

The tartar sauce? It's on the table in an oversized squeeze bottle. Lightly coated fries are another option, as are onion rings and cottage cheese. They're griddle- or pan-fried, with good onion flavor the applesauce has a whisper of cinnamon. Potato pancakes are made with coarse-grated potato in a classic, barely there batter of egg and flour, the closest to traditional I've seen this year. The fish fry in a light beer batter is pollack, which has that cod sweetness the perch on the menu is yellow perch. Stop in the lounge at Pat's Niche, where the building's original tin ceiling has been exposed and midcentury pendants - not replicas - hang over the bar, or head to the dining room for fish fry.įirst comes the bread, a light rye, and ultracreamy coleslaw, served before the main event. Besides growing to twice the room for customers (some 250 of them), the brewery's taproom has expanded its menu well beyond the creative, hand-tossed pizzas it started with. I still call it the new taproom, even though Raised Grain moved to its larger space in a business park more than a year ago. Here are my favorites from the past few months - some of them newer fish fries, and others just new to me. The fish fry around the Milwaukee area is going through changes, but there still are ones to enjoy. That might be a question of access, since fewer bakeries are making rye bread (Milwaukee's Miller Baking, for example, now makes only pretzel rolls).

French fries, I hope, will be freshly fried and crisp.Īs rare as lake perch these days is another traditional piece of the fish fry puzzle: a slice of good rye, preferably salted. If you're a restaurant owner thinking of adding potatoes to regular pancake mix, please don't. The best are thin, crisp at the edges and in the lightest of batters, just egg and flour and grated onion, with potatoes grated not too coarsely at the restaurant. Potato pancakes are likely to stray from the ideal.
