Headliners Bar and Grill (Neenah, WI)

This was my first trip to Headliners so I didn't know what to expect.  I have to say I was pleasantly surprised.

Headliners had an unique idea of serving both white and yellow curds in one order. I have never heard of that being done anywhere so Kudos for trying something new. Oddly, the white and yellow curds seem to have been cooked separately as the white curds were more well done than the yellow curds.

Both types are battered which scores points in my book.  The batter was light and crisp, with a light saltiness and no noticeable seasoning.  It's a very clean tasting recipe.

There was no sauces provided with the curds, which was just fine because these curds can stand on their own.  I tried them with some ranch dressing I asked for.  The white curds were not improved by the sauce and are probably best left solo.  The yellow curds on the other hand blended well with the Ranch, though it's not needed.

The cooking is a tough one with these as the yellow curds were cooked to perfection, but the white curds were just a little too well cooked.  The white curds would have probably taken my rating of these way up if they didn't have just the slightest bit of burnt flavor to drag them down.  This however leaves these curds with some serious potential.  The other note on the cooking was the stretchiness of the white curds.  They were phenomenally stretchy, it may have been the quality of the cheese, but the pictures don't do justice to it.

I am ranking the entire order as one ranking so the strengths and weaknesses of the two almost cancel each other out.  These are an excellent order of curds and if you wanted to test in one shot the difference between white and yellow curds this is definitely one to try.  With a current score of 7 / 10 I will definitely be coming back to try these again and hopefully next time the white curds are not overdone.  With the combo of yellow and white curds with a clean, crisp batter and excellent cheese, there is potential for these to be some of the very best curds around.

-Matt

Website: http://www.headlinersbar.com/

Holidays Sports Pub and Grill

On the surface these are absolutely beautiful curds, but looks aren't everything.  Being that these curds are beer battered, I had very high expectations for these curds.  When they arrived I was quite pleased with the perfect golden brown of the curds, from there it was downhill.  When I broke the first curd to check the stretchiness of the cheese I believe the words I said were "that's not a good sign".  The cheese pulled apart in wierd globs rather than with a nice uniform stretch.

The batter, while containing some seasoning was very thick and rather bland.  As with most batters that are are too thick, some of the batter wasn't fully cooked on all the curds which gives a strange consistency for the mouth feel.

These curds don't just pair well with ranch, they require it. These curds really cannot stand on their own, the breading is too thick and bland to eat these curds dry.

Now, I know that I've got a lot bad to say about these curds, but they have extraordinary potential, but are just not quite executed well.  If they just thinned out the batter a little bit, got fresher curds and maybe kicked the seasonings in the batter these could score very high.  However as they currently stand I can only give them a 4.5 which hurts because I really wanted to enjoy them and they looked so beautiful.

A & W Neenah, WI

Well this has been a long time coming for many of the followers of my blog.  Among the most popular places to get cheese curds is A&W Rootbeer Restaurants.  They are pretty standard for A&W, consistently mediocre.  All I can give them is a 5.0 out of 10.  Pretty good for fast food, but not as good as DQ.  But the rootbeer float makes up for any deficiencies.

Willie Beamons, Neenah, WI

Willie Beamons probably has one of the nicest presentations of bar cheese curds I've ever experienced.  While clearly not hand made, serving them in a nice plate with some garnishing around the rim was a touch I was not expecting and a pleasant surprise.  

Now for the curds.  I have to say for orange, breaded curds, these are pretty darn good.  By themselves they lack a little something, but due to the extraordinarily good ranch sauce, these curds can hang with the big boys.  The curds were fried very well, with excellent stretchiness.  Golden brown with the cheese melted just right.  The serving was actually very large, while the enormous plate makes it appear small, it was hard to finish even with some help.

So these curds really have the deck stacked against them in how good they could be, but they did very well within that range.  I give them a 5.5 out of 10.  While I wouldn't go out of my way to get these curds, if I was already there, I wouldn't hesitate to have them again.

http://williebeamons.com/

The Beehive Inn take 2

So this was my second time getting curds at the Beehive.  The first time the curds were a little under done and were kind of soggy.  Today, was much improved.  The batter was cooked to a perfect golden brown.  The cheese was flavorful.  The batter was a little bland, but not bad.  The cheese did not have a very good stretchy-ness to it, which I count against it, though it gave the curd kind of a chewy texture similar to what you get in a fresh curd.
 These are some of the best curds I've found in the Neenah area I'm giving them 6.5 out of 10.