Todds Grill in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin

The family took a trip over Memorial Day weekend to Oconomowoc. My daughters, following in my footsteps, go to summer camp there and my husband graciously donates his time to repair the camp's guitars each summer before the campers get up there and destroy them again.

We generally eat breakfast and lunch at camp and eat dinner out. Oconomowoc is still small town, but is gaining a fair amount of restaurants. After scoping out the dining scene online, I chose Todd's Grill for our Saturday night dinner.

When you enter Todd's, you enter through the bar. At first I was not sure we would be happy dining there, since the bar was rather smoky and my kids can't stand the smell of smoke. Todd himself was behind the bar. Sensing our hesitation, he asked if we were coming for dinner and asked how many were in our party. We were seated in a booth in the corner of the bar. I later found out there was a non-smoking dining room, but never thought to ask.

Todd's serves American food, and they serve it well with very large portions. The kids wanted to start with an onion haystack, even though I was leaning towards the fried calamari. We indulged them and were glad we did -- the breading on the onions was very light and we all tore into it like we hadn't eaten in a month. My husband chose the house steak, I opted for pork schnitzel, my older daughter got a Todd's Burger and the little one, who is sometimes very hard to please, only wanted a taco salad with chicken. My husband and I received soup with our entrees. I ordered the french onion, which he felt compelled to order in self-defense.

As we were waiting for our food to arrive, the waitress brought out two enormous servings of prime rib for the booth in front of us, making us wish we had ordered that instead. Prime rib is Todd's Saturday special, but there was no price on the menu and I was distracted by the schnitzel. Beautifully pink and hanging off the edge of the plate, we agreed that we need to come back another Saturday and try it for ourselves.

Along with our soup we were served a small loaf of freshly baked bread. The kids demolished it in seconds and I got two bites worth. It was very good. The entrees arrived and everything got very quiet at our table for a while. My husband's steak was cooked to perfection and was served with garlic mashed potatoes and freshly cooked carrots, yellow squash and snow peas. I had three huge pieces of schnitzel, very lightly breaded with a fresh lemon flavor, and the same sides. The older daughter was happy with her enormous burger and fries. The taco salad with chicken was huge -- we told my younger daughter she couldn't eat it because it was bigger than her head (and everyone knows you should never eat anything bigger than your head). She managed to put a big dent in it before finally crying "uncle." We passed on dessert because the kids really wanted to go for frozen custard, but the desserts looked great.

Todd's Grill is not open on Sundays, but if you are in the area, it is definitely worth the stop. We'll be going back for lunch in a couple of weeks when I drop the girls off.

164 E. Wisconsin Avenue (Hwy 16)
Oconomowoc , WI 53066 (Next to City Hall)
Phone: (262) 567-6023
http://www.foodspot.com/todds/index.html

Suzy

Yesterday we dropped the girls off at camp and my husband and I used the trip up to Oconomowoc as an excuse to drop in at Todd's Grill for lunch. On the way we passed the Machine Shed and I mentioned to my husband that if he wanted a pork tenderloin sandwich for lunch, we should probably go there. Instead, he wanted to go back to Todd's since we had such a delicious dinner there last year in May.

When we walked in, there were only a couple of regulars at the bar and two booths of people enjoying their lunch. The waitress handed us the menus and mentioned that the special for the day was a fried pork tenderloin sandwich, so we both knew that was what we were meant to eat for lunch.

Todd's pork tenderloin sandwich came to the table with homemade chips and was garnished with lettuce and tomato on a non-descript bun. The sandwich was absolutely delicious -- no formed pork patty here, but an honest-to-goodness large piece of pork tenderloin that was lovingly battered and fried to perfection. Along with a cup of homemade soup, it was an excellent luncheon choice.

We finished our meal with some frozen custard at Kopp's in Brookfield. I just had a small cup of vanilla, and my husband chose a vanilla shake. It was almost enough to shake me out of my usual first-day-without-the-kids blues, from which I've already recovered.

Suzy