Don & Millie's

14321 Harrison Street, Omaha, NE - (402) 991-9112

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Posted By Bruce Bilmes and Susan Boyle on 3/28/2008 10:56:00 PM

The cheese frenchee (on some menus, frenchie) might be the quintessential bar food: a salty, fatty, gooey, thirst-inducing snack. Invented at a now-defunct regional chain named King's Food Host, it shows up on the fast-food menus of a few eastern Nebraska restaurants, including Don & Millie's, a mini-chain with about half a dozen locations between Omaha and Lincoln.

Don & Millie's captures, for us at least, a certain Midwestern otherworldliness. It looks like many other fast-food outlets, bright and accessible and chirpy. They serve well-regarded burgers, messy and good foot-long chili cheese dogs, onion rings and french fries glistening with oil. And they also specialize in 99-cent long-necks and margaritas! The margaritas you can watch bubbling away at the order counter, in those old-fashioned fountain-style drink coolers you'd see at the lunch counter of Woolworth's.

The cheese frenchee? This is like a grilled cheese sandwich, sort of, except instead of getting the grill treatment, it gets a spread of mayo, it's cut into triangles, dipped in batter, rolled in cornflake crumbs, and deep fried! Does it taste good? Well, it does in the same way that Deep South fried dill pickles dipped in creamy dressing taste good. You know it's about as naughty a food as humankind can create, and yet it provides a regional culinary thrill for the adventurous of palate and iron of gut. You'll be grateful for the beers and margaritas.

We haven't tried the frenchees at other Nebraska restaurants, so we can't say that this is the "best" version of the "dish"; but it probably doesn't matter. At least once, we'd recommend hitting Don & Millie's some afternoon for cheese frenchees and 99-cent margaritas. How can you not love Nebraska?

Scorecard

Overall: Excellent - Worth a Detour

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"Cheese frenchees are a favorite Eastern Nebraska snack."
Bruce Bilmes and Susan Boyle

"A frenchee is a kind of deep-fried cheese sandwich."
Bruce Bilmes and Susan Boyle

"We enjoyed this chili cheese dog, but we don't recommend eating chili dogs and frenchees at the same meal."
Bruce Bilmes and Susan Boyle

"The beers and margaritas are 99 cents. Yet Don & Millie's is more like a McDonald's than a dark pub."
Bruce Bilmes and Susan Boyle

"There are a few Don & Millie's restaurants in Omaha, and another in Lincoln, and one in Fremont."
Bruce Bilmes and Susan Boyle