The Blog that Ate the Upper Midwest

If you haven't read The Blog that Ate Manhattan, then you should. In addition to other stuff, esp women's health stuff, TBTAM blogs about eating in Manhattan. Recently, for example, she blogged about pickles. It was a cruel post, cruel because at the end, she put in a thing for where you can get the wonderfully delicious sounding pickles, and none of those places are within probably a thousand miles of here. But I'm trying to forgive that. Really. It's not easy, though.

But, in the spirit of eating good food, I thought I'd share some fine upper midwest dining. Let me introduce you to a local drive in. The only problem with the drive in is that they're closed all winter. There's a good reason for that, because winters here are mind-numbingly cold. Even for native mid-westerners who grea up doing slidy sports, winters are cold.

The car hop will come right to your car window if you'd like, but you can also eat al fresco on the picnic tables under the big tin roof thingy.

And, as you can see, this is not the kind of place you'd want to hang out when it's minus 20 and worse with wind chill. But, I promise you, this IS the kind of place you want to hang out as soon as it gets warmish.

I'll get to the food in a moment, but I want to get you in the mood, so here we are, looking from my seat over to the neighbor's lilac bush in full bloom, smelling gloriously wonderful. If there's nothing quite so wonderful as riding a bike along a bunch of lilacs, this comes close.

But we didn't come here for the lilacs. Nope, we came for the food. This place does fried foods, and it does them really well. Here's my friend's fish sandwich and garlic fries. Your mouth is watering, or should be.

And here's my dinner, what they call "loaded fries." Yummy fries with bacon, chives, cheese, and ranch dressing. (It's a good thing my bike took me on a 25 mile ride today, isn't it?) Yes, this drive in has heart-stoppingly good food. I also had some rootbeer, which was perfection. I skipped the ice cream, but it's always a treat, as are the malts. Mmmmm, fried foods.

This is such a local favorite that we weren't the only diners there, of course. Someone parked their kids just above our table, and kept coming in with more dinner for them. They were even hungrier than I was! (These are baby robins.)

And then we finished off the evening in classic midwestern style, with a hail storm.

So there you are, folks. Eat your heart out (or something) in the upper midwest. Incredibly yummy fried foods at a reasonable price, with dining in fine company!

I'd be pretty much willing to put this place up against any in a fried foods competition, especially for outdoor eating. It's just that good.