Thursday, June 18, 2009

Des Moines's Best Onion Rings

Each year Cityview (a free local publication) puts together a list of the metro's best everything (from restaurants to minigolf). The readers vote, and an issue in February releases the results.

Cityview's Best of Issue:
http://www.dmcityview.com/best_of/index.shtml

We were interested in the restaurant results because we hadn't heard of most of them. Our favorite asian restaurant won "runner-up" for best Vietnamese, and that was pretty much the only one we had been to. A West Des Moines restaurant called Maxie's Lounge won best onion rings and runner-up in several categories including best hamburger and best overall restaurant. So, we thought we'd give Maxie's a try.

From the categories that Maxie's won in, I was expecting a diner. But it was a nice sit down restuarant with a full bar. The night that we went was all you can eat spaghetti night. Rob had the spaghetti that came with a salad and some bread for $5.99. I had a hamburger and the infamous onion rings which goes for 7.99. These were some of the least expensive things on the menu. They had a wide range of dishes including steak, ribs, and lobster. Overall the food was good, but not great. The service was friendly, though a bit slow (they were busy because of the spaghetti supper). We will definitely go back again to try more items from their menu.

But, on the matter of the onion rings, I must flat out disagree. The onion rings from Cheddars are far better. The onion rings at Maxie's are pretty good. They very thinly cut strips of battered onion. They were so thin, though, that they were difficult to eat and needed to be scooped up in handfulls.

Our next stop for onion rings--The Drake Diner (they were runner-up).

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