4th Friday of Lent

I know this is a week late and I know I missed the 3rd week of Lent, but I'm back and posting before the 5th Friday of Lent's excursion to Comet Cafe...so let's tell the story of last week's Le Rêve Patisserie & Cafe's fish fry.

I think it is safe to say that if there is a "fancy" fish fry among the fish fry population it is definitely the fish fry served at Le Rêve. I don't know exactly how fanciness is measured, but in this case it was measured in the way the cafe served diet Coke (smallest glass bottle of diet Coke ever):
But let's get back to the fish fry...Le Rêve ended up with final score of 3.2 out of 5 - so we'd go back with friends, but 2-time tourist, Garrett, put it best when he said, "Sure, I'd come back here with friends...but I don't think I have any friends who'd come back."

In all honesty, it wasn't the atmosphere that brought Le Rêve's scores down (though our food did get served to another table "accidentally" and Anita directed towards a "group" that wasn't her "group" when she arrived). And the fish quality was the best we have had (score of 4.6) this tour even though we only had the choice of cod. The cole slaw (included in the other sides offered score) and rye bread made a good showing as well.
Le Rêve's downfall came in 2 areas - one was the vegetarian option - which just didn't perform - and the potato side. Honestly, I expected more from Le Rêve given the amazing fish fry - the hand-batter was simply "delish" (there's some fancy-slang for you) - but the potato side which was fries left me wanting more. They may have been hand-cut - but they could have easily been brought in from a local French fry store...which brings me to another point - wouldn't a French restaurant/cafe have good French fries??

Kidding.

The biggest controversy/most divisive scores of the evening came from the tartar sauce scores - that stretched the gamut from being awesome and worthy of a 5 to having too much garlic and receiving a score of 1.

I think we all left Le Rêve as a different group of people than the one that walked in marveling at the case of desserts, but I know the group will once again come together at Comet Cafe for the 5th Friday of Lent. Perhaps last week was just a dream.

2nd Friday of Lent

The day after St. Patrick's - the crew headed to Klinger's East - a Riverwest Tavern known for it's Green Bay Packers pride and fish fry. A special shout-out to the new-comers - Corrine and Amal for joining me on my quest to enjoy as much fish fry as possible.

After tallying all the scores - Klinger's East came to a 3.41 score by the end of the night. So on average - we'd go back for fish fry --- but only with friends. You can check the individual category scores here.

The meal started off strong with 2 large slices of marble rye that were pre-buttered. Now, one might be a little put-off by this at first, but in all honesty (and I think the majority of my company would agree) I have tried to butter many slices of bread that just break into pieces you would throw into a duck pond. So well done, Klinger's - we liked the buttered bread.



The fish fry itself was good - very large portions (Amal said "I had 2 fish!") and the in-house batter was good, but tended to fall off the fish as you work your way through with your fork. Good things were said about the grilled fish alternative.


Our first below "3" ratings of this year's tour came in the areas of tartar sauce (which was in a huge squeeze bottle on the table - so not completely appetizing), other sides offered (only a small container of what seemed like store-bought coleslaw), and atmosphere (our group was seated in a private room that was decorated with pictures of wine and jazz).


However, Klinger's definitely came through on the potato sides - our table only had the pancakes (served with a small side of apple sauces) and seasoned waffle fries. And considering that 5 of us ate (with a few beers) for under $50 - that's a decent fish fry night...but don't try to pay with 5 credit cards...

So thank you, Klinger's - while there are things to improve upon...you are truly neighborhood fish fry - I could smell it from my apartment.



Until next week - see you at Beer Belly's for our first "Saturday Fish Fry"! And have a blessed 2nd week of Lent!

1st Friday of Lent

I chose Stonefly Brewing Co. for the inaugural night of my tour for 2 reasons:

1. It's close to my apartment
2. I heard it had some great fish fry

So I sent out the invite and my first four companion tourists joined me to launch the 2011 Fish Fry Tour. To be honest, all I was wanting from this Lent was some good fish fry...but my companions pushed me to go for more - and so here is this blog...title credit goes to (if I remember correctly) a combination of Garrett and Sarah. Whether I'll have the same experience as Julia Roberts --- err, I mean Elizabeth Gilbert...well, that's for all of us to find out along this journey of fish fry, Lenten prayer and sacrifice, and love (we'll see about that last one!).

It was also decided to create a rubric to rank each fish fry that would be a part of this tour...the rubric has several categories rated on a scale of 1 to 5.

• 1 = "I'm never having this fish fry again"
• 3 = "I'd come back w/ friends"
• 5 = "I'd come here by myself to get this".

Stonefly Brewing Co. came strong with their fish fry - with a final score of 4.12. So we'd definitely come back with friends for the fish fry, but probably wouldn't go there by ourselves.

The highest score - was a unanimous vote of 5 around the table in the "other sides offered" category. To say that Stonefly 'brought it' when it comes to sides outside of the standard potato option is an understatement. First, you get a choice of 5 different potato options (which is not included in the particular category, but worth noting). Second, you also get a side of cole slaw, warm home-made apple sauce, and a pickle. Let's just say it was "side heaven".

Overall - the fish scores were positive - all at or above a "3" - and a special shout out goes to having two options (cod and smelt) that were both in-house battered and paired w/ a tasty tartar sauce. Also, Stonefly offers some great vegetarian options for folks who are vegetarian...Stonefly welcomes all to it's fish fry.




I've created a spreadsheet (surprise!) to record the average scores for each category to create an overall score for each fish fry...

But for those historians out there - here's a picture of the first ever fish fry tour score card:

A blessed 1st week of Lent to all - see you next week at Klinger's East!

A brief history...

It was the spring of 2009 - I was eating lunch in a Potbelly's and there happened to be a 'travel-the-Midwest' magazine on the table. The presence of this magazine sparked a conversation w/ my friend (and fellow-Midwesterner) because I was upset that Kansas (my home state) was not included in the magazine. At the time, I was living in Chicago and my friend was getting ready to move to Milwaukee...so I put aside my resentment towards this "faulty" Midwest travel guide and looked up Milwaukee.

I remember it talking about all the amazing breweries, summer festivals, museums, Broadway shows, etc in Milwaukee...but the thing that struck me the most was:

"known for fish fry"

What? How could I have not known that just a few miles away from was this country's fish fry Mecca? I knew that I would have to make a pilgrimage at some point, but little did I know I would be moving there in just over a year.

While Milwaukee provides fish fry at basically any location any Friday...for some reason in my 8 months of living here - I have really only been to one fish fry - Fish Fry 'n A Flick...which is an amazing combination. So, as the 2011 Lenten season approached - I figured...what the heck - I'm doing a fish fry tour and I'm doing it now.