Eat Local
Friday Fish Fry

The VI family spends a lot of time in Wisconsin. Not the least because it's close, but mostly for the food (or a lot for the food). And one of the main reasons about the food is that Wisconsin is all about eat local. I mean a restaurant recently opened in Madison focusing on Wisconsin cuisine. A great example of eating local is the Friday Fish Fry.

Saveur magazine nicely features Wisconsin fish fries this month. They note the origins of the fish fry came from the mixture of Catholic eating habits and ample stocks of fresh fish. Today, people care less about missing meat on Friday, and in Milwaukee, there aint very much in the way of fresh fish outta Lake Michigan. Most fish fries these days serve Icelandic cod or Alaskan trash fish, I mean pollack. Still, the best fish fries, while not being truly local, are very much local in spirit. That's one of the reason a good fish fry makes such a satisfying meal.

Take Turner Hall. The lake perch comes from Eire, and it is not even on the menu, but it's there and as delicious as lake perch is, breaded in the Wisconsin way instead of dusted as they do in Indiana. With potato pancakes, a sweet cabbage slaw, apple sauce, marble rye and your own pat of Wisconsin butter, everything could have come from Wisconsin if it may or may not have.

The vast double storied, paneled Turner Hall is worth the visit even if the food sucked (which it does not!)

Historic Turner Restaurant/Turner Hall
1034 N 4th St
Milwaukee, WI 53203
(414) 276-4844
(414) 276-0442