Sola Cepa is Moving to Substack

 As of today, Sola Cepa is now officially on Substack. I'm not entirely sure what to do with this, but for the time being, I'm leaving it up as an archive. All new posts will be on Substack. Please subscribe and I'll see you there: 

Atwater Brewery (Grand Rapids, MI)

The dramatic shifts in downtown environments brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the trends that have persisted some three years past its inception, have had a marked impact on commercial real estate. There are so many restaurants, pubs, and bars that survive not by the quality of their offerings, but their relative proximity to people desperate for anything moderately quick and moderately hot. 

The Grand Rapids location of Atwater Brewery, a one-time staple of the Detroit craft beer scene that was acquired by Molson Coors in 2020, is one such instance. It's not a place I would ever make a deliberate trip for, and for good reason: it is middling in every sense of the word, one or two decent beers notwithstanding. 

And yet, when attending Acton University 2023 just across the street at DeVos Place, and beset by out-of-town friends insistent on checking out Beer City USA, it was the perfect locale. Also, they had onion rings. Thank you to Aaron and David for joining me. 

Here is a review of onion rings from the Grand Rapids location of Atwater Brewery. 

Presentation and Appearance: (2.5/5)

This side order of onion rings comes on a flat metal tray with the requisite wax paper bedding. Tucked between a moderately sized mound of onion rings is a plastic cup of ranch. Though the quasi-industrial presentation may be an intentional callback to the original home of Atwater, I kind of doubt it. 

By eyesight alone, one can see these are almost certainly the same frozen Brew City brand dreck of onion rings that proliferate among breweries, bars, and brewpubs alike throughout this once great land. The mostly uniform coating is the key giveaway, with the only variation coming from cracked rings brought about in their preparation. 

Taste: (1/5)

There is almost nothing I have left to say about this particular variety of frozen onion rings. They are, for the most part, hollow and tasteless, much like this subsidiary of Molson Coors masquerading as a genuine craft brewery. The miniscule circles of onion that make up the body of the ring technically have a taste, but it is so minute you would be forgiven for forgetting about it entirely. 

The breading is worse. Even the requisite grease and salt seems to drip off of the onion rings into the void, a memory of something long lost and almost forgotten. Even the ranch, so often the savior of bland onion rings, is nothing. A thin, watery gruel that mocks me as I eat it. 

Texture: (1.5/5)

Like the taste, the texture of these onion rings is a cruel imitation of what an onion ring ought to be, but the faux-facsimile is slightly more believable here. The breading, slightly overcooked, does have a slight crunch. The onions, on the other hand, are thin, wet, and stringy, having taken the brunt of the heat from the fryer. 

Slippage was rampant with these rings, and the key culprit was the overwhelming void betwixt onion and breading. Most of the volume of these onion rings is in the air between an underwhelming interior and a deceptive exterior: an apt metaphor for the state of the brewery. 

Value: (2/5)

The side order of onion rings cost $5, and the most charitable interpretation I can make of that is that it isn't as much of a gouge as it could be. Are they frozen? Yes. Are they tasteless and overcooked? Yes. Is there a moderately filling quantity that doesn't make me hate my life after paying for it? Yes. 

Total: (7/20)

Wing Doozy (Wyoming, MI)

The notion of value is at the heart of Sola Cepa. While it is merely one category of four in the ultimate rankings, I would argue it is the most crucial to evaluating a restaurant. If the onion rings from such hall of fame restaurants as Saucy Dog's Barbecue or Uchiko cost $20 a pop, there's no way they could possibly be worth it.

This does present some difficulty in reviewing, particularly at restaurants which offer onion rings solely or primarily as a side to some other dish. Wing Doozy is one such restaurant. In 2017, I ate lunch there with some colleagues and took copious notes on the onion rings, but wasn't able to write a review. Why? Because I ordered the onion rings as part of the combo, I wasn't able to accurately assess the value of the onion rings.

As a committed reviewer of all things allium, I was forced to revisit Wing Doozy many years after the fact, yielding the following review. 

Presentation and Appearance: (3.5/5)

The onion rings are very clearly freshly made and hand battered, radiating heat and comfort. Handmade onion rings are often concomitant with gaps in the battering, which is slightly present here. There are four onion rings of mostly consistent size, with one smaller outlier.

The color is golden brown with a few spare knobs of burnt and slightly blackened bits of batter. They arrive served in a black plastic basket with the requisite wax paper lining, simple yet effective. More importantly, it is consistent with the ethos of Wing Doozy: unpretentious and utilitarian.

Taste: (3.5/5)

The batter is soft, bordering on creamy, with the characteristic quasi-buttery smoothness of hot, fresh batter. They manage to avoid a deluge of grease, the buttery batter melding with the taste of the juicy onion. The seasoning is well balanced: salted, but not to an extreme, with a hint of peppery bark.

The batter is a little overpowering compared to the onion taste, almost hidden and muted in the presence of its power. In a rarity, one of the onion rings has a doubled onion center, which I commonly find in frozen rings but almost never find in the hand-dipped varietal.

Texture: (2.5/5)

The batter remains the star of these onion rings with its textural heights. It is both soft and ever-so-slightly crispy. The onions err a little towards hard compared to soft, but the juices mesh well with the batter.

The batter is a little hard, with hints of shedding overcoming its natural cohesion. I'm reminded almost like a smooth leather, or a turtle's egg, as these onion rings seem vaguely natural rather than artificial or machine-made.

Value: (3/5)

These onion rings are priced at the somewhat standard premium price point of $1 per ring. I don't think they quite rise to that level, but they're certainly a step above the bland, mass-produced morass that makes up much of the onion ring offerings of the world. There's a somewhat diminished onion taste present in these rings, and they're certainly missing the potential enhancements from a quality dip, but these are an ample side option.

Total: (12.5/20)