Fish Type: Walleye Price: $10.00
Overall, I would barely recommend this Fish Fry.
| Fish Score: Excellent Potato Score: Fair Tartar Score: Good Bread Score: Poor Miscellaneous Score: Excellent |  |
Comment: It was a just my luck kind of thing... When we heard about the Fish Fry at Octopi Brewing Company and were pumped. The place is literally 5 minutes from out house, the food was being cooked by a known local chef, and they brew beer (which I like). It seemed the stars were aligning for us to come this week...the Friday before their big anniversary celebration.
Of course, this all seemed too good to be true, and to some extent it was. On Fridays Octopi has a limited menu, but this Friday it was even more exclusive since they didn't want to muddy the waters leading up their pre-anniversary celebration. They had their Fish Fry (which was good), but nixed their specialty hash browns (which was not). We sucked it up and ordered the fish, but had to settle for a side of street corn which, while delicious, was no potato side...
The $10 walleye still comes with a side of slaw and the fish was the real McCoy...and the fillet was a honker at that. This baby had to be a good 8 ounces and I took it to task - tearing it right down the seam into two manageable chunks. It was a relatively grease-free endevour and the batter had a pleasant flavor. Of course, you're dealing with a brewery and while I'd prefer a light breading they are likely to use their own beer, and use they did. They clearly took some pride in the blend but kept it light, so the flavor of the fish still shone through.
Naturally, I can't give full marks for the spud score, but I'll give a little love to the succulent corn. It was clearly excellent, drizzled with some queso fresco and other goodies, but it's not a 1:1 for me. I still wanted those hash browns.
Some tartar can be tipped to the side and not slip out of the cup they come in - those are the thick supper club style sauces - this was not one of those. This cup tipped to the side and spilled onto the fish, but was still soppable. Obviously, it was on the thin side, but had a nice sweetness to it. The fish was good enough to be eaten with or without it but I opted for inclusion.
Of course, if we couldn't even get hash browns there is no way there was any bread coming our way so we'll let that fall by the wayside as well.
Sometimes you roll the die and they come snake eyes and sometimes it's Lucky 7s. This wasn't that extreme by any means, but we definitely didn't hit. We loved so many things about this Fish Fry - the atmosphere was excellent and the food we got was good, but we really just picked the wrong day for our maiden voyage to Octopi. Overall, we still sort or recommend this Fish Fry, and think the $5 hash browns may well have taken this one from so-so to so-damn-good.
www.octopibrewing.com/
1131 Uniek Drive
Waunakee, WI 53597
(608) 620-4705
