People Love To Hate Steak Fries

There are an array of different cuts of French fries from the waffle fries popularized by Chick-fil-A to the classic crinkle-cut fries you might find at a diner or old-fashioned burger shack. Each person has their favorite style, but no other type of fry seems to polarize the fried potato-eating masses like steak fries. You may recognize them as the wider, thicker-cut fries similar in a lot of ways to what is served as chips in Britain. 

People love to hate this kind of fries — so much so that if you enjoy steak fries, many consider it an unpopular opinion. A Redditor posting to the appropriately named subreddit r/unpopular opinion shared a statement declaring, "Steak fries are better than regular fries." His assertion met with vehement disagreement from commenters who criticized their bulky size and tendency to be either over or undercooked in restaurants. For instance, one Redditor wrote, "Steak fries are disgusting. The consistency and volume of a baked potato without the texture or taste of a baked potato."

But it's not just people on Reddit who hate steak fries. Some food critics are also not fans. For instance, one food critic at Eater even dubbed them the "world's worst type of fries."

Eater isn't the only food critic to hold a negative opinion of steak fries. As with commenters on Reddit, several critics of steak fries take issues with the fries' heftiness, which often leads to undercooking or general mushiness. An editor at Food Republic called steak fries "elitist" for being paired with steak. They said, "What other fry in this world is automatically and arbitrarily paired with a food, let alone a holy one like STEAK?" 

Of course not everyone out there is anti-steak fry. There are some influential figures in the culinary world who champion the cause of steak fries. For instance, check out what celebrity chef Andrew Zimmern really thinks of steak fries. Spoiler alert, he thinks they're "superb." In a rebuttal to the Eater, he told First We Feast, "They allow for greater contact time with the heat and cooking elements, so you get more texture and greater contrast between soft, pillowy interior and crusty, crunchity exterior."

Moreover, it has also been pointed out that generally people who espouse hatred of steak fries complain about them being undercooked, something that is easily correctable if cooks and chefs prepare them properly (via The Takeout). Choose your own fry adventure. Just don't forget the ketchup. Or mayonnaise, perhaps? Now that's a subject for a whole other love-to-hate debate.