Culver's Restaurant - Appleton East

This place has the best fast food burgers in the state of Wisconsin. The butter burgers are juicy and full of flavor and loaded with veggies. My personal favorite is the double butter burger with cheese (you can also get jumbo and deluxe burgers).

A better brand of beef makes a butter burger better. Why do they call them butterburgers? Because they lightly coat the inside of the bun with butter.

Culver's also has a large menu featuring a Wisconsin melt, a Philly sandwich, various fish and shrimp plates, jumbo sized salads (including their wonderful cashew chicken salad and their healthy and filing garden fresco salad, which is what I get with my double butterburger)

But Culver's is known for the custard which they make right there in the restaurant, and for their on tap root beer which is brewed right there as well. They feature a custard flavor of the day, as well as chocolate and vanilla.

No trip to the Fox Valley is complete without a meal at Culver's! This place gets my vote as the best fast food restaurant in Appleton.

Tom's Drive In

Jeanne and I ate here today after church (October 15th). We had heard that this place was serving some of the tastiest burgers in the Fox Valley. I ordered the Tominator (which is equivalent to a Whopper from Burger King. It was a good burger, ( a big burger), but the meat could have used a little more seasoning.

I also had a very nice side salad and a diet coke. The inside of the place definitely caters to the kids, with the Halloween decorations and the free pieces of candy available on the cashier counter top.

This place also has an enormous menu, especially for a fast food joint. You can get shrimp baskets and haddock baskets and all different sizes and types of burgers (including a veggie burger). The dessert menu, with it's various floats and malts and sundaes and ice creams is overwhelming.

I will have to try more menu items before I hand down a final verdict. I liked my hamburger, but not as much as a Culver's Double Butter Burger with cheese or a Big Mac or a Whopper or especially not a Red Robin Blue Ribbon Burger.

But I will have to go back and try a Works Burger and a Big Tom (the equivalent of a Big Mac).

Victoria's Restaurant - Grand Chute, WI - College Avenue

My wife and I love the Victoria's restaurant in downtown Appleton. They have the best Italian food I've ever had, and the portions are humongous. You can eat three meals off of one entree! Plus, the salads are fresh and lush, and the garlic bread is buttery and flavorful. The menu is one of the most large and detailed menus I have ever read.

So we decided to try the Victoria's by highway 41. This franchise has a salad and soup bar, and we were quite pleased with both. The minestrone soup is to die for (figuratively speaking)! I ordered the classic linguini with meat sauce (they have the tasty and tangy meat sauce simmering all day in a pot), and it was the best I have had in ages! My wife had a seafood salad that was really nice.

One thing we noticed is that the portion sizes were noticeaby smaller at this Victoria's. I don't know if it is because of what we ordered or if they are deliberately trying to cut back at this Victoria's. Having said that, I still enjoyed two feedings off of my entree. It's just that compared to the enormous portios of the past, it was something of a surprise to get a more normal sized plate of food.

But it was delicious, and the southern waitress we had was very friendly and attentive. We will be back! But I will probably go back to the downtown one first to see if the portions are still huge.

Applebee's Restaurant - Darboy, Wisconsin

I love Applebee's restaurant. I especially like the Riblets, the honey glazed salmon, the grilled Teriyaki bowl, the pasta Jambalaya, and the orange chicken bowl (can you tell that I like to eat :). We even celebrated my wife's birthdday at this Applebees earlier in the year.

But the last Friday of September 2006 was an off-night for this East Appleton Applebees franchise. Even though the restaurant was fairly empty, the hostess tried to seat us in the bar. Then it took almost 15 minutes for a waitress (a trainee) to come and bring us water. She promised to bring us coffee, but she forgot. It's not like the staff was terribly busy, as we saw a number of red shirted staff just hanging out and talking with each other.

After a while, a more seasoned waitress apologized for the bad service, and she gave me a salad and the coffee on the house. The manager seemed deeply embarrassed when he came to our table and asked how we were doing, and I told him that it was an off-night.

Anyone can have a bad night, and so I'm not going to write this restaurant off. I'll eat at this particular Applebees again. But I sincerely hope that they will resolve any service or staffing issues.