Every editorial lunch meeting that takes place at the Clinton Presidential Center’s 42 Bar and Table begins with an order of sweet potato fries with wasabi aioli on the side if Arkansas Times editor Austin Gelder is in attendance.
I was pleasantly reminded of this practice when she ordered the side for the table as an appetizer during last Friday’s outing. We were seated on the patio, of course, overlooking the Arkansas River and considering the possibility of new riverfront dining opportunities, one of the goals the new downtown master plan aims to accomplish. This is would make sense because presently, outside of Brave New Restaurant, 42 Bar and Table and the memories of Cajun’s Wharf, Little Rock doesn’t have many restaurants overlooking the river.
The picturesque bouquet of sizable hand-cut sweet potato fries with sides of bright green wasabi aioli was a total show-off appetizer move by Gelder, who regularly attends trendy dinner parties around town and knows which desserts and #girldinner shareables are of the moment. The fries were salted perfectly and had a nice dusting of black pepper. They were enjoyably crisp on the outside and soft and piping hot on the inside. Maybe the best I’ve had in town. They were good on their own, but we recommend you partake of the spicy wasabi aioli. (The fries usually come with one ramekin of spicy strawberry jam and one of wasabi, but you want to hold the jam and double up on the wasabi instead.)
My first sweet potato fries memory might be made up from my childhood dreams, but if not, it was a glorious sunny Saturday morning in the mid-1980s at Burger King, and my wide-eyed probably 5-year-old mind was blown that french fries — already one of the best things on earth — could be orange on the inside. Imagine all the possibilities life would have to offer. Thank you, Burger King.
I didn’t feel that optimism Friday on my lunch break, but the fries were f’n good. Who makes your favorite sweet potato fries in town?