Review of Red Apple Restaurant in Portage, WI.

I took the family to the Mackenzie Center in Poynette this past weekend and invited my mom to come along with us. She insisted on buying us lunch and, not wanting to spend more money than she could afford, I looked for something reasonably priced and close to where we were.

I had never eaten at the Red Apple Restaurant before and wasn't really sure what to expect from it. However, it looked like a good fit so we wound up going there. As it turns out, it ended up being a great choice.

First of all, I was very impressed with how reasonable the prices were at this restaurant. For example, I ended up ordering a mushroom burger. It came with soup and fries and was just $7.99, which is actually pretty comparable to the average value menu price at our local McDonald's (minus the soup). My wife's liver and onions was just $8.49 including salad and mashed potatoes.

The portion sizes were also surprisingly large. I couldn't even make it halfway through my burger and wound up taking it home for a second meal. In fact, everyone of us ended up taking home leftovers. This, of course, only added to the overall value because we were getting two meals for the price of one.

As far as quality goes, I had no complaints. I thought everything on my plate had a great taste to it, especially the chicken & dumpling soup, which usually winds up being too salty but, this time around, had a pleasant flavor to it. Even my kids seemed to agree about the food tasting good. They are normally kind of picky and this was one of the few times they actually ate their food without us constantly nagging them to at least eat our money's worth.

I'm also going to give the restaurant a "thumb's up" when it comes to service. Our server was very friendly, knew the menu and gave us the right amount of attention (she was there when we needed her but not constantly hovering over us). Since this is normally something I tend to complain about with other restaurants, it's something I definitely appreciated.

Final Opinion: The restaurant, in all honesty, looks kind of plain from the outside and their web site leaves a little something to be desired. But, it ended up being a pleasant and relatively affordable dining experience for the family. I have every intention of stopping by here again the next time we are in that area.

My Grade: A