Fish Type: Cod Price: $11.00
Overall, I would recommend this Fish Fry.
| Fish Score: Good Potato Score: Good Tartar Score: Good Bread Score: Good Miscellaneous Score: Excellent |  |
Comment: For the second time in as many weeks we were back in the Driftless on a Friday. This time was different, we couldn't venture allllll the way to Coon Valley so we hit up the VFW in Viroqua, which I'd heard had come a long way under the new management.
The VF only has cod on Fridays (not surprising) and it comes as a 2 or 3-piece (also not surprising). What is surprising is that the 2-piece is only 10 bucks, the 3-piece is only 11 bucks, and both come with a trip through a surprisingly thorough salad bar. This bar is robust in the true Norwegian fashion - all the basics - nice greens, plenty of toppings, dressings, pasta and potato salads, plus pickled herring and chocolate mousse. The whole shebang brought me back to the great supper clubs of my childhood and this at a veterans hall. Yum. The only downfall was the soup and the bread - broccoli cheese instead of clam chowder and that tear-off style white bread. Meh.
We had ample time to polish off the salad and (oh yeah) the cellophane bread sticks and cheese spread, before the fish came. It was a plain looking affair, but my god, the fries. While there were three pieces of fish on the plate, only one was visible - the rest was buried by a mountain of julienne cut fires. The fish had a bit of grease but was clean tasting, and featured a light and bubbly beer batter. The batter didn't have a lot of oomph, but the consistency was enough to keep you satisfied. The Everest of fries weren't much to speak of beyond the portion size, but were solid. However, even a fry lover, such as myself, couldn't eat them all. It was insane.
Lastly came the tartar, which lived in a big squeeze bottle on the table. Unfortunately, it was a little heavy on the relish and overpowered the fish for the most part. I wound up not using it on my last piece and didn't even consider dragging a fry through it, although I normally would have with a portion of this magnitude.
I grew up getting Fish at the Eagles in town so when I heard the VF had passed them up I took notice. While I haven't been to the Eagles in a while (at least for Fish) I have to imagine the rumors are true. The Fish Fry at the VF is as solid as they come and that salad bar is a force to be reckoned with. Overall, we recommend this Fish Fry and will probably finish off those fries sometime this week.
http://myvfw.org/wi/post3032/
751 S Washington Avenue
Viroqua, WI 54665
(608) 637-3212
