The Problem with Onion Rings Went to
Merichka’s yesterday, and had a good time, though little of that good time had much to do with the food. I’m going to post more photos, but I want to focus first on a bigger issue: The Problem with Onion Rings.
I can’t remember the last time we ordered onion rings, though I have had them in family groups, maybe on top of a steak somewhere, etc., but sitting down at Merichka’s red-white checkerboard table-vinyl, it seemed like the right place and time to revisit this “classic” (a designation that may or may not be deserved). So, with a pint of Pipeworks’ Ninja vs. Unicorn in hand, the pairing was in place and we took the plunge.
We were hungry, so I knocked back a ring or two before grasping the full mediocrity of these onion rings. The menu says they’re “fabulous” and that food is “prepared to order,” but neither descriptor applied. However, our server, who could not have been sweeter, told us that the onions were cut and breaded in-house, which I believe was true.
But the bigger issue here is The Problem with Onion Rings, all onion rings. Nowhere, not at Merichka’s, not anywhere I’ve been in the past half-century or so, have the onion rings been anything more than middling okay. A big reason for the consistently subpar satisfactions of this “appetizer” is that there’s usually an imbalance between onion and breading, too little of the former and too much of the latter. To balance the fried exterior, you’re probably going to need more than a single onion circle inside, and with most rings, one onion circle is all you get. At Merichka’s, many of the rings on our pile were composed not of the meatier inner rings but of the papery – and flavor-deficient – outer rings. Could it be that they use the inner circles for the griddled onions they put on the sandwiches, relegating the outer circles to be breaded and fried as onion rings?
It may be, as Carolyn suggested, very difficult to portion out 2-3 rings per breaded onion ring, and if that’s the case, I’d recommend a more acidic onion or, if for some reason that’s not possible, an eternal moratorium on the onion ring as a foodstuff.
Our onion rings had also done some time in the holding pen; exteriors were flaking off, and they were warm but in no way fresh from the fryer. I get why this happens. On Father’s Day during Sunday Supper, they’re serving a lot of us, so they have to work ahead. I get it, but I don’t like it. I should have told our server that I’d be glad to wait until I could get them right out of the fryer.
I am actually (somewhat) inspired to make my own onion rings, using more astringent white onions and a tempura preparation. I’m not giving up on onion rings, but I can’t imagine ordering them again.
"Don't you ever underestimate the power of a female." Bootsy Collins