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/

Dairy Queen Gillingham St. Neenah, WI

Well to my surprise it appears that different Dairy Queens have vastly different vendors for their cheese curds.

I was expecting to get what I considered the standard DQ cheese curd of white cheese curd and battered.  I was surprised with not only yellow and breaded, but what appeared to not even be cheese curd, but rather chunks of cheese (pressed and aged) that was breaded and fried.

However I will judge these on the merits of what was presented rather than the difference from what my expectation was.

The temperature was good, and the cheese had a distinct flavor, most likely coming from the fact that it was a fully developed cheese rather than a curd.  This was a plus on the flavor.  There was however a serious knock against it in that being a full fledged cheese when melted too fast, it separated the oil from the body of the cheese.  This gave a look and texture of microwaved cheese.  While it didn't much affect the flavor, the presentation and mouth feel was quite off.

The breading was a bit thick, but was cooked thoroughly enough to no be doughy.  I would call it too much crunch, but everyone has different preference on crunch.

To give credit to the cooks, given this material to work with they did the best they could.  It was well prepared.

I almost feel bad giving this a rating as a cheese curd, because it really should be in a separate category of perhaps fried cheese, much like mozzarella sticks are, but they sell them as cheese curds, so I will have to grade them as cheese curds.


Even with the best efforts of the fry cooks, these "curds" cannot be given a score of higher than a 3, they just lacked too many of the things I would want in a curd.

Finally I would like to give a shout out to the crew that went to lunch and experimented in the Way of Curds today.  Thanks to Lindsey, Scott, Linda, Melinda and Melissa .

That's the Way of Curds today,
-Matt

Tom's Drive In

I ordered a large order of cheese curds at Tom's Drive In on CB in Neenah.  This is more along the lines of what I expect from a fast food restaurant, as in bland.

I'll start with the good:
The portion size was very good.  I ordered the large which was a bit more expensive I got quite a big load of curds.  The breading was cooked well, nice color and crunchiness.  The cheese was almost well melted, just a bit short.

Now the bad:
This is one of the first times I've ever had an order of fried cheese curds that I didn't want to finish.  The breading was overpoweringly bland.  Not just a taste of nothing bland, but a bland that sucks the flavor out of your mouth.  The cheese while having a decent texture lacked flavor as well.  When I peeled the breading off of a couple curds to get a gauge of what the actual curd tasted like I was still disappointed. This cheese doesn't provide much of a base.  I also tried the breading by itself, it tasted like flour and hot frying oil ( this is not a compliment).

Overall Score: 3 out of 10

I can't even imagine a dipping sauce that would save these.