Step aside 'girl dinner': Caesar salad and french fries are the cold, hot combo on everyone's mind
If you've heard women boasting the phrase "girl dinner" in the last few weeks, you can thank TikTok, but there's another meal order getting popularized on social media -- salad and french fries.
The salty, savory cold and hot combination is nothing new, beloved by diners for years, but with buzz growing on social media, even some restaurants have taken notice.
Caesar salad in particular, with its salty, creamy, umami, Parmesan and garlic-laden dressing, is the "elite" choice that's garnered the most support on TikTok, especially for a "girl's night."
"Hot take: Caesar salad and fries is the best combo on earth," one user wrote about the highly relatable order over a video of her snacking on fries in front of a large salad bowl.
With over 454.9 million views on TikTok, the search for "Caesar salad and fries" yields videos of mostly women enjoying a large portion of the classic salad, crisp french fries and most commonly a Diet Coke or glass of white wine.
Mandisa Boxill, general manager of 54 Below -- an American supper club in New York City -- said her staff has actually noticed a shift in demand for salads and a side of fries.
"It's just a great meal, it's super satisfying," she said. "We have like two people helping out on that [salad] station to make sure that we can accommodate that demand for that salad. And then we have somebody on the hot line to accommodate all the demand for the french fries as well."
Whether it's a duo of girlfriends who split a dinner-sized salad and each order a side of fries or iterating on the meal at home by adding chicken and using the air fryer to crisp up a favorite style of spud, the meal is easy to tailor to one's liking.
However, just because the word salad is in there, it doesn't necessarily mean the dinner combo is the healthiest choice -- especially if dousing it in Caesar dressing and dunking fries in ketchup.
Kerri Glassman, a registered dietitian and founder of Nutritious Life, told "GMA" that the option is OK "every once in a while."
"If you choose to have a salad with french fries, and you're getting in some fiber and antioxidants from the salad, while also indulging in some french fries, that's not a horrible choice at all," she said.
