Fish Fry First

When you go out to eat on Friday in Wisconsin you go to a fish fry. Every local restaurant, bowling alleys, community centers, and maybe even gas stations has specials on fried cod. Fish and chips basically.

We had our first Wisconsin fish fry tonight. It wasn’t Kate’s first fish fry, but it was our first together since moving here a few weeks ago.

The whole fish fry phenomenon is hard to explain. I don’t know where the tradition comes from. I don’t know why it is fish. Why not steak? Ribs? Crab? Falafel?

I bet you if you stop at the first local restaurant you see in Milwaukee it will have a fish special on Friday night. Whether it will be good fish or bad fish is a tougher call.

Tonight, we went all in on Beer Belly’s Restaurant. It was a draw.

It is easy to make a mediocre fried Cod and French Fries. That is how I would describe Beer Belly’s Cod dinner. I ate it. It was decent. I won’t ever have the desire to have it again. There must be a perfect ratio of batter to fish. The batter must accent the fish, but not overwhelm it. The fish should be moist enough to not zap your mouth of all that greasy batter right away. The fish tonight was not good enough for the batter it was cooked in. That’s why Beer Belly’s came up short tonight.

The restaurant definitely felt like a local joint. So, if I was a local, I think Beer Belly’s would receive high marks, but I am not. The place was packed, loud, plastered with cheesy depictions and photographs of famous Packers and Brewers of the past and the present. Also worth mentioning, I felt out of place because I wasn’t in cutoff jean shorts and a camouflage trucker hat. I feel we got some stares just for that. You throw in the fact that I was a good six inches taller than anyone in the place and Kate is a babe and you get a lot of stares. Stares bring the atmosphere way down. Way down. I can’t blame Beer Belly’s for that. It takes some serious talent to make me feel unaware of my size in a public place. I hold those places that do near and dear to my heart. Maybe, just maybe, we will find a good fish fry in Milwaukee that will do exactly that.