Blanck’s Lake Aire Supper Club, Fond du Lac

Blanck’s Lake Aire Supper Club, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin

Rating: 4 out of 5 Old Fashioneds

Relish Tray: No, but a generous salad bar
Ice Cream Drinks: available
Price Range: most entrees range from about $12 to about $30
Ambiance: casual, lakeside

One of my very best friends grew up in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, though he’s lived in New York City for many years now. He’s a city person – there aren’t a lot of things he misses about the city of Fond du Lac – but when he found out about this blog, he told Owen and me to try out Blanck’s Lake Aire Supper Club.

After a day enjoying some of Fond du Lac’s delights – the lighthouse, the Kristmas Kringle Shoppe, a nearly-empty Forest Mall, and a miraculous sighting of Elvis himself – we strolled on down to Blanck’s Lake Aire Supper Club. Owen and I like to get to supper clubs nice and early, because a leisurely drink at the bar is part of the experience, after all. When we pulled in, promptly at 4:30pm, a large party was also arriving. We took this as a good indicator of a local, established spot.

Blanck’s interior is simple. Some things have been updated, and some things have not, and that works for me. You really can’t go wrong when you have a view of Lake Winnebago. If I had my druthers, all supper clubs would feel like stepping back in time a couple decades, but Blanck’s nostalgic-meets-pinterest decor compliments the lake view.

One thing we both enjoyed about our pre-dinner drinks: Blanck’s is pickled mushroom country. Many of the other patrons at the bar ordered their old fashioneds with pickled mushrooms, and one even went so far as to get pickled mushrooms with extra onions on the side.

While we sat at the bar, we were handed a menu to peruse. Blanck’s uses the order-at-the-bar system. You let a server know you’re ready to order by “giving the ‘High’ sign” – menus upright. We placed our order with a server, and she led us to our table.

I’m not sure that the things that Owen and I like about supper clubs are universal draws, because we were both delighted by the paper placemats full of local ads. Sure, the lake view is great, but when’s the last time you ate your meal off of an advertisement for a local HVAC company?

Blanck’s is doing a lot of things right, but they are particularly succeeding in the salad bar department. Salad bar is not really even the right term. Soup and Salad bar is closer, but there’s also a section full of prepared salads, a bread section, and a nice end cap with crackers and spreads. Owen was in heaven.

There are so many goodies at the soup and salad bar that I can’t imagine anyone being able to get all their treats in one trip.

We both tried the cheesy beer, potato and bacon soup (you can’t go wrong with that combo). It tasted like butter with a side of beer, in the best way possible. When we were working on our selections, the server stopped by our table to ask “how is the salad bar going?”. I appreciate being checked in on, even during the self-service portion of the meal, where any problems would have only been self-inflicted.

Blanck’s has a big menu, and lots of items that intrigued us. We started with some onion petals. Owen loves onion rings, but we both might be converted to the onion petal format, if only for ease of dipping.

For our entrees, I ordered the chicken cordon bleu and Owen the prime rib, princess cut. Honestly, my previous experience with chicken cordon bleu was frozen and delivered by the Schwan’s man. I sort of forgot that chicken cordon bleu has Swiss cheese, and I don’t really love Swiss cheese, – I could have ordered better. I’m sure it was an excellent version of chicken cordon bleu because the chicken was moist and delicious, and the wild rice was a pleasant surprise. I just might have been happier with a different meal.

Owen had the prime rib with “cheesys”, the real showstopper of the evening. Cheesys are hash browns with cheese throughout, something adjacent to the tray of cheesy potatoes you might see in a church basement social. The prime rib was “princess cut” but you couldn’t tell by looking at it. We couldn’t imagine a piece any bigger, especially considering the ample spread we had already consumed.