I possess no shortage of unpopular opinions. I would suggest that any person worth their salt should similarly have a multitude of thoughts and beliefs that are not commonly held. One opinion that causes consternation is that I do not think it matters what guests in my house want for breakfast. If I want to eat a pastry for breakfast, why would I care if my unsophisticated guests wish to eat a meal of bacon and eggs and hash browns? I wouldn’t care, and so I don’t, and it’s apparently a problem of mine that I think breakfast should consist of little more than a coffee and pastry. What are we, farmers? Another opinion of mine that causes grief inside the four walls of the house I built with my bare hands is that one dog is fine and two dogs is chaos. Why would someone want two dogs? So the one can stir up the other and so on for all of eternity? Two dogs is silly and chaotic and I’ve done it before and I won’t do it again. I similarly have opinions about cars and boats and about overhead power lines and about development and about the horrible quality of nearly every house that has ever been built. But among my most controversial opinions is none of those but simply this: Popeye’s in Lake Geneva has always had the best fish fry.
It’s called Nick’s now, in case you didn’t know. But I will call the Willis tower by it’s real name just as I will call Popeye’s by its. It’s hip to think that Popeye’s/Nicks is not a place where locals should go. It’s for day-tripping tourists, the sorts with cutoff sleeves and sweaty brows. That’s what the locals and the vacation home owners think. But they’re wrong, and it’s not really something we can debate. My mother was out of town and my son was in town and my father is old, and so we did what I like to do on a Friday and we rolled into Popeyes/Nicks (called PN from here forward) at the crack of 5 pm. Early? Of course it is. Another unpopular opinion is that it isn’t cool to eat dinner at 7:30, it’s just something everyone has been told is cool for so long and now it’s a believable lie. What’s really cool is dinner at 5 pm and bed at 9 pm.
PN is a very large place. It’s obnoxiously large, really. It’s dated and it’s a bit stale but who cares? The fish fry is all-you-can-eat, which is a dying ideology that I’m sad to see in such poor health. BUT DAVID POOR HEALTH IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU EAT ALL YOU CAN EAT FRIED FISH! This is silly, because the Spanish eat fried fish, squid, shellfish, potatoes, et al and they seem to be just fine. The options here are fried (AYCE), broiled (not AYCE), and a fried with chicken tenders option which is AYCE). There’s a choice of French fries, potato pancakes, or onion rings. The dinner is served with coleslaw, tartar sauce, dips for your chicken tendies, a piece of Texas toast type bread, a lemon wedge and some hushpuppies.
The coleslaw must have been fine because my dad ate plenty and asked for seconds. I don’t eat coleslaw because I have my limits. The hushpuppies were not good as they were too small and a bit dense and a bit dry. I ordered the potato pancake, which was served with chunky applesauce. The pancake was nicely herbed, flavorful, crisp on the exterior and moist on the interior. I liked it, as I always do. The bread option is odd, but better than the devil’s favorite: rye. The fried fish was a delight, just as good as I remembered it. Tender, salty, a touch sweet, and a nice thin batter. There’s a pervasive theme in Wisconsin that insists on beer-battering everything. Beer battered fish isn’t actually good, because the batter is too thick and soaks up too much grease, we just think because we’re in Wisconsin that we must indulge. We mustn’t and so I don’t. We ordered some seconds and walked back to my office accompanied by the shadow of regret that usually accompanies an All You Can East Fish Fry.
I ask you today to stop pretending Popeye’s/Nick’s isn’t the best, most consistent fish fry in Walworth County. I’ve had them all over the word and this one is the winner, week in and week out. Let your guard down. Stop being such an elitist. Just go to Popeye’s, call it Nick’s, and order the fish. Tell your friends if you’re not a coward, and rejoice in a Wisconsin Friday night staple done right.