April | 2016 | chippewa valley friday fish

Date Visited: April 15, 2o16
Location: Galloway St., downtown Eau Claire
Restaurant Type: Restaurant
Fish Types Offered: Deep fried cod, pan fried cod, broiled cod, walleye
Fish Serving Sizes Offered: 1 piece dinner (the pieces stretch the length of the plate), fish basket
- The fish basket cod must be deep-fried and comes with only one side.
Sides Offered: choice of side (baked potato, baby reds, cheddar mashed, beer fries, waffles fries, wild rice, kettle chips), choice of side salad or soup, and vegetable of the day
Cost: $11 (cod), $13 (walleye), fish basket $9

Entering Galloway Grille, one will notice the unique atmosphere and decor. The restaurant is located in a charming, old building which is pretty typical of most of Eau Claire’s downtown area. The decor on the walls commemorate local achievements, architecture, and advertising and are very interesting to look at while one is waiting for food.

At the front of the restaurant are high top tables as well as a neat bar where the Grille offers a variety of beers on tap as well as a full bar menu. The remainder of the restaurant contains booths except for the large-group room they offer at the back of the restaurant. The Grille also has outdoor seating on the patio, low-top tables with umbrellas, for when the weather is nice. There is an entrance to the restaurant from the back parking lot that leads right onto the patio, but the staff asks that guests find the hostess near the bar at the front of the restaurant before finding a seat.

We sat on the patio as it was a gorgeous day outside, and it was lovely. The waiter brought our drinks, took our dinner order, and soon brought our side salads to begin. The side salad was dark green lettuce with tomatoes, carrots, and croutons. The croutons and the dressings were homemade and oh, so good! Homemade dressing really makes a big difference.

After our salads, we enjoyed the sampler platter appetizer which consisted of a large portion of jalepeno poppers, cheese curds, deep fried pickle spears, deep fried mushrooms, chicken wings, and chicken tenders. With a variety of dipping sauces, this was a yummy way to start our meal. The cheese curds were made from white cheese and had a heavy outer batter. The jalepeno poppers had stringy cheese and a kick and were delicious.

Next our food arrived. We had ordered the deep fried fish and the broiled fish, and it was clear that both options were very good quality fish. It was flaky and had a great, clean taste. The deep fried fish had a heavy outer batter that had good flavor, and the broiled had lots of seasoning on the top, contributing to its good flavor as well. The beer fries and waffles were both battered, crispy yet soft on the inside, and very tasty as were the cheddar mashed potatoes. The mashed were clearly homemade and had a great texture and flavor. In addition, we’ve had coleslaw at Galloway before, and even though we didn’t receive any tonight, it is tasty – overflowing with vegetables with a pretty thick mayo dressing.

The highlight of the whole meal was the Grille’s tartar sauce. Homemade and stock full of seasoning and chopped ingredients (vegetables, it seemed like), it was wonderful – the best tartar sauce we’ve had!

Overall, the food at Galloway Grille is great, and while the food came out at a decent pace, the restaurant quickly filling up around 5:30 pm likely caused the staff to get a little bit behind. The packed patio, I’m sure, is a regular occurrence and for good reason!

beer-mug out of 5

Date Visited: April 1, 2o16
Location: Tilden, Chippewa Falls, WI
Restaurant Type: Bar
Fish Types Offered: Beer battered fish, baked fish
Fish Serving Sizes Offered: 1 piece, 2 piece, 3 piece, family style dinners (5 or 10 pieces), buckets of fish (available only for take-out, 6, 9, or 12 piece)
- Extra pieces of fish $3.00
Sides Offered: choice of potato (French fries, hash browns, or sidewinders), choice of coleslaw, cottage cheese, or side salad, dinner roll
Cost: $7.50-$29.00

Bresina’s, located just north to Chippewa Falls, was fairly busy when we walked in last Friday night around 5:30 p.m.; however many more people had arrived by the time that we left. Upon walking in, we immediately saw a dining area with low-top tables; we walked through the bar, where high-top tables and seats at the bar were available, and could see another dining room. The bartender handed us menus and said that we could sit wherever we wanted, and a waitress quickly came up to us for our drink order.

After receiving our drinks, we ordered our meal. We started with the combo appetizer platter and ordered three different cheese appetizers: classic cheese curds, cheese blocks, and jalepeno cheese blocks. The appetizer came shortly after ordering, and we both agreed that out of the three options we liked the classic cheese curds the best. They were yellow cheese and had a thick, crunchy batter. The cheese blocks had a heavy batter as well that resembled pancake batter, and it seemed that the jalepenos were in the batter (not the cheese), giving it a good kick.

For dinner, we each ordered three piece fish dinners. We appreciated that we were able to mix-and-match and get some baked and some fried fish. Both types of fish were thick cut. The beer battered fish had a great texture (the batter was fairly light) but lacked seasoning. The baked fish had a good seasoning on it, but it had been heavily cooked in butter which got in the way of the spices. The tartar was a traditional tartar sauce, fairly heavy on the mayo. For our potato side we each chose sidewinders, a sort of potato wedge. The sidewinders were thick with potato, crunchy but soft on the inside, but lacked seas
oning. From what we observed, the French fries were a medium-cut fry with no outside batter, and the hash browns were deep-fried hash brown patties.

For our second side, we chose coleslaw and a side salad. The coleslaw had a light sauce and was heavy on the cabbage, but the dressing was strictly mayo without any additional flavor. The side salad was composed of shredded lettuce, diced tomato, and shredded cheddar ch
eese.