Dining out: Wally's in the Dells a super-duper supper club

By Michael Muckian
Special to The Capital Times
7/21/2007

WISCONSIN DELLS -- As we turned a corner recently in the Wisconsin Dells, I noticed for the first time a plaque commemorating the site of Fort Dells, a former area attraction originally patterned after Disneyland's "Frontierland." Fort Dells opened in 1959 with a guest appearance by actor Hugh O'Brien, TV's "Wyatt Earp," finally closing in 1985 as tastes in family entertainment began to change.

My mother still has a black-and-white snapshot of a much younger me posing with an American Indian dancer who then was performing at Fort Dells, circa 1963. That was a long time ago, and the Dells has since changed dramatically as a vacation destination.

There's no plaque commemorating Wally's House of Embers, which opened a few blocks from Fort Dells, also in 1959. That's because unlike many other historic Dells attractions, Wally's is still filling its dining rooms with tourists and locals. The restaurant's energetic pace doesn't show signs of slowing under Mark and Mike Obois, who, along with sister Debbie Christensen, bought the restaurant from parents Wally and Barbara Obois in 1998.

Wally's may best be described as an old-fashioned supper club, a description that doesn't quite do justice to the fact that both Obois offspring are graduates of the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y. Many of the dishes on the menu stem from the days when Wally and Barbara ran the show. (They still help out on a part-time basis.) An equal number show signs of a more contemporary influence.

We'd long touted Wally's to family and friends and were forced to make good on our boast recently. Based on our friends' experience, we remained in their good graces, and Wally's remained in ours.

In a tradition that must be unique to Wisconsin, our bread basket arrived filled with mini-cinnamon rolls made from Barbara's recipe, a concession to the "eat dessert first" crowd but one that somehow we all managed to enjoy. There was other bread as well (or so I was told).

One house salad and three spinach salads with hot maple-pecan dressing formed our first course. There were no complaints about the house salad, a good selection of fresh vegetables and lettuce. The spinach salads, on the other head, proved a great deal more interesting. The sweet maple dressing was seasoned with a dose of cayenne pepper, which added an unexpected zest to the salad course.

Wally's specializes in ribs dry-rubbed with spices, then smoked in its own smoker and slathered in a sauce developed when the restaurant first opened. The nine-bone half-rack ($21.99, $26.99 for a full rack) was lean and meaty, the sauce fully flavored but without the cloying familiarity of bottled BBQ. The ribs came with one of several orders of Potatoes Dauphinois, a crusty, baked presentation of sliced potatoes layered with Gruyere cheese and butter that was meltingly rich.

An even better dish may have been the Coconut Shrimp ($24.99). Five large crustaceans, each perched on its own wooden skewers, had been dipped in a mix of bread crumbs and shredded coconut prior to deep-frying, resulting in a seafood of succulent sweetness. The skewers, in turn, thrust up out of a grilled half-inch slice of fresh pineapple that served both as pedestal and accompaniment.

The Shrimp de Jonghe ($19.99) presented smaller versions of the little gulf swimmers in a rich garlic and butter sauce laced with spices and herbs, then baked with bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese. Our lighter eater chose Mediterranean Linguine ($11.99; $3.99 extra for chicken, $6.99 extra for shrimp). The noodles were topped with kalamata olives, fresh tomatoes, basil garlic and olive oil, all of which combined into a wonderful garden of fresh flavors.

The table shared a dessert, a chilled lemon pie ($6.29) that was fresh and cooling. The dessert was more than enough for us, settling our stomachs and topping what thus far has been one of this year's best meals.

Michael Muckian
Special to The Capital Times — 7/21/2007 8:58 am