Pine Knoll Supper Club Reviews

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After a drive through the countryside, we turned off I-94 at the Lake Mills exit and continued 3 miles north on Highway 89 to the Pine Knoll Supper Club. Recommended by friends, the sprawling restaurant sits on a rise in the middle of farm land.

We arrived shortly before our 7 p.m. dinner reservations on a Wednesday and were taken to a windowside table immediately.

From the two ground floor dining rooms, we climbed a combination of stairs and ramps to the sky terrace dining room, which sits under an A-frame room and offers a beautiful view of the rolling countryside through three picture-window walls. Curtains on the west side were drawn because the sun was low in the sky, but by the time we finished dinner, they had been opened.

We relaxed with a rum tonic and a vodka tonic ($1.35 each if ordered between 5 and 7 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday and Sunday, $1.75 otherwise). The well-made, cool drinks were welcome because it was warm, and no air conditioning seemed to be working in our dining room.

When our waitress, Irene, brought a basket of cellophane-wrapped breadsticks and crackers, I asked her about the room temperature. She agreed that it was warm and told her boss of the problem. Before long, air began to circulate.

Red cloths covered the tables, set with paper place mats, candles and the usual condiments. A massive free-standing fireplace dominated the center of the dining room (there's another fireplace downstairs), and four chandeliers added to the elegance. The restaurant can accomodate 450, with 76 in the sky terrace room.

The regular menu features several fish and seafood choices plus a selection of steaks. You can also get fried chicken, pork chops, ham, duck and hamburgers. There's a family-style Friday-night fish fry ($5.50, broiled or fried), and there are specials on four days a week.

Prices range from a high of $23.95 for chateaubriand to $3.50 for a ham sandwich with soup or salad on the "lite eaters" menu, available Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday (every day to children 10 and under).

Dinners come with a lazy susan of relishes, homemade soup of the day or tomato juice, tossed salad with choice of dressings, baked potato, hash browns or french fries, rolls and butter; coffee, tea or milk.

The eight appetizers range from shrimp cocktail to breaded green peppers.

The specials of the day were prime rib, liver and onions, and roast duck. I asked Irene how the duck ($8.95) and prime rib ($8.50) on the specials differed from those on the menu.

"Not at all. They're the same, except the price is reduced," she said. (On the menu, the duck is $11.25 and the prime rib, $13.50.) We chose those two specials.

With the relishes, my dining partner had another rum tonic ($1.75). The lazy susan contained crab apples, carrots and celery sticks, green and black olives, pickled peppers, pickle spears a bowl of cottage cheese, another of marinated vegetables (carrot, celery, etc.) and one of a shredded cheese flavored with chili powder and ground cumin surrounded with tortilla chips. All were tasty with the exception of the marinated vegetables, which seemed to have no seasoning.

Salads were composed entirely of crisp iceberg lettuce that was fresh and crunchy. The creamy Italian dressing was tasty, as was the blue cheese dressing (50 cents extra). A basket held three large room-temperature rolls, which were good.

Soups of the day included french onion and chicken noodle. Both were served hot in cups and were delicious. The onion soup was made with rich beef stock, sauteed onions and garnished with homemade croutons. The chicken noodle had a robust chicken stock filled with chunks of white meat of chicken, vegetables and noodles.

The half Long Island duckling was roasted so that the skin was crisp and the meat done yet moist and flavorful.

The cherry wine sauce, however, which was served in a small cup, seemed to be nothing more than canned, pitted sweet cherries in their own juice. The sauce was a good accompaniment to the duckling, but I did not detect that wine had been used in its preparation.

A serving of bland bread dressing accompanied the duck, as did some spectacular hash browns, which were crisp and crunchy on the outside, tender and flavorful on the inside.

The prime rib was an inch thick and prepared as specified: rare. It was served without the bone and with a minimum of fat. The meat was tender, juicy and full of flavor. The baked potato accompanying the beef was encased in foil and, as a result, a bit soggy.

The wine list was not exciting, so we split a half carafe of the house wine, Paul Masson burgundy ($3.95). It was served ice cold. Normally I would not prefer this, but considering the temperature inside the restaurant (the room never got comfortably cool), the coldness was welcome.

"Would you folks like coffee?", Irene asked as she approached our table. Without waiting for an answer she added, "Of course not, you're hot enough as it is." She was rightl

Desserts, most of which are homemade, were limited to grasshopper pie, strawberry schaum torte, strawberries on a cloud (a soft, egg-white torte), sundaes and sherbet.

They were out of strawberries on a cloud, so we ordered grasshopper pie ($1.50) and strawberry schaum torte ($1.50). The torte was a delicious meringue topped with vanilla ice cream and frozen strawberries. The only disappointment was that it was garnished with a commercial whipped topping instead of real whipped cream. Overall flavor was good and the size was immense.

Later, one of the owners said that they usually used real cream from a local dairy but sometimes ran out, substituting the commercial topping. He also said the strawberries were picked fresh locally, then frozen.

The grasshopper pie turned out to be rectangular instead of pie shaped. A chocolate cookie-crumb crust was topped with a light and fluffy filling flavored with creme de menthe. More of the crust crumbs garnished the top of the dessert as did whipped topping. The portion was quite large and the dessert, minus the topping, was tasty.

Cost of dinner was $30.82 including tax. Overall, food was good and service was excellent.

Owners of the restaurant, which is 18 years old, are Gerald and Jane Moldenhauer, Don and Jean Zimmermann and Jim Topel, the chef. Jane and Jean are twin sisters and have worked in other restaurants. Topel was the first chef at the restaurant, starting at age 18 after some instruction in food preparation at Madison Area Technical College. All live in Lake Mills.

There is easy access for the handicapped except up to the sky terrace dining room. Plenty of parking surrounds the restaurant.

As printed in Dining Out
Receiving three out of four stars!