Arby's Onion Rings

 I'm not sure why, but onion rings aren't the first thing on my mind when I think of Arbys. . . but they should be high on the list, because they are REALLY good.  They are a sturdy, middle of the road sort of onion ring.  They have a sort of combination of batter/ crumb coating that is definitely meant for freezing and quickly frying.  They aren't as sweet as say, Sonic's onion rings, but they lack some of the funky bitterness that other rings have, too.  I would say, make it a priority alongside your roast beef sandwich next time!

Surprise! Onion Rings at Paula Deen's Family Kitchen

Onion rings have been sighted at Paula Deen's Family Kitchen on the meatloaf.  On the menu they are referred to as "tobacco onions."  Tobacco onions are a very rare name for these thin crispy onion rings these days.  They got their name by looking like tobacco.  I don't think Paula Deen's were genuine tobacco onions- they were too thick.  But they were very good for onion rings! This is how to make me love meat loaf! 

 When they asked if we wanted anything else we said we wanted to order more onion rings.... but apparently they thought we were joking and never brought us any. 

Paul Deen's restaurant has amazing, rich southern food.  A single biscuit alone will stuff you.  I loved the chicken and dumplings. Yum!

Onion Rings at the Big Texan, Amarillo, TX

Is the Big Texan Steak Ranch a tourist trap?  Can a person without the stomach of a superhero eat 72 oz of steak, a baked potato, salad, and some shrimp in one setting?  I'm really not sure about either of those things.  

I am 100% certain, however, that even if you have to drive somewhat out of your way and barely get to the Big Texan right before closing time, the onion rings alone are completely worth it.

They are at the very summit of my onion rings favorites list.  They might actually BE my favorite onion rings of their kind in the whole United States. 

They even serve a bonus one with the smoked baby back ribs appetizer!  I love bonus onion rings!

  

They taste like they are fried in Colonel Sanders fried chicken secret recipe.  They KFC type coating is super addictive.  This means they have tons of flavor and are very flaky.  The flakes fall all over the place when you bite into them.  Then, because the coating is so good you have to scoop it up into a pile and eat it anyway!  These rings come with plenty of ranch and BBQ sauce if you ask.  If you still want to try more fried food, they are also one of the few places in the world where you can order Rocky Mountain Oysters (Calf Fries- if you don't know what this is then go ahead and google it since I don't really want to explain this part of the cow on my onion ring blog).

Onion Rings at Bryce Canyon

The onion rings I found at Bryce Canyon, UT are only slightly farther from the actual canyon than the Grand Canyon's onion rings are from the Grand Canyon.  They can be found at Ruby's Canyon Diner, a little restaurant near Ruby's Inn.

 These o-rings are of the more rare breadcrumb-coated variety!  This type of onion ring has a super thick coating. So thick, in fact, that by the time the breading is cooked on the outside, the onions inside are so incredibly tough that you can't chew through them.  Not a single person in our family could chomp through them.  So, behold the innards!

They were fully flavored yellow onions, too, so no sweetness there.  The breading was amazing on it's own, though.  Unfortunately, we didn't have any dipping sauces for it, so we weren't exactly fighting over the last onion rings.

One cool thing about Ruby's diner was seeing the real cowboys eating there as they came over for lunch from across the street where they worked at Ruby's Horseback Adventures.  

As we walked around the rim of the canyon, we would see some very nice horse trails that took riders to the gorgeous canyon.  

Onion Rings at the Grand Canyon!

The bustling south rim of the Grand Canyon is vastly different from the peaceful north rim.  Tour busses take visitors from lookout point to lookout point and figuring out where to eat or picnic is kind of confusing, even if you have been there before.  But, don't worry!  There are onion rings to be found at Maswick cafeteria.  

Maswick lodge is one of the shuttle stops and if you walk right in you will find what some refer to as the cafeteria or food court.  The food court has several stations where you can get a variety of foods.  The grill on the left is where you can grab things like relatively inexpensive bacon grilled cheese sandwiches and vastly more pricey sides of onion rings.  The onion rings are beer-batter type, very crispy, well prepared and crispy.  The onions were relatively sweet, and although they cost more than four dollars for a side, it was money well spent for such a remote location.

 The only problem was that when you tried to eat just one, they all stuck together!  Haha!  Here you can see a lovely picture of the grand canyon in the background of my stuck-together rings.

Note that there is no actual view of the canyon from this lodge, but it has tons of seating for large groups and families so it takes away some of the crowded rush and wait times of some of the smaller, fancier restaurants,  Plus, it is a highly convenient bus stop!

As a bonus, you can find the much coveted Navajo taco (also known as Indian fry bread) at the Maswick food court as well.  Because, as you know, fried food begets fried food.  The great thing about this dish at the Grand Canyon is they let you choose more than one meat if you want (ground beef taco or shredded chicken) and put on custom toppings like unto a Subway restaurant. It is enough to feed two people, for sure!

I would highly recommend the Maswick food court at the Grand Canyon as a stress-free alternative to packing a picnic.

If you do want an awesome picnic spot, I would suggest a more remote place that you must drive your car to-- the Desert View Watch tower, which is about a half hour east of the main Grand Canyon sites.  Right now the road is under construction so delays can be a pain but there are lots of tables with an actual distant view of the canyon and the view of river from the watchtower in the shallower canyon is really fun.

De Wese's Tip Top Cafe's Onion Rings

I love really old restaurants that have survived through the decades!  Tip Top Cafe in San Antonio is one of them. 

It's as authentic as an old time diner can come.  Everyone is super friendly as soon as you walk in the door.  You can sit anywhere and service is pretty quick!  The menu boasts that they have "award winning onion rings." So, how do those onion rings measure up to the hype created by Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives?

 As soon as the server came to take our order, she asked, "Would you like to start with some onion rings?" 
     "Yes, actually. . . yes, we would!"  In fact, pretty much every table we saw had their own stack of these gorgeous babies sitting there smiling at us.

 It looks like an awful lot of huge onion rings, doesn't it?  But my family loved them so much they were gone before our server could even bring out all of our sauces.  We just ate them all with the jalapeno ranch. We never really end up fighting over onion rings, but we kind of did over these. 

The breading is flaky and tender- but with a perfect crispness to hold up against those giant sweet onions.  To me there was just a hint of fishyness to them, though.  This would have maybe come from the oil being shared with fried fish at the restaurant or other meats.  Most people would not notice this, or maybe consider it as enhancing the fried flavor, but I tend to be a bit more of a super taster so it bothered me.  

Overall they are superb specimens of the onion ring world.  It is difficult to nail perfectly cooking these type to this golden hue.

The above child ate way more than his share.  The child below was obsessed with the technology of the at-table jukeboxes which fed into a larger music machine in the room.  Someone must have selected a TON of songs before we chose ours so we actually never got to hear the song that we paid our 50 cents for!

If you really can't get enough of the batter that the onion rings are in, they also use it on the delicious chicken fried chicken that they serve on Saturdays and their every day gigantic chicken fried steak. 

Maybe they also use it on their fried fish. . . 

Willie's Ice House Onion Rings

Willie's Ice House Onion Rings

A Family Outing

or...

not?

 Willie's Ice House strikes me as a really strange, chaotic, nonsensical, uncomfortable place.  After you walk in, you stand in a line surrounded by tubs of ice with beer bottles in them.  The idea might be that you could choose a beer, open it, and begin consuming it while in line.  I must mention that you can't see any sort of menu from this place in the line, but then suddenly you turn the corner to see a giant menu on the wall.  You are then required to somehow quickly decide and place your order, except you aren't really placing your order, you are just deciding what you want and a person writes it down for you.  Then, this writing person hands you the paper with your order on it and you're supposed to get your own drinks and wander around and find a seat.  After you find a seat, EVENTUALLY, a server notices you and comes to pick up the piece of paper.   He or she then verifies your order and takes it off to the kitchen.  Um. . . okay.  This would all work flawlessly if you were someone who drinks alcohol and you were getting buzzed while going through the line so you didn't care how long it took you to get food.  But we don't drink.  No, we don't.

Significantly, they have a giant sandbox for kids to play in during this process.  Of course, my kids wanted to play in this sandbox.  Of course, I was rather hesitant to let my kids play in the sandbox because we were, well, just about to eat.  But I relented and had to take them to wash hands right after the food got there.  So now my kids also have no shoes on.  Great. Fun.

But on to the onion rings! The picture below is the large.  It is like a small cookie sheet-sized tray.  It was probably between a pound and a half or two of onion rings.  With a small side of ranch. The type of real buttermilk perfectly runny ranch. Yeah. . . I could already see that was going to need topping off.  But will we ever see our server again?  Doubtful.

 The onion rings themselves are large.  Not quite as big as my 7 year-old's face.  But he is a really, really smart kid and has a large head.

 As everyone in the family ate them, the first comment was "Wow, these are really HARD!"
This was good, though, because if any that play sand mixed in with them, we wouldn't have noticed.  The batter was almost rock hard.  One could use extra, extra crunchy as an adjective also, but it was a little beyond that.  The onions inside were thick and meaty.  They were by no means spicy, salty, or flavorful but there was a slight hint of some sort of red pepper seasoning in there somewhere. It was a hearty meal-like main-dish-type onion ring, if there could be such a thing.

The restaurant has other food, too.  Very greasy fried burgers, giant baked potatoes, huge piles of crawfish, and tons of fries with lots of old bay type seasoning generously used on them.  Most of the customers were just there to eat the crawfish, I think.  Even the parking lot had some crawfish shells in it... with ants tasting them. The kids were pretty amused.  The onion rings were documented.  We probably won't go there again.

I'm BACK! Let's eat onion rings at Down On Grayson, San Antonio!

Hi fellow lovers of onion rings!

After seven years of serious wheat allergies, my immune system has calmed.  I can eat onion rings again and live.  I might need to do some CPR on this blog.

To celebrate, here is a picture of me with some mighty tasty rings from a San Antonio Restaurant called Down on Grayson.  This place really has the fancy fried food down. They have other yummy fried things like brussel sprouts, too!  These rings are very thin and crispy flavored with plenty of ground black pepper.  I wasn't impressed with the dipping sauce.  But, possibly the best local onion rings in San Antonio. . . but let's keep exploring, shall we?