Fireside, Rhinelander

Last night we ate dinner at the Fireside:
http://www.firesidesupperclub.com/

We have not gone here in over a year, due to being unhappy with the service & food. It was a culmination of a couple years bad service & food, including a "bad tail" (lobster), that put Kevin off lobster entirely for almost 2 years (his favorite food!). Anyway, the Fireside has a habit of seating you at the bar first, then offering you a menu at the bar, and continuing to keep you at the bar until you've ordered, and they've placed your salad at your table. This really bugs me. I go out to eat to sit at a TABLE and eat a nice meal, not sit uncomfortably at the bar, eyeing all the empty tables wondering why I have to order from the bar.

Anyway...So we gave it another shot last night. 1st of all, they did seat us at the bar while a table became available, which is perfect accepetable. 10 minutes later the hostess came to us letting us know our table was ready, but handing us menus asking if we'd like to take a look. We were quite adamant that no, we'll go sit down. Weird.

We ordered as an appetizer the "Brewhouse Combo" which is basically a little bit of all the deepfried appetizers they have (that is ALL they have..deepfried appetizes...) It was okay.

I ordered the southwest tilapia, which was tilapia encrusted with tortilla chips and served with salsa. It was alright. You also get a nice salad, AND soup, along with a starch side. I got the twice baked potato, which was yummy. My friend Jennifer got a filet with scallops. She said the scallops were good. The filet was okay, but she was just happy to have not had to make dinner herself! Kevin also got the filet and it was dreadful. He asked for medium to medium rare...and it came practically well done. I tried a bite, and almost spit it out it tased so horrible. He ate "some" of it. His fries were good.

Our server was good, but the wait in between our salad & soup was about a half hour, and then again for our entree. I am all for a leisurly meal, but this was out of control. I think we were there over 2 hours.

We wont be going back, and I do not recommend this at all. Ever.