Dissing the Chimes is something I do way too often. In truth we love the Chimes. It’s set on The Bogue Falaya River in Covington with cute little goats who are there supposedly to keep the grass cut. They seem overwhelmed by the wildness before them, and would prefer treats of people food offered by guests.
The people food is way better than I give it credit for. This isn’t about a particular meal at The Chimes, though there have been many. The regular meals there for the Fitzmorris clan include a fried catfish plate for Tom with a salad with the best Italian vinaigrette out there to us right now, and a club salad with blackened chicken. Both are very good.
But this is about an appetizer that I will sometimes get as a meal, when I am eating. It is enough for Tom and me to have as an entree.
Forget cheese fries as you know them. Here are cheese fries in a crawfish cream sauce with soft Trinity vegetables, with fried crawfish tails scattered about. I posted a picture of these on IG when we last had them, and someone commented that cheese sauce makes fries soggy. I acknowledge this to be true, but I don’t care. First, they don’t last long enough to get too soggy. And the flavor of the cheese sauce with the crawfish is so good that the “soggy” fries are just an essential vessel to support the mess. The crispy crawfish tails are plentiful, cranking the whole mess up a few notches. And Chimes has always had some of the best regular frozen fries out there. They keep chamging them, but all versions are a cut above.
Until I had lunch a few years ago with Allie Cousins from Cousin’s Salad dressings, my cheese fries world was limited to the usual debris and cheese version, or sometimes chili. She mentioned this new kind of cheese fries that she had just recently had there. I never viewed cheese fries the same again. Keep your chili cheese fries, and roast beef debris gravy fries. This gigantic pile of fried cheesy crawfish bliss is the one for me. No dipping sauce needed.
