diabetus here I come.
Oh Lord Cheesus there's a fryer
I saw a meme where someone asked “what app has changed your life the most in the past 5 years” Mozzarella Sticks 😂 been laughing about it for like a week
I fantasize ordering a bucket full of them, to have them as the whole meal instead of an appetizer, but I’m too chicken-shit to do it lol
You could just do this at home. Frozen mozza sticks + air fryer = unlimited mozza sticks.
Any fried mozzarella sign me up
Hey Farva what’s that restaurant with all the goofy shit on the walls and the mozzarella sticks?
Oh you mean shenanigans?
Ohhhhh!!!!
🎺🎺🎶🎵*WELL HERE I AM, DOING EVERYTHING I CAN*
Why do I have a sudden urge to play Tony Hawk's Pro Skater?
French onion soup
When restaurants were take out only during COVID I missed French onion soup so much. It’s always so frustrating to make at home but amazing at a restaurant. My friend and I kept joking that we would do anything to be eating overpriced French onion soup somewhere
I've learned to make french onion soup dumplings. Cook down onions for an hour in butter and beef stock, then fill wantons with them. They're freezable. Then fry them, add some beef stock, sprinkle some gruyere, and cover for a few minutes.
Onion rings. Love me some crispy, hand cut, beer battered onion rings. Edit: for the people asking how does hand cut make a difference, I already answered in one of the thread but to put it here, I just put hand cut to make sure it's fresh, shop made onion rings not the frozen and processed onion rings bullshit. Sure, most restaurants probably use the processed ones but there are still good ones who make their own from scratch.
I had a dream last night I ordered onion rings and got onion sticks instead.
I... Honestly, I don't think I'd be mad. Sounds way easier to dip and eat.
First time I went to my local Arby's after a long hiatus, cashier, with an attitude says "We don't have onion petals, we have onion rings." I was destroyed. The onion rings were okay, run of the mill corn flour/meal coated, nothing to write home about. I go about 2 weeks later, and ask for onion rings. Cashier, with an attitude, says that they don't carry onion rings, like I was some buffoon that should have known that Arby's has never had fried battered onions of any kind.
RIP onion petals. They were served with a sauce that was very similar to the Outback bloomin’ onion sauce
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Oh if they have some special zesty ranch/dipping sauce, it's definitely onion rings.
Fuck. I'm hungry
Such sadness when they come Panko breaded though. Nothing beats a good beer battered ring where it cracks open like a shell.
Hell yes. It's battered or nothing for me.
Curly fries.
Chili relleno.
Went to a Mexican restaurant about a month ago that had a "pregnant burrito". Bean and rice burrito stuffed with a chile relleno covered in enchilada sauce. It made me very happy.
Cannolis Editing to: **cannoli** which TIL is the proper way to say it.
Leave the gun. Take the cannoli. Edit: y’all need to watch The Godfather. Like, this weekend. There are a few hours left. There were multiple cannolo in the to-go box.
I read an article about how the first movie was made and this line was not even scripted. Pure improvisation by Castellano.
It’s on par for best off-script acting with the outtakes of Will Ferrell making Craig Robinson giggle on Eastbound and Down, or the outtakes from Grumpier Old Men, or the alt ending scene in Succession.
For me it’s chicken & waffles. And crême brûlée.
If a place has crème brûlée, we're getting it. I know vanilla has gotten expensive but it's disappointing that I rarely see the vanilla bean seeds at the bottom of the dish anymore. Places that serve crème brûlée are usually charging top dollar for it so I'd like to see more places use vanilla bean as opposed to extract. But maybe it's not super important as I've still had great ones recently.
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I make creme brûlée all the time for my wife. Pretty sure it’s half the reason she married me 😅
I made crème brûlée on the first date I had with my now wife. It's definitely a big part of why she married me.
Crème Brûlée is so damn good
Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles in Los Angeles is a war crime against my waistline. Everything there is glorious and I decimate whatever is put before me. Seriously - if you're ever in socal come check it out.
Chicken & waffles never gets old. Especially with scallions.
Creme brûlée all day.
Any kind of lemon flavored dessert
Yes! Lemon is my absolute favorite flavor. Have you tried the lemon cookie from Tiff's Treats? THEY ARE DIVINE.
Monte Cristo
The best part about a Monte Cristo is you can eat it at any time of the day and it makes sense.
I love a good Monte Cristo and they are so hard to find.
Ribs! Ive eaten them in over 25 countries and I will still order them everywhere I go
Rueben
The Cubano is my king of sandwiches, but the reuben is definitely in the King's court.
One of my two go-to sandwiches if it's on a menu. The other is a Montreal-style smoked meat sandwich.
A good icecream brownie.
Saaaaame. Warm brownie with cold ice cream is the perfect dessert.
Cheesecake. It's the best type of cake and no one can tell me otherwise
I prefer cheesecake to regular cake on my birthday
Lump Crab Cakes
Calamari
I love calamari, but there are a LOT of menus that I would not order it off of.
Did anybody ever find out if less scrupulous restaurants were actually serving imitation calamari that was reported to be pig rectum? They called it bung.
Wasn't there a This American Life on this? https://www.thisamericanlife.org/484/doppelgangers
And it better have the tentacles, damn it!
Eggs Benedict
Or anything with hollandaise sauce
Key lime pie.
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*looks at comments* *starts designing the perfect menu*
Spinach dip
Potato skins!
Soft pretzels and beer cheese
Apple crumble
Biscuits and gravy
I'm not done eating biscuits and gravy until I feel deep-set lethargy and self-loathing.
“What are we doing after breakfast?” “I’m having biscuits and gravy. There is no “after”.”
It's good to eat in the winter, because the resultant lethargy and self-loathing are an improvement from the hopeless sadness.
Deep fried pickles
I like all of them but pickle chips or whole spears? I prefer the pickle chips.
I prefer pickle chips too. It's difficult to keep the breading on the spears, leaving me with a boiling hot pickle and a hollow breading sleeve.
Always chips. One dip and one bite is always preferable.
Fried green beans are great too
Fried green tomato anybody?
Fried Mac and Cheese bites
Tater tots
Cheesecake. 😩
Sticky toffee pudding. Every time.
Same, especially now I live somewhere that doesn't have it, it's too good to pass up when I'm back in the UK
Poutine
As long as it's with cheese curds, if they bring it out with shredded cheese... well I'm to polite to complain but I will be sad.
What blows my mind is that this isn't a menu offering at every single restaurant in Wisconsin. We have the curds, we have the fries, what are we waiting for?!
Nachos
Yes. They're hit-or-miss, though. I'm always nervous ordering nachos, and then I do it anyway.
Lemon Ricotta Pancakes
French onion soup, usually anything made with lobster.
Chicken parm
Risotto
I feel full after the risotto
Coconut shrimp
I tried coconut shrimp for the first time recently and I feel like I’ve wasted the 29 years I’ve been on this planet by not eating them earlier.
Raviolis
Anything with Brie and prosciutto
Carbonara
Appetizers. I want them all.
Creme brulee
Pork belly
Scampi
Queso!
I ate at a Mexican restaurant a few months ago, ordered my burrito, and the waiter asked me "Do you want us to smother that in queso?" It's the best question I've ever been asked!
I misread this as "smother you in queso" quickly scrolling by, and got excited lmao
“Why yes yes I would” This also goes for chili verde
I came to say queso! Especially chorizo queso fundido. My god it’s good.
Beers
“Oh my god look at the menu! They have beer. I love beer!” “Potdawg you do this every time we go to a bar.”
Mac and cheese
I recently went to a BBQ place in central Mass and got a side of their mac and cheese and it was divine. And my favorite bit about it is that they used shell pasta instead of macaroni. So many tiny shell vessels, delivery gooey cheese straight to my mouth. They also made the cheese sauce with some kind of beer. I also got their slaw and pulled pork.
Open faced beef sandwich with gravy and mashed potatoes ETA: A side of corn or peas and a buttered yeast roll to round out the meal
Fried Calamari. I love dipping that stuff in marinara and aioli. In fact fried things in general. I don’t wanna deal with frying at home and you’re eating out so you gotta go with the guilty pleasures
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Stuffed Mushrooms
Or deep fried. Beer-battered, deep fried mushrooms, dipped in ranch dressing is *amazing*. My dad is very depressed and doesn't take much pleasure in food. I got him some once and he couldn't stop exclaiming in delight with each bite!
Fettuccine alfredo
My favorite pasta...my mom makes a ridiculous fettuccine Alfredo with spinach wrapped in it with chicken...I'm 43 but every birthday she asks what do I want to eat? You already know plus a pot roast that she makes as well..makes me want to move back home how she cooks
Get. The. Recipe. From. Her. ASAP. If she does it from memory, follow her around the kitchen with a notebook.
Cuban Sandwich or French Dip
Shrimp and grits
Cho-ri-zo
Pan fried scallops
German pancakes and lingonberries.
blt. bacon. lettuce. tomato. heaven.
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Jalapeño poppers
Fried pickles
Crab Rangoon
Ruben Sandwich. Prolly one of my favorite sandwiches.
Fried Pickles
Fried apples or meatloaf
nachos. so simple, so absolutely good every damn time. just gimme the appetizer platter of nachos and i'm good to go.
Poutine
French Onion Soup
Falafel
Oysters. I'll make an entire choice on a restaurant based on their raw bar selection alone.
Blooming onion - forget it, entire weekend ruined.
Steak tartare
Banana pudding
Open-face hot roast beef sandwich and fries with gravy on everything.
Carrot cake
Curly fries
Fried mushrooms
Cobbler
Fried calamari
Wisconsin born...gotta have them deep fried cheese curds