I am a huge proponent of eating local. Whether food is sourced locally, bought from local markets or from a local eatery. I truly love local food and we try to shop and eat from Lethbridge based shops and restaurants. We’re lucky, Lethbridge has tons of great local food, unfortunately for me, I have recently found one establishment that didn’t fit the bill,  Fries and Dolls. The truck came to Lethbridge in 2014, after a successful run in Calgary (they were even on Food Network Canada’s Eat St.) and they’ve become a fixture in the ever growing Lethbridge food truck scene. Prior to catching up with them, I’d had many friends and work colleagues tell me the food is great, but the food I tried was sub-par.

We ordered a few things off the menu, starting with poutine (gravy and cheese curds) and the Farrah, fries with garlic, parsley, and parmesan. The two dishes had a couple of things in common. First, the fries were warm, not hot, as you expect fries to be served (some other people had burnt fries, so I guess the warm fries are better than burnt). Second, both were very salty, the very salty gravy on the very salty fries lead to and afternoon full or trips to the water cooler for a refill. The Farrah had the distinct taste of burnt garlic, almost as if the entire cup of fries sat in the salamander a little too long. There is a fine line between crispy and burnt garlic, this crossed the line into burnt territory.

Next we had a couple of hot dogs. One with bacon and cheese, the other with chili and cheese. I didn’t realize the dogs were boiled, or I would have ordered something else. I like my dogs at least finished on the grill or flat top, gives them some texture.  Again, bacon and cheese were fine, grilled onions and some texture to the dog would have made a huge difference. Then there was the chili. Which left me a little confused. It was not the traditional chili that I was expecting, but rather it was more like a warm tomato compote with onions and green bell peppers. Slightly sweet, but not a lot of flavor. Again, not what I was expecting and it didn’t compliment the dog.

I have to be fair, there were some things I did like. I think the prices are fair, the fries portion sizes are good,  and nice folks running the joint. I also like  the way the food is presented, the box with the fries and the dog. I just can’t justify spending money on presentation alone, so I’ll give these guys a while to work out the kinks before checking them out again.