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Local Restaurants
| Painted Parrot #1: Fish Fry | Kops #1 | George Webb | |
Fish Fry at the Painted Parrot
Polly want a Fish
On Friday afternoon, we spoke quickly after work and decided that it was about time for us to partake in a tradition that is very much at the core of life in the Milwaukee area, the Friday Night Fish Fry.
Apparently 80% of all buildings that serve food in some ways, including small local bars do a Friday night fish fry. Even a work, they do English style fish and chips every Friday. So, upon arriving at the house and walking the dogs we sought out a good place to try out online. We came across a few places over and over again in West Allis, so we decided on the place based on two criteria, the closer and better and all you can eat. So, we quickly decided on trying out the Painted Parrot. This is a restaurant/bar that is only about 8 blocks from the house.
We loaded up in my car and traveled the 8 blocks to the restaurant and then quickly realized that I was parking in a bad spot and moved around the corner. However, most of the parking, even along the street was filled, so we ended up parking about 2 blocks away. Then we decided to try going around the block again, but only managed to park a couple of car lengths further away. So, it was a nice night and therefore the two-block walk wasn’t bad. We were all in a pretty good mood, even Tim with his grumble belly.
Once
we went inside it was obvious that this was a pretty popular spot for the fish
fry. We stood in a line at about 10 people back and got our names take for
seating. About 10 minutes later we were called and were quickly seated at a
table will stool chairs. A quick perusal of the menu showed that they offered
about 60% stuff that I wouldn’t order, but about 40%, which I would be
interested in trying. However, this night we knew exactly what we were getting,
the all you can eat Fish Fry. I was happy that not only did they have Coke
Products, but they also had Mello Yellow. Therefore, I got that while Marisa
got a wheat beer, a Blue Moon, I believe because her first choice they were out
of. Tim decided on a bloody mary for himself. So, we drank and joked about
stuff while glimpsing bits of Milwaukee’s defeat to the Bobcats on the numerous
televisions. We then gave our orders, which had Marisa picking the French fries
as her side, Tim went with the potato pancakes, and I went with the smashed
potatoes.
This is where things went down a bit. Tim was able to quickly get fresh drinks, but it took at least 10-15 minutes for our meal to come out. When it did, they first brought a wooden tripod where all three legs continued past the middle instead of joining into one piece. Later, when the food came out, it came in an upturned garbage can lid with paper lining it. This set perfectly in the tripod. We all grabbed out our sides and a couple pieces of fish. Tim and I also tried the rye bread, which was pretty bad. We put the cole slaw to the side, never to be thought of again, and Tim tried the horseradish and cocktail sauce and stated that neither was very good. I pulled the catsup and mustard bottles out of the little condiment tray they had at each table and after plopping out a good amount of catsup, turned to the mustard. This was a bit more of a chore as nothing would come out. I took off the top to make sure that it had been opened, but as an unmarked bottle I’m pretty sure that they would refill it bulk mustard. I then found out that it had apparently not been used in a while and the mustard had dried up the length of the nozzle. Therefore, I had to perform surgery on it with a fork. I was eventually able to work the clog out and then a solid stream of mustard was added to the catsup and I was ready.
The smashed potatoes were pretty bad. It looked like they
used the red potatoes and kept the skin in as well. The merely mashed it up a
bit and put a bit of cheese, bacon bits, and chives on top. I was not impressed
in the least. Next was the fish. It was pretty good. It had a decent batter
and batter-to-fish consistency, but it wasn’t great in any way. Neither was the
fish itself. It has a slightly odd flavor to it, but was plenty edible. Tim
immediately noticed that his potato pancakes had onion in them and therefore
threw them back in the basket. I tried them with catsup and mustard and they
were pretty good. There was a strong onion taste to them, though, so Tim
definitely would not have liked them. Marisa’s fries weren’t bad, but just the
basic big crinkle cut fries. So, we finished the first round and had an
additional round of fish and French fries brought out. We barely finished this
round and decided that we had all had enough for the night.
Overall, the experience was not bad; there just wasn’t anything that jumped out and really made me want to come back. The atmosphere was different, though with we believe 1 bum, a bunch of lesbians including 1 about 4 and ½ feet and another around 3 ½ feet, regular bar patrons, and regular fish fry patrons which made for an interesting mix. One thing that may bring us back one Tuesday is the challenge. They have a challenge that if you can eat a 2 pound burger, 22 fries, and a 2 oz. Cup of soup, you get some sort of party. Tim kept bs’ing that he might have a chance to do it, so it might be fun one night to see how far we could get.
You haven’t had Ice Cream until you’ve had Frozen Custard
Apparently, Marisa was the only one of us pre-Wisconsin to have tried frozen custard and she was a fiend. So, when she found out that there was a frozen custard place a couple blocks from her old building, she would often go after work and pick up a scoop or two. I was not introduced to this treat until a few weeks into my stay here.
I was introduced with two scoops of Cookies N Crème in a waffle cone. I was impressed; it tasted like some of the best soft serve ice cream with liberal amounts of the flavor, which on this day was crunched up Oreos. I was definitely digging the Kops at this point.
My next time wasn’t quite so good. I was driving that night and therefore got a pint of the Caramel Cashew. This was what appeared to be the vanilla custard with a good amount of caramel flavoring added in, not just caramel swirl. This by itself would have been really good, but with the cashews, it just didn’t really work for me. Don’t get me wrong, I love cashews, especially whole cashews, but they weren’t salted due to being in the custard, and they tasted a little funny. I also found out that Kops is best directly into a bowl or cone. Putting it in the freezer really messes with the consistency and it never really gets back to the perfect consistency that it is in when you first get it.
The most recent stop was my favorite. This time it was two scoops of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough in a waffle cone. This was by far the best of the three. The cookie dough was awesome and not too cold to eat and the chocolate chips were big and crunchy. They were probably a little too hard for my tastes normally, but it worked in this. I will definitely have to try this one again.
Kops Favorites:
Service with a Scowl
So, on Sunday, I woke up early and after catching up on a few shows, I decided to go ahead and do my laundry. I had apparently picked the worst time of the day as the sun was still hiding mostly behind the clouds and there was a sharp wind blowing. After I got my wash going, I decided to walk the 6 blocks down to the post office to pick up my mail. Along the way, I took some pictures of the different businesses in that area that I had used and a few that were just interesting looking. One place that I noticed was George Webb. This place was a 24/7 restaurant that appeared to be similar to Waffle House. They had breakfast and dinner items offered throughout the day.
So, after flipping my clothes over to dry, I decided to head over for breakfast and check it out. When I walked in from the cold, the first thing that I noticed was how thin and long the place was. There were two rows of booths to my right, then a bar-like area with short stools around the cooking area and then about 5 booths in the back on the way to the backdoor, which could also be used as an entrance. The place was a little, busy, but about 6 of the 13 booths were empty, so I decided to sit down… or thought I had decided. Before I could take two steps in that direction, a harsh voice came back from the grill area stating in no uncertain terms, “2 OR MORE FOR A BOOTH!”
I did a bit of a double take at this statement in the way it came, the tone, and the fact that half of them were empty. I was split at that moment whether or not just to leave, but decided that I wanted to try out the food and therefore, resigned to sit at the bar. Once seated, I quickly ordered milk and asked if they had skim. As soon as the word skim started to come out, the reply came of 2% from the white woman with a white Brett Favre jersey with pink numbers and 1 inch long pink nails with designs all over them. So, I took the 2% and started looking at the menu. It wasn’t very big, so I quickly decided on 2 pancakes and 2 eggs with a side of sausage links. However, once I had decided, the woman went past me about 10 times before she finally stopped and took my order.
I waited with nothing really to keep my attention until the food finally came. The eggs appeared to be a single egg, the sausage was odd as it had a casing only on about 80%, the ends of each side were open and looked odd, and then the pancakes came with a thimble of butter and a tiny cup of syrup. I quickly ate the egg and made it through the sausage, which wasn’t terrible, before working on the pancakes.
Overall, the meal wasn’t terrible, but again, nothing to call home about either. In the end, I would have probably done better just leaving after the rude treatment when I arrived. This conclusion definitely came home with the bill, which with tip evened out at $10. This isn’t a bad price for a good big breakfast, but for egg, sausage, two pancakes, and milk seemed a bit pricey. Needless to say, I will not be going back any time soon.