Talking things like the peirogi dumplings stuffed with potato and fried onion. Or throwing some potato chips on a ham and cheese sandwich. That always hits right after school or when you are high. There is a place in Pittsburgh, PA whose claim to fame is dropping fries inside your sandwich instead of on the side. I bet you can order them on the side but they give you a mean look and a record scratches in the background.
The zenith of double starch is Puerto Rican Chiness food. This cuisine is not much different than American-Chinese takeout style food save that it comes with fries. The standard plate is fried rice (never white), the entree protein (there are no veggie stir fry or tofu options. The greensare in the rice you see) and then fries. That plate is both life and the ender of worlds.
The entree protein is only thing that alternates. I felt the most popular was Peppsr Steak which I am sure is an actual elegant dish in its native origins but in PR was a soupy slosh of green peppers and straps of cheap cuts of beef. The other big one was "al ajillo" which means "cooked with garlic." So anything just swimming in a garlic sauce.
Note there was very little Chinese food delivery in PR so this was always a face to face experience. There are an estimated 450 Chinese restaurants in PR and i would guess 99% of them are the greasy pan cafeteria style heaven doling out fries with rice and orange chicken. These places also loved the word cream in them. I think one was also an ice cream place beacuse there was Star Cream and Star Cream II and my birthplace was known, among other midly interesting quirks, for having corn ice cream. At a place called Rex Cream. Served with cinammon dust I also think Rex Cream was always just an ice cream place but it somehow got the Cream moniker and it was confusing to me, at least.
I can't prove this story (can I any on the blog? Your trust matters most to me!) but in senior year of high school I broke put of my introverted shell and went on the semi organized senior beach weekend to Guanica, PR. I had no clue why save my mother insisted (so I could be just a bit more normal), another very introverted friend of mine was going (likely same reason as I) and there was a chance to see classmates in their swimsuits. Priyi and Marilyn were going and that was half of my HS hall of fame so for sure going!
Here is where we drove by an abdoned Chinese place named, no joke, Kum War. The driver screeched to a stop and we took pictures blessed by both fluent English and adolescent asshattery. Did they know what they were doing!? No way! Someone said they would mail it to Maxim magazine, a sort of cheesier Esquire (The RC Cola to its Coke) that had a "Found Porn" mailbag column. The kind of place to send pictures of typos in local Penny Saver that read "Local ass saves the day" Not sure if he ever did. This being 2002ish would involve actually printing picture and sending a letter and that seemed a lot even for us quite privileged (albeit we did not know it at time) high school kids.
There was a "better" Chinese food place my mother would order from called Kimpo Garden. That place delivered but it took hours (They move like an IV filled with road tar is what my mother would say. Sounds better in Spanish) and it did not have fries. But the lemon chicken came in whole deep fried breasts and actual slices of lemon so it felt elevated. If the place had a fish tank in the lobby then no way would it have fries. There was also Yum Yum Tree (apparently now closed) which was an Asian fusing thing that slung take out favorites and sushi. My mother and I loved sushi and would put away while bamboo boats of it. There she marveled at the front of house guy named Juan Chen who was "an Asian who can speak Spanish."
There is none around me but I will see the social media algorithm feed me stories of Puero Rican Chinese in the mainland states. You can recreat it at home. Get the local lunch special at the closets takeout place (Extra points if named something Cream) and then an order of fries from just about anywhere else save McDonald's because those fries are too thin and good for this. Burger King is food. Needs lots of heat and starch to let sauce entree do the work. No egg rolls needed.
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