Review
Prairie Lanes has a few different levels of fish including a 6-piece "nuggets" (which sounded like Mrs Paul's pre-battered junk), so I went for the full-on AYCE since I didn't have much to eat earlier in the day. Before the fish, diners are treated to a full-fledged salad bar which was loaded with the finest Sysco has to offer. In all honesty, this Sysco-bar was probably the highlight of the meal. It featured some clam-less chowder (that had the right thickness but the wrong amount of clam), and salad ingredients that were as standard as they come, but at least there for the taking.
The fish came about 10 minutes after we'd had out fill of iceberg lettuce and cream of "_____" and looked uninspired to say the least. The first round came with a duo of cod and a smattering of fries. The first inspection had me worried since it looked like the cod would be greasy, but by some miracle of science it actually wasn't. The problem here was not the grease, but the taste. It basically just tasted of the oil it was fried in which, as you can probably guess, wasn't great. Sure, there was lots of fish to eat (I did get two more pieces on the second round), but when it's basically tasteless how much do you want to eat? The four I did have were mostly just to fill up - which any good Wisconsonite in my position would do...DON'T JUDGE ME!!!
Unlike the fish, the fries aren't AYCE and the round we got were lukewarm at best. Our kid's portion were scalding hot so you can try to figure that out what happened there. Our handful was also woefully small which had us distracting Junior and picking away at his when he looked the other way.
The tartar comes in a big squeeze bottle and welcomes you to the table with a - "Hey, I'm lukewarm, but probably okay to eat" attitude. It was surprisingly palatable and since the cod begged for it plenty got used. It was thick and creamy and very very necessary.
A split-top football roll was filled things out and was decent, but little else. In all honesty no bread could salvage this one, but this stinker did all it could.
Sometimes things change and my reviews get outdated, but in this case what I had down on paper was spot on. This was not a great Fish Fry, but the strangest part wasn't even the Sysco salad or the puny portion of fries. The strangest part was that we had to wait a good 15-20 minutes for a table despite there being like 5 open. Unfortunately, those 5 were set for parties of 6 or more (of which there were none) so anyone with 3 or less was stuck waiting. It was an odd arrangement to say the least and just left us scratching our heads. Overall, we wouldn't have recommended this Fish Fry regardless and will have to trust our own review next time.
To be fair, there were still a lot of Fish Fryers, but their numbers were clearly dwarfed by the amount of bowlers. Even with the 10-15 minute wait sign outside the door, we had no problem getting a table, although from that point on things slowed down... waaaaaay down. It took about 10 minutes for our waitress to finally come by and when she did a whole lot of the $11 AYCE cod was ordered.
The All You Can Eat comes with a trip to the salad bar, and we wasted no time getting to it. The spread was surprisingly good - full of fresh veggies and three soups. The veggies were average, as was the clam chowder. An ultra-gooey coleslaw came along for the ride as did some delicious cottage cheese. We wolfed down the soups and salads, but couldn't help but feel put off by the lack of drinks, which came only after the greens were gone. Not cool.
The first round of fish came about 20 minutes after we ordered and wasn't totally hot. Uh oh... What's more, it was slightly over-fried to the point where the batter was bubbling off and tough in sections. While the thicker parts of the fish avoided this over-fried fate they weren't helped by the rugged batter which didn't have much flavor and was too firm. While the first round was so-so we figured it was AYCE and better results could be expected on round two. However, it was not meant to be as the sequel was even crispier, even drier (which was hard to believe), and basically inedible. We didn't dare try a third round at this point, deciding to cut our losses with the funky fish.
Certain places claim to offer potato pancakes because they think it makes their Fish Fry more authentic. For those not in the know, PPs are not the easiest thing to make and basically require a dedicated hand in the kitchen. Knowing the level of labor involved you could say I was suspicious when I saw PLs claiming to offer the traditional treat with their AYCE. I asked. She (our waitress) claimed they were real, and quite good. I was still suspicious, but pulled the trigger anyway. In PLs case the PPs were the little hash brown patties (as I suspected), but as she claimed, were actually decent tasting. So, while they weren't the real deal per se, they at least tasted fine.
The tartar was good, by all accounts, and the big squeeze bottle was nearing its end by the time we finished up. The blend was standard and at least took over where the fish left off. A nice small dinner bun, with a crusty outside and soft inside rounded out the meal. It was likely on the salad bar, although at this point I honestly don't remember if it was there or came with the fish... our notes said it was good which is really all that matters.
A packed parking lot does not a Fish Fry make, and you could say that we got fooled by this one. I have to admit it was a strange since we went in with low expectations, had them raised by how busy the place was, and then had them crushed by so-so fish. Overall, we can't recommend this Fish Fry based on this experience and probably won't be going back any time soon.