LaClair: Not dead yet! The quest for the holy grail of baked potatoes

Remember the humble baked potato? This fluffy, soft, simple tuber used to be offered at every sit-down restaurant as one of the few sides options: “Would you like fries or a baked potato?” Where has the baked potato gone, and why? I believe that the (not actually that dramatic) demise of the baked potato lies in the fact that restaurants are offering lower carbohydrate options to their customers, because, let’s be honest, fries and baked potatoes are both carbs from the same vegetable. It really wasn’t much of an option, and now I fear that the humble baked potato may be seen as old-fashioned.

Be that as it may, I still enjoy a good baked potato very occasionally, and when I am craving one, I have my go-tos that I visit time and time again. Are these baked potatoes the ultimate baked potato? You can try my favorites and decide for yourself.

My first criterion for a good ol’ baked potato was the toppings. I wasn’t really looking for anything with wild toppings. I wanted the baked potato to be the focus. So no crazy toppings — no barbecue or chili or kettle beef, although those all sound delicious to me as well. Also, absolutely, positively, no baked potatoes cooked in aluminum foil. Please, for the love of all you hold dear, do not wrap your poor potato in foil to cook it. This will create a wet, slimy skin that is flavorless, limp and sad. Please do wash the potato, dry it, rub some sort of fat on it, such as olive oil. Please do flavor the oiled skin with salt, the bigger the crystals the better. Then just throw that potato in the oven and let the heat turn that potato into magic. The skin will be full of flavor, ever so slightly crispy, and actually worth eating.

The first ultimate potato I want to tell you about is truly a side dish potato. When I quizzed my friends on where they had had their favorite baked potato, this one came up, and it was already on my short list. Covered in butter, sour cream, bacon, cheese and green onions, Outback Steakhouse’s loaded baked potato is the perfect classic potato. Large crystals of salt cling to the outside of the perfectly crisped skin, adding just the right seasoning to the inside of the potato. No extra salt is needed, but feel free to add pepper if you enjoy that. I like the amount of toppings as well. They do not overwhelm the potato, but neither do they leave too many bites of only potato. Outback also serves their potatoes with consistency. I’ve never had a bad potato here, and it is always exactly what I love and want.

My second ultimate baked potato just skirts the edge of crazy toppings, but doesn’t quite cross over for me. The Spud Max from McAlister’s Deli is not a side dish, it’s the whole enormous meal. I find myself craving one of these about once a month, and I just give in and go get one. Nothing else in town is quite like it. The potatoes from McAlister’s are all actually two large potatoes, each with their ends cut off to make straight edges, then jammed together so that it looks like one huge potato longer than your utensils. The presentation is impressive. The potato is not baked with foil, thank goodness, so the skin is crispy and thickened, is loaded with butter, sour cream, deli ham and turkey, bacon, cheddar-jack cheese, black olives and green onions. My mouth is watering just typing this out. Unlike Outback, I do like to add just a little salt to this ginormous fluffy monstrosity, along with a healthy powdering of pepper, but I enjoy pepper. Then I push the pats of butter down into the potato, where they melt quickly and add the sour cream on top. I would recommend asking for extra sour cream, though. There is a lot of potato here, and one just doesn't cut it. This is filling, satisfying comfort food, that warms me clean through to my bones.

Other potatoes that came up in conversation as being delicious were the Loaded Bar-B-Q Baked Potato from Bandanas, topped with pork, brisket and cheese, and the good ol’ Wendy’s baked potato, especially the one with chili and cheese. I love potatoes. Long live the baked potato!

Rebecca LaClair travels to a new place every week to try food from a trendy restaurant or one she hasn’t been to yet.