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Fish Type: Cod     Price: $10.00

Overall, I would recommend this Fish Fry.

Fish Score: Good
Potato Score: Good
Tartar Score: Good
Bread Score: Good
Miscellaneous Score: Good

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Comment: If you go to Banushi’s on a Friday night make sure you take some friends with. Not only will your friends like the fish, and the cheap 22 oz. tap beers, but you’ll like having them around while you wait for your table… and believe me, you will wait. This place draws them in like few others.

We met our friends Stan and Megan at the Stoughton hotspot around 6, but that didn’t mean we were early by any means. The bar was already 2-deep and a 45 minute wait was quoted. A good hour/hour-fifteen later we finally had said table to go along with upwards of three of the big ol’ beers in our bellies. We were feeling fine, and ready to get our fry on.

Our waitress was mildly flummoxed by the Friday night barrage, but toughed it out, never once losing her cool or her sense of humor. While she did forget a few things here and there, she handled it gracefully which made it easier to not to hold it against her. As you might expect, it took a while to get the fish once we ordered, but the time passed swiftly thanks in no small part to the abundant booze. When it did come, the cod was hot enough, but not scalding like you’d like it to be.

It was essentially the exact same Fish Fry I had on our last visit - two long pieces of lightly-battered cod, a smattering of house-cut fries, a small Solo cup of tartar, a huge bowl of slaw, and a football-shaped roll or two. While the fish is cut a little strangely, the taste is anything but odd. “Good” is a pretty weak way to describe anything (especially fish), but this stuff was basically just that - nothing really stood out, but there were no flaws to speak of either. The light beer batter complemented the flaky cod quite well, and while it was nothing fancy, there simply wasn’t anything wrong with it. It just tasted good, and sometimes that’s just enough.

The house-cut fries were kind of a mixed bag, but were satisfying overall. The portion was decent, but could have been bigger, and there were a few too many over-fried nubs, but plenty of nice fat ones to balance it all out.

Like the fries, the tartar was also a bit of a mixed bag. While it had enough zip, and paired well with the fish, it was a little too thin to cling, which drew several comments from around the table. The slaw was also noteworthy, but also not necessarily in a good way. It was easily some of the goopiest we have ever seen, and even though the sloppy mix tasted fine it definitely wasn’t easy on the eyes.

One of the items the waitress initially forgot were the rolls, but she sprung to action once we jogged her memory. The football-shaped starches pretty much fell in line with everything else in the Fish Fry and were good, but nothing more.

BBG has Stoughton on lockdown at this point, and it certainly shows. The place is packed on Friday nights, and if you want to get a plate of their fish you’d better be prepared to soak up a few suds at the bar (preferably with a good friend or two). Overall, we recommend this Fish Fry, but will definitely only come back when we’re prepared to stay awhile.



www.banushis.com
800 Nygaard Street
Stoughton, WI 53589

(608) 873-3700