Fish Type: Ocean Perch Price: $8.75
Overall, I would barely recommend this Fish Fry.
| Fish Score: Good Potato Score: Excellent Tartar Score: Fair Bread Score: Fair Miscellaneous Score: Good |  |
Comment: Like me, Paco bought the Groupon to Wandos. Luckily for me, when Friday the 22nd rolled around, he had an itch to use it and offered to treat. Even though the little lady and I were in the middle of buying a new (used) car, I wasnt about to let that put the kibosh on my Fish Fry plans. We met him and Jer on the second floor and wasted no time ordering three plates of perch when the waitress came by.
The $8.75 perch was ready alarmingly fast and hot as can be when served. The pieces of fish were oddly sized and tasted much more fishy than normal, leading us to believe that Wandos subtly tried to switch to ocean perch. Gasp! Not a good choice. Even so, the perch was fine, but fish flavor dominated Wandos spicy breading (which isnt easy to do). Instead of the four large lake perch we are accustomed to seeing we got several smaller chunks of the presumed OP, which is a HUGE downgrade in our book.
Thankfully, lots of Wandos special thick-cut crinkle fries picked up some of slack. They were well fried and balanced out the fishy fish well, but couldnt overcome it fully. The tartar also couldnt take things over the top as Wandos special dill-mix just doesnt do it for us.
Next came the regular roll, which, unfortunately, was a little stale this time around. Like the change in fish, a change in slaw was also the order of the day. Mercifully, it was highly improved, as the new creamy blend had a great flavor with some serious zest.
This certainly was not the typical Wandos experience. Strange fish, stale rolls and new slaw really turned this Fish Fry on its ear. Whats more, things no longer come in shifts like they used to, everything just comes on one big plate at the same time. I have to say, we like the old way and the old fish much better.
Who knows? Maybe this visit was just an oddball? Maybe they got duped by the supplier into picking the inferior perch? Whatever the case may be, well give them the benefit of the doubt and hope they right the ship next time. Overall, we still can barely recommend this Fish Fry, but if things keep (d)evolving like this they are going to fall out of favor with us faster than you can say Hey, what the hell happened to my lake perch?
www.wandosbar.com/
602 University Avenue
Madison, WI 53715
(608) 256-5204
