Suggestions include Original Patty Men, which serves a burger fried inside a Krispy Kreme doughnut; the terrifying-sounding Coffin Works museum; or Birmingham's Walk Of Stars.
At the two-year-old Baykery Cafe in Oyster Bay, all-day breakfast offerings include freshly squeezed orange juice ($3.50 for 10 ounces), pancakes ($6) and "Moonstruck Eggs," two eggs fried inside grilled Italian bread and topped with roasted red peppers ($6.50).
I'm fried inside myself tonight.
The miso soup was richly savory, and the Cha-Ya roll ($6.75), a lightly fried inside-out roll of asparagus and carrot drizzled in thick, sweet sauce, was deeply satisfying.
Not at all Dominican but right on the mark were fried mozzarella sticks, gooey inside and crisp outside, and a standout shrimp cocktail ($7.95) that contained six firm jumbos.
One of the simplest rolls, combining scallion and silky toro, or fatty tuna, is the best introduction to a list that includes shrimp coated in a crackling skin of tiny puffed rice and daubed with green curry ginger mayonnaise, and a tempura oyster, so lightly fried it still quivers inside, with a bright soy-ginger mignonette.
We might assume that if our fast food nation can get anything right, it's fries but any thick cut, waffle, or curly variety from the USA can't hold a greasy candle to a crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, twice fried pile of Belgian pommes frites.
The seal is created when the crust is fried in the oil at high temperature; the meat inside is not fried at all, but it is steaming in its own trapped moisture.
Warm Camembert crisp ($7) is souped-up bar food -- a wedge of cheese fried until crisp outside and wonderfully gooey inside.
Unlike Italian meatballs, which are often mushy, the kind the Laurel serves, which are fried, are light on the inside and moist and crunchy on the outside.
They taste like the peppery batter they've been fried in, but the origin of their alias is apparent from the slippery texture inside.
