Forest Lake Restaurant — Restaurant in Grand Rapids

Forest Lakes makes a great local spot to get lunch. The parking lot has a tendency to overflow onto the surrounding roads and the lake parking area, which is a testament to the consistency of the food here. My first visit had me try the Raspberry Wonton Shrimp Salad, of which I can only pine for the dressing to come on the side. The shrimp were placed in a separate container "to avoid wilting the salad" which is a legitimate concern, and allowed for one to easily cut them to a size capable of mixing with the salad for fork friendliness, but I did sneak one while I was chopping them and it was an excellent flat coconut-fried shrimp. For some reason though the dressing is not given the same potential-salad-ruining consideration by default, and is not provided in a ramekin, but rather overly applied to the main part of the salad. After mixing in the diner-cut shrimp, the salad was still dripping and the raspberry sauce overpowers everything. There is an easy solution to that though, one just has to know to ask for dressing on the side. It was a good salad, just overpowered. I also had the famed chicken wild rice soup, and it was delectable. One only has to drive around Grand Rapids once to know the popularity of the wild rice in the region, and this soup was a good representation. My brief time in Grand Rapids also overlapped with Saint Patrick's Day, and after the Pickled Loon proved to be too busy for a takeout order (advertising an Irish-American-style poutine that caught my interest), Forest Lakes was able to provide their holiday special for take out. I had the fake American corned beef with: cabbage, stewed carrots, and boiled potatoes. This dish was nothing to write home about, not uniquely good in any way, and therefore perfect for a representative of Irish-American immigrant food. Every meal came with a roll or breadstick and single serving containers of real butter, rather than margarine. If you are looking for anything well spiced, get over that expectation and welcome to Minnesota, otherwise I will say they make the flavours come alive with adequate butter usage and hometown flair. Actual rating is about 3.5, not 4, but limitations on google...

My husband and I went to Forest Lake for breakfast to kick off break. We both ordered biscuits and gravy with hash browns. The biscuits came out and they were luke warm. I don't like sending things back so I kept eating. I kept eating until I took a bite and it was ice cold. I finally sent it back and the waitress just put it in the microwave.. which is fine and it was good. My husband started eating his and his was cold too. At that point we didn't want to complain anymore so he just ate it. Once I started eating my hash browns I found out that they only cooked the top and the rest was uncooked and cold. I tried to add ketchup to it but there was no helping it. I didn't even send it back at that point. I was just over it all. The waitress ended up taking her hash browns off of the order which was great. But overall it was just a bad food experience and I don't think we will be going back. The past few times we went there to eat we were not pleased. We were so disappointed because we never treat ourselves and go out to eat it. We did tip our waitress good because she did everything she could and it wasn't her fault. This was not worth...

We had decent service but the rest of the experience was very unpleasant. Our silverware was filthy. The appetizer we ordered was supposed to be breaded cauliflower, cheese curds and onions rings. The cheese curds tasted good, however there was some thing we thought was possibly an onion ring but when my husband split it open we weren't sure what it was, it stunk and had black and brown stuff inside. The breaded cauliflower wasn't cooked all the way either because there was raw batter when I bit into it. We had both ordered a burger as our meal. The bottom toasted bread of my frisco burger (the special that day) was soaked in pickle juice and grease and the burger tasted like grease, the piece of lettuce garnishing my plate has a big brown spot. My husband's California Burger's bottom bun was so soaked in grease he couldn't even pick it up without it falling apart. He didn't eat any of his meal because he said after the appetizer being gross and the bun being soaked in grease he was no longer hungry. We'd heard good things about this place but after our experience I'm in no hurry to...