White Lake Inn

Tried to recover the night at the nearby White Lake Inn after the Magic Stick in Detroit fucked me over earlier today with their time strife and pizza.  I had a JB Dollar Stretcher coupon I'd bought where you get $40 of food (no drinks included) for $20.  NOW I need something to help me forget the food at the White Lake Inn.  *Sigh*  It's not been a very exciting or satisfying night tonight at all.

So I ordered the fried walleye.  Opted for the french onion soup ($1.50 extra) and rice.  The meal came with a (frozen?) vegetable mix of broccoli, squash, green beans and strips of red pepper, a wedge of lemon and tartar sauce in a Solo cup.  The BF ordered the NY Strip with a Caesar salad ($1.50 extra) and fries.  He got the same seasonal vegetables.  You CAN get a baked potato as a side option with these meals, but ONLY after 4pm per the menu (strange).  

The french onion soup came with some nice melted cheese on the top, but it was SUPER INCREDIBLY SALTY.  After I consumed the cheese, it became intolerable to finish off without that cheesy buffer.  Apparently ALL the salt and seasoning that existed in the White Lake Inn kitchen tonight went into the french onion soup since everything else on our plates was shorted and required salting.  I personally observed my BF salt his steak TWICE.  He always orders his steak rare (such a sexy carnivore) and it did not come out to his particular liking...more like a medium rare.  He said he's had $10 sirloins on special at Outback that tasted better.  And salad, too.  Caesar's are his go-to and the one he got at the WLI was actually pretty sizable, but still lacking.  I had to salt, pepper, lemonize and tartar-up my walleye despite the fact that it was actually cooked pretty nicely.  The white rice I got with it was pretty disgusting.  It was wet, sticky and had no seasoning whatsoever.  It also seemed like it was just slapped down on the plate, vs. nicely mounded, which made it look pretty unappetizing, too.  We actually took doggy bags home of all the leftover rice, veggies and fries (bland and possibly the battered kind per my taste test) for our ACTUAL DOGS.

We rarely eat dessert, but in order to meet our $40 non-alcoholic quota, we ordered the chocolate cake covered w/ ice cream and caramel sauce thingie ($4.99).  The only other dessert option that I saw on the menu was cheesecake.  If you feel possessed to do as we did, I would ask your server to have the kitchen double the ice cream and just  throw the pre-fab (frozen?) cake part into the trash can.  We left 80% of the cake portion of our dessert on the plate.

Outside of that we ordered 3 Summer Shandy's (on tap), which came with a slice of lemon placed on the edge of the plastic frat cup.  No real glasses here to the BF's disappointment.  Also had a Sierra Nevada (on tap).  Total bill was almost $60.00, and after the coupon was applied, the receipt reflected almost $20.00.  It was truly about a $20.00 meal in actual taste and worth WITHOUT any discounts.  In the end, we really paid out $40 plus tip in the back and front end.

Our server, a tall blond, was nice and did her job well.  The food came out in due time.  The dance floor was empty on a Thursday night.  Although they have a weird fixed prop of a big boat wheel on one end of the dance floor.  It's an obtrusive-looking thing and seems to serve no relevant purpose.  It was dark, rainy and a cool summer night outside so the deck part was not being utilized.  Those in attendance clearly seemed to be locals.

All in all, I still would not order higher priced food here.  After 3 visits so far, this is definitely a cheap food, drinking, sports/water watching (and possibly dancing) type of place.  If you stick to that directive, you wouldn't have TOTALLY pissed your money away here.

Great place to people watch, awesome view of the lake. Food is average. Good beer specials! I'll be hanging out a bit more there this summer.

I don't know why all the negatives!!!!
We thought the food was really good!  My salad was large and had everything on it that  I would have expected it to have.  My mother-in-laws club sandwich looked delicous, my husband's roast beef sandwich was decicious, and the burger was excellent.
We love taking our out of town guests, here.  It's a awesome place to sit, have a drink, watch the boaters, and look at the lake!!