5 Lakes Brew Pub (Byron Center, MI)

Designed in a lab to be as unappealing as possible

Spite can be a powerful motivator. For much of my life, it has driven me to actions great and small as I agitated against any number of slights, both petty and imagined. While I have grown out of this mindset to a large extent, some primitive atavistic part of my brain still clings to it, ready to unleash at just the right provocation.

There are certainly better catalysts than bad onion rings, but I find it comes out most often then. Hatred is no longer my only muse, and I think it is far better to be inspired by something good, true, and beautiful. All the same, the unfortunate reality is that most onion rings are mediocre in some way: overpriced, bland, or burnt. As such, it takes something truly heinous to raise my hackles and unleash the beast within. Today is one such instance.

Here is a review of onion rings from 5 Lakes Brew Pub in Byron Center, Michigan.

Presentation and Appearance: (1/5)

This plate feels like it was designed in a lab to be as unappealing as possible. The haphazard sprawl of food thrown into a messy heap. The staggering amount of cracked and broken onion rings. The plastic cup of a mysterious substance that the menu describes as “‘O'-sauce” perched precariously on the rim. It’s unappetizing, to say the least.

Of course, the onion rings themselves are obviously frozen, despite 5 Lakes claiming to cook their food from scratch. Indeed, I’m certain they are the same ubiquitous “Brew City” brand of frozen onion rings that infest this city like cockroaches, a choice as tasteless as it is uninspired.

Besides the cracked onion rings, the batter is relatively consistent in color and they seem to be more-or-less cooked the same. The vague specks of seasoning (probably just salt) on the “flash-fried” onion rings suggests that there may be a hint of flavor.

Taste: (0.5/5)

Frozen onion rings are universally bad, but there are certain things you can do to make them slightly more edible. Cook time, seasoning, and even the sauce pairing can sometimes breathe a small bit of life back into these flavorless husks.

Not so here. They are completely tasteless. The batter is bland and dry, any moisture they may have once had abandoned on the floor of a McCain Foodservice Solutions processing plant, with nothing but a thin film of grease providing even a hint of wetness. Being overcooked, the onion interior is just as flavorless, a limp strand of nothing.

Not even the ‘O’ Sauce, same Frankenstein-esque combination of the kind of Ranch dressing that comes from a plastic tub, food coloring, and a homeopathic dose of horseradish, can save these rings. The sauce is thick and goopy, an active impediment to its consumption even as it slides its way on top of the bone-dry onion rings, nothing more than a tool to shovel industrial grade slop into your mouth.

Texture: (1.5/5)

I suspect that restaurants who try to pass off this hideous concoction as legitimate food put all their chips in on the batter, figuring that if it’s crunchy enough nobody will notice or care. Overcooked frozen rings do tend to have a rigid batter consistently applied, but that is completely undermined by the thin, sloppy noodle of onion lurking just beneath the surface.

It oozes through the cracked rings and slides out of each and every bite in a stunning display of slippage, the crumbling edifice of the uniform batter collapsing before my very eyes. They are crunchy, but also dry and structurally unsound.

Value: (0/5)

This isn’t the first time I’ve paid around $10 for a mid-sized plate full of frozen and terrible onion rings, but this is the first time it wasn’t at a tourist trap on Mackinac Island. I am astonished that they have the audacity to charge $10 for this. It is a borderline scam, or at the very least a shocking sign of disrespect for any customer that walks through the doors of 5 Lakes Brew Pub.

Perhaps their business model relies on shoveling slop to whatever mall traffic from Tanger Outlets wanders through their doors. Perhaps they think that people will blindly accept their unhinged claims about “cooking from scratch” and providing “specially crafted appetizers.” Perhaps they simply don’t care about the food, or the people, that they serve.

Whatever the reason, these onion rings are an overpriced, tasteless disgrace that sicken me to my core, much like 5 Lakes Brew Pub.

Total: (3/20)