Caleb Westphal hasn’t missed a Friday fish fry since 2013. Follow his never-ending adventures—sponsored by Miller High Life—HERE. This week: fish fry #616, at The Neighbors Bar & Grille in Waukesha, Wisconsin.
One evening a few weeks back, the clock ticked past midnight, well past the time I should have been in bed, but I was wide awake on the couch thinking about the house I grew up in, about the old neighborhood, and about the old neighbors. The house is long gone, having flooded before exploding and burning to the ground during the great Fond du Lac flood of 2008, but I still think about the neighborhood and the neighbors from time to time. I think of what it was like, say, when I was five years old. I remember it being a time of childlike wonder, an idyllic era before any disillusionment crept in. The best years.
During that time, there were two grassy lots directly north of our house with four apple trees, which we referred to as the apple orchard. Past the orchard, in a deep-red ranch house, lived a couple in their mid-to-late 60s. I’d often walk through the orchard and visit with them in their yard, where they’d be tending to their large garden. Invariably, at some point they’d suggest that maybe it was time to take a break from gardening and have some milk and cookies. So we’d go inside their house and have some at their kitchen table.
The husband, a World War II veteran, passed away 15 years ago at the age of 85. When I was thinking about the neighbors a few weeks back, I searched online for the wife and learned she passed away in May at the age of 96. After reading her obituary, I watched her 18-minute tribute video, my mind flooding with soft reflections on childhood, aging, and death, before I finally went to bed around 1 a.m., an unexpected tranquility washing over me. Having lived in 11 addresses since I moved out of my childhood home when I was 19, and not having lived at any one place long enough to get to know any neighbors too well, these are the people I think of when I think of neighbors. Fred Rogers, the world’s most famous neighbor, once said:
“All of us have special ones who have loved us into being. Would you just take along with me 10 seconds to think of the people who have helped you become who you are—those who have cared about you and wanted what was best for you in life?”
These are some of the people I think about. Neighbors.
The Neighbors Bar & Grille (s16w22255 Arcadian Ave.; 262-408-5872), a family operation located on Highway 59 on the outskirts of Waukesha, opened on Labor Day weekend in 2009. We don’t live in the neighborhood, nor are we in the area often, but we were driving through last month when my wife spotted the building and said, “That looks like a place you would get a fish fry at!” The name seemed familiar. Yep, it was on my list of potential restaurants to get to, along with a note: Fish Fry Fecta.
We made the trip back out to Waukesha this past Friday with the whole family. The Neighbors Bar & Grille is first and foremost a sports bar, with a grill rolled into it. A large rectangular bar sits in the middle of the one-room enterprise. There is no dining room, but there are a few tables up front by the pull-tab dispenser, rubber ducky claw machine, and jukebox, a few tables lining the bar, and a dining area in back next to some video gambling machines, with about nine tables that fit four people each. There’s also a deck with outside seating off the back area. Inside, the tables were nearly full when we got there, but there was a brief lull before things picked up again after the 5 o’clock hour.
On Fridays, The Neighbors Bar & Grille offers hand battered or baked cod ($18), panko crusted cod ($20), bluegill ($20), walleye ($20), a half-pound shrimp basket ($20), or the Fish Fry Fecta, which has cod, walleye, and bluegill ($22). Each comes with coleslaw and rye bread along with a choice of french fries or homemade potato pancakes. Naturally, I ordered the Fish Fry Fecta with potato pancakes. Clam chowder was the soup of the day ($6 cup/ $7 bowl), and I ordered a cup of it.
“Elvira” by the Oak Ridge Boys was blasting overhead when the chowder hit the table. With a soup-like consistency, the chowder was hot and spicy, appearing to have some red pepper flakes. While some chowders are tepid in flavor, this one turns on all the lights, bangs the pots and pans together, and wakes you up before your fish fry. Beyond the heat, it was hearty, being loaded with assorted sizes of clams, along with bacon, celery, red potatoes, and more. It was chowder that wanted to be noticed, being bold in flavor, bold in heat, and bold in the amount of ingredients packed below the surface.
Just shy of 15 minutes passed until the Fish Fry Fecta arrived. One of my stepsons characterized his coleslaw as “sludgy” after looking at it. You know, mine did have a bit of a sludgy appearance, too, but that did not undermine its flavor or texture. There was the usual carrot and green cabbage in the mix, with some red cabbage. Not seasoned much, with no pepper present, most of its flavor came from whatever dressing made up its base. Overall, it was a familiar slaw, yet not entirely common. When it came to the rye bread, it was the kind that could be used to make a Reuben, or any kind of sandwich for that matter, being hearty and substantive rather than dainty.
The menu said the potato pancakes were homemade, and I suppose they were, but they were so uniform and so reminiscent of the cookie cutter ones that aren’t homemade that they made me second guess it. Green onions rode in the front seat, with a potato at the wheel. They got me home safe, although they took a well-trodden path.
Like a trifecta, there were three types of fish in the Fish Fry Fecta. But there were two pieces of each kind, making a total of six pieces. I was slightly befuddled at the outset of my journey into the fish: I could easily find the bluegill, and I found the cod, but the final two pieces of fish were small but looked like full fillets, seemingly making it impossible they could be walleye. I was hoping there was a heavy flavor that would give them away, but there wasn’t one. They didn’t have the taste of walleye, but seemed to have a slight, mild perch flavor. Maybe they were perch or walleye or another similar freshwater game fish, but what was most obvious was that they weren’t bluegill or cod.
The cod was meaty and chunky. The bluegill swam ahead of the other two species. The flavor was there from the start, neither being over the top of understated, but just right. The fillets were of a sufficient size and thickness. The same light, crisp, and golden batter covered the whole Fry Fecta. A rather standard take on tartar, with the usual pickle relish and dressing, filled a small cup, but was still prime for dunking.
Whether the neighbors you grew up next to invited you in for milk and cookies or took you out for a Friday fish fry; whether today you invite your young neighbors in for milk and cookies or take them out to The Neighbors Bar & Grille for the Fish Fry Fecta, know that being a caring neighbor matters. So here’s to the apple orchard and the neighbors in the deep-red ranch house. Here’s to youth and memories and all the good people who helped you become who you are. Here’s to Friday fish frys. Here’s to milk and cookies. Here’s to neighbors.
Takeaways: Wake-me-up chowder; Reuben-worthy rye; sludgy (but solid) slaw; was it or was it not walleye; meaty and chunky cod: just right bluegill; light and crisp batter.
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