Peppermill Grill (Rockford, MI)

The ubiquity of onion ring offerings in restaurants across the land is among the many reasons I began Sola Cepa. It's almost impossible to exhaust all the onion ring locations in a single city, let alone a state, the nation, or the world. My quest, which same may call quixotic, can never end as long as I walk this Earth. It was this quest that brought me slightly out of Grand Rapids into dangerous and unexplored territories to the north.

Here's a review of onion rings from the Peppermill Grill in Rockford, Michigan.

Presentation and Appearance: 2.5/5

A shallow white bowl envelops a mound of reasonably golden brown onion rings. It's simple, but perhaps a bit bland. Generally speaking, presentation can afford to simple if the appearance of the rings themselves deliver. Unfortunately, these onion rings miss the mark.

The biggest offender by far is the excessive number of cracked, frayed, and pulverized onion rings mixed in with the complete ones. I suspect part of the problem is that the onions themselves are too thinly cut to maintain shape under frying and plating, or perhaps a lack of care and precision at any step in the process. They do, however, have a reasonably consistent coating of batter and a good color.

Taste: 2.5/5

The thin cut onions come home to roost on my first bite. On more than a handful of rings, the onion taste was bitterly weak. Others, however, were packed with flavor, rife with the sweet greasy juices that only the onion can deliver. In the latter case, the rings delivered solidly, but the inconsistency was its downfall.

The batter was unlike any I have ever tasted. It didn't seem to be seasoned all that well, beyond a brush or two of grease, but I couldn't shake the feeling that there was something else in the batter giving it a unique flavor. It may have been cornmeal, but it was certainly a non-standard addition, giving the batter, if not a "kick," at the very least a light, jovial slap on one's back to indicate its presence, in the manner of a long lost friend.

A massive plastic container of ranch accompanied the rings, far in excess of the consumption needs of even the most pale denizen of the Midwest, which may or may not be me. It was alright, nothing special, and mostly served to mask the lack of onion flavor in some of the weaker rings.

Texture: 3.5/5

Coating on an onion ring, whether breading or some kind of batter, is a tricky beast. The batter on these onion rings was unlike any I have ever encountered, in both taste and texture. The coating itself was thin, but it had a fiendish strength despite the lack of thickness, maintaining shape even under pressure.

It reminded me of a shell on some mythical onion ring crustacean, with enough density to survive, but if you really pushed at it, it would collapse. The shell-like batter was also unusually sticky, a strong potential contributor to its cohesion. Unfortunately, the strength of the batter resulted in a good deal of slippage from the onions within.

The onions, unfortunately, did not match up to the mystique of the batter. As mentioned above, inconsistency ruled the day. They ran the gamut from mushy and juicy to a dried out husk.

Value: 3.5/5

The bowl of onion rings was pretty full and fairly filling, at a reasonable $2.95. The cracked rings, and the weak onions, make these onion rings slightly less of a great value.

Total: 12/20