Five stars for their pork fritter sandwiches, which is really all I am reviewing.
Basics: a barn-like room with molded plastic benches, a nearly empty ice cream novelties case, and a menu that includes sandwich meal combos, pop, soft serve cones and dishes, and Blizzards. They don't take debit or credit cards. It's perfectly pleasant to sit at a table, but I would really recommend take-out if you want to wander down by the river for some park-like ambiance.
And now.... drum roll.... the Charles City Dairy Queen's Iowa Pork Fritter Sandwich.
The Iowa Pork Fritter is a food that I have only just begun to experience, and I freely admit that I would gladly do my research, tasting pork fritters in all their individual/county/city/home kitchen variations throughout all of the majestic state of Iowa until I was quite unable to move around without a stout walker and one of those portable oxygen rigs you see old people with. They are that addictive.
A pork fritter is in spirit a bit like a Weiner schnitzel. Indeed, given the vast number of German (Austrian, Prussian, Bavarian) immigrants that came here in the 19th century, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the modern pork fritter didn't start as a Weiner schnitzel that some homesick Austrian farm wife whiped up and plopped on a bun.
To fashion a fritter, a piece of pork (chop? shoulder? no idea - must find out) is flattened into a roughly circular fritter shape about 1/4" thick, dredged in a coating (flour? egg wash first? crumbs? I don't know) and then deep fried. It can't take long to fry, so that the result is moist pork goodness inside a crispy golden crust.
At the CC DQ, you can order your sandwich with "everything" or spend an extra $.70 for "veggies." "Everything" gets you a splurt of mustard, a splort of ketchup, 3 or 4 pickle rounds, and a little onion. "Veggies" adds tomato slices and, I think, more generous slices of onion.
I prefer "everything," others want "veggies," it's all good. What really matters is the perfect pork fritter inside a bun with more substance than a hamburger bun, the tang of pickle and mustard and the slight sweet of ketchup, and the delicate snap of the onion, all forming a perfect sandwich harmony.
At the CC DQ, the edge of each fritter is a crunchier ring of deep fried breading, yielding to the vast interior portion of moist, flavorful pork with its less crunchy exterior. Every bite is serious perfection - an amazingly harmonious combination of crisp, moist, meaty, soft, tangy, sweet, and crunchy.
As for price... I ordered thinking I'd have to whip out $3.99 for my sandwich, but it's cheaper than that. $3.99 gets you a combo meal. I believe the fritter sandwich alone is $2.99 - although that recollection might be a pork-induced hallucination. (I wasn't buying.) In any event, a pork fritter sandwich at the Charles City Dairy Queen will cost you UNDER four bucks, and will put a smile on your face that will persist through snarky family arguments, raspberry beetles dive-bombing into your beer, and sunburn, all calamities that befell me during this last visit to Charles City. Fortified as I was by deep fried pork, I was invincible. If you get a fritter at the CC DQ, you will be too. read more
