Has TGI Friday's lost their mind?
 

I just saw a commercial advertising three new appetizers. Two of them are just weird.

FRIED mac & cheese and string bean fries??? WTF?

Are they trying to comepete with Pizza Hut and Taco Bell's weird food combos?

I saw the commercial for the first time yesterday and thought it was a joke. Apparently not, though, which mildly disturbs me.

You need more flair.

THANK YOU. The husband and I saw the commercial the other night. It looked really nasty.

I just saw the commercial 10 minutes ago (while DH was watching "The Man Show") and all I could say is:
That is SO WRONG!

They're just doing their part to contribute to the growing obesity problem of America. :rolleyes:

WHYOWHY do restaurants feel that everything tastes better when it's deep fried?!

Because it's true? Almost everything tastes good grilled also. But, I don't think grilled mac and cheese will turn out too well. :eek:

I admit that I like fried cauliflower. :) I tried it at a belly dance show a long time ago. I keep forgetting to make some at home.

My mom makes fried cauliflower all the time. It rocks. I really don't see why everything that can be cooked has to also be deep-fried. A restaurant in NYC has deep fried cheesecake on their dessert menu. They really had to have thought about it "hmm, what could we possibly do to cheesecake to make it any more fattening than it already is?" I got it! Deep fry it!"

I've actually seen fried mac and cheese before - there are a couple of places that sell them in little tater-tot style pockets. Pretty good, although you'd need to run 100 miles to burn the calories in just one of those things.

You just dip them in flour and throw them in a frying pan, right?

I don't know about fried cheesecake (don't really like the dessert in the first place), but I love fried ice cream! They only serve it at Casa Gallardo, in my area. How the hell do you fry ice cream? I don't know.

Grilled mac and cheese is actually pretty good. You just have to have a very thick consistency of cheese.

However, fried mac and cheese sounds disgusting.

This is not the worse thing I've ever heard of being deep fried. Each year at our state fair I'm scared to see what comes next. So far we have deep fried twinkies, oreos and pickles. :confused:

One of the few resturants that I can walk to sells fried cheesecake bites. But then again, everything in WV is fried.

One of two ways (or a combo):

A) It's not really fried, it's basically rolled in crunched-up cornflakes, but it really does taste fried

or

B) They keep the ice cream at WAAAY below normal temps (as in you could hammer nails with it) and fry it for about 1.9484 seconds.

Husband's family has worked in Mexican restaurants.

I've tried Deepfried Snickers. Talk about NASTY. I thought I was going to have a heart attack after the first bite. I threw the rest away.

Then dip it in ranch dressing.

Honey, how can you sit there with your Southern heritage and ask this???? lol Besides, things DO taste better when they're deep fried!

Anthem, a pretty solid/respected restaurant in Boston, serves fried twinkies as well. I heard they're pretty good.

I've also had fried mac and cheese - not bad.

Speaking of Fridays, I also read that they're changing their look because our generation can't relate to the 1920's stuff. Supposedly they're doing a retro type thing with 60's, 70's, and 80's designs. Should be interesting.

My Hubby and I made fried Mac and Cheese last week. Its actually really good if you do it yourself, and not as bad for you. Alton Brown did it in one of his cheese episodes.

My mom dips it in egg and bread crumbs.

fried pickles are good

I've seen the commercials. It just sounds so gross.

i haven't seen the commercials so i'm mildly intrigued... maybe tasting this stuff will be my weekend adventure.

There was just some article about how someone won a Food prize in Texas for get this.....


Fried Coke.

Wow. That tops it all.

Yeah, it was (if I recall correctly) Coke syrup mixed with batter.. deep fried, drizzled with more coke syrup and whipped cream or something like that.

ON a stick of course.

ETA: http://xo.typepad.com/blog/2006/09/deepfried_cocac.html

And it won a prize...

Have you ever TASTED soda syrup? It's disgusting. It's like cough syrup, but sweeter and thicker. I had the pleasure on accident when the Pepsi guy forgot to set the machine at the restaurant I was working at to add the seltzer.

I tasted it once when basically the same thing happened to me. Only it was in a bar and it was Coke syrup mixed with rum. Lovely. Although the bartender was very apologetic and I ended up drinking free for the rest of the night, which was very good.

I've had fried mac & cheese bites at a quasi-upscale restaurant and they were GOOD as hell. That said, I really don't need to be eating that crap and Fridays is nasty (although to be fair, I really don't do chain restaurants).

Agreed. DH's family has, uh, how shall I say this...bland tastes. We can be in the most exciting city with a million food choices and we'll end up at Chili's or Applebee's and then I want to shoot myself. However, both of these chains have bars, so it could be worse...Can you imagine an Applebee's WITHOUT liquor to wash down the generic? :::shudders:::

just saw the fried coke(as in cocacola) demonstrated on the today show. still wondering about it?? :eek:

I've never heard of fried mac and cheese. I can't picture it at all (granted, I haven't seen the commercials).

I have had a fried peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It was actually quite tasty.

So, train them... or at least train your DH. It can be done. When I met my DH, he took his steak medium well and wouldn't touch spicy food. Why? His mother takes her steak medium well and won't touch spicy food, and when he was growing up, she made him eat the way she ate. She likes to say, "If it has any flavor, spit it out, it's bad for you." :rolleyes: Within a few years, I'd trained DH to eat medium rare steak and Indian curries hot enough to take paint off your car (the way I like 'em).

Anyway, back on topic: I am sure that the string bean fries, at least, will quietly disappear off the menu when no one orders them. Barf. At least they're not serving spaghetti on toast (a British dietary staple).

i am a huge mac and cheese fan so i actually went to fridays for lunch today to give them a try. they aren't bad at all!! they're basically fried bites with mac and cheese in the middle. and the string bean fries are pretty good too - my coworkers actually liked them a lot.

I NEVER UNDERSTOOD THIS. I'm meeting my family this coming up weekend in Atlanta, and my sister has already given us her "list" of places to eat--PF Changs and the Cheesecake Factory. :rolleyes: WTF? I can eat that stuff anywhere! Granted, they live in one of the worst cities on the planet, so maybe it's exciting.

I think it is just the next step in a progressive move to make food that the average person finds "tasty"- addictive in a sense. And it will only get worse.

A few years ago I made a major shift in my eating habits and for a few months I ate only fresh fruits and vegetables, plus some meats that I had prepared from scratch. No butter, no fried food, no salt etc.

Since then, if I eat a burger at McDonald's, I am overwhelmed by the taste of grease and salt- something I had never noticed before.

People eating these kinds of diets get desensitized to the taste- but get a real high off the fats and sugars. But eventually you get used to it, and things have to go a step further.

Hence fried mac and cheese.

But the ultimate evil is lazy people who will let someone else cook their food for them for a profit. Any time in life you let someone else do something for you with profit as a motive, you are insane to think that your best interests will be their first priority.

I still eat burgers and things like that- but what I do not do is eat at places like TGI Fridays. I just can't do it anymore. I literally get ill.

On the other hand, I have relatives with small children who eat nothing but fast food and refuse anything else. It is surreal to sit down to an amazing homemade 12 hours-in-the-making Thanksgiving dinner made by my mother (who is an incredible cook), and then watch a relative sneak out to get Taco Bell for her children who won't touch it. One of these children at age 12 weighed more than I did in college.

Eating patterns, healthy or otherwise, are addictive in many subtle ways.

I can ask that because I know that I may as well just tape the darn things to my waist, rather than eat them! Have you ever tried deep fried Reuben bites? Or hot dogs? Yummy! (unfortunately!)

Also, my ex - who has THE most limited palate in the world! - eats little but fried fish, french fries, and potato chips. I once asked his mother if he ate any vegetables, and with a completely straight face, she huffily said, "He eats french fries!" :rolleyes:

Um...I think you mean beans on toast. Which is really good. English baked beans on hot, buttered toast is a great cheapo filling meal. Sort of the equivalent of ramen for college students over here.

Honestly...I want to try the fried mac and cheese. I am a junk food junkie and it looks good to me. If I try it anytime soon, I'll report back and let ya'll know.

They're both British dietary staples.

http://www.scottishsport.co.uk/runni....htm#breakfast
http://www.recipezaar.com/180946
http://www.mrsbridgespantry.com/tearoom.htm (scroll down to British Favorites)

But I hate beans :p