FFC Week 1 Review--Moracco Supper Club


We started off our 6th year FFC at a place that I had heard a lot about and had dined at years & years ago... the Moracco Supper Club in Dubuque.  

In my opinion, the only area in the Moracco Supper Club that reminds me of a classic supper club was the bar area.  Right as you come in to the Moracco there is a large bar area with plenty of seats, except if you get there at their busy time, you will more than likely have to stand to wait for your table. 

I had made a reservation for 4 adults & a baby. Our good friends (and neighbors) joined us for our first review of the season! We had to wait about 7-10 minutes for our table to be ready, and when we were seated I was delighted to see that they set us a table that could seat 6, which meant plenty of room for the baby carseat.  

After we were seated at our table, we waited quite a while for a server to stop at our table and take our drink order, as well as notice that we did not have menus.  A little while later our server brought our drinks & menus.  We again waited, maybe 10 minutes, for our server to come back and take our orders.  Our very nice & polite server took our orders.  I order the Friday Special--Cod Fish dinner for $15.95.  The dinner included a choice of French Fries, Hash Browns, Baked Potato, Wild Rice or a Vegetable, Soup or Salad .  I chose to have the baked cod (extra tartar sauce) while Jeremy chose 1/2 baked & 1/2 fried.  For my sides, I chose a side salad with french dressing and a baked potato.  At your table, they also bring you a small loaf of bread (w/ butter), crackers and a cheese spread. 

The bread was very good.  It had a little bit of a sweetness to it, with grains, as well as a hint of honey, I think, that brought out the sweetness. Paired with the whipped butter, it was really delicious.  The cheese spread was, well, very spreadable! Which made it really easy to spread on the crackers and very tasty.  

Our salads came in a decent amount of time, but good thing we had bread & crackers on the table because the salad was super small and lacked toppings.  It was a spring salad lettuce mix with slivers of carrots.  Your dressing choice on the side. That's it.  Now some of you are probably thinking, 'way to be picky' but I guess I just hope for a little more on my salad, like cheese, or croutons. 

Our dinners came our relatively soon after, and I received four cod pieces with a light sprinkle of what I believe was paprika, and only one tartar sauce.  My baked potato came with a packet of sour cream on the side.  Our server did remember that I had asked for extra tartar sauce and said she'd bring it out, which she did a few minutes later.  I cut right in to my fish, (almost forgot to take a picture!), and took a bite, minus the tartar sauce. The baked fish was moist and had a subtle flavor to it.  I then took a bite of cod with the tartar sauce and it was a perfect match!  The tartar sauce paired very well with fish.  The tartar sauce was absolutely perfect, at least perfect to my standards for tartar sauce. It was thick with just the right amount of relish. Yum! 

Even though I planned to take the baked potato home (I knew I would be too full) I took a bite of the baked potato just to check it out and it was cooked perfectly.  As Jeremy had ordered the fried cod, I took a quick bite to taste test it...and...it was not my favorite. It didn't have much flavor and had more batter on it than I typically like. 

At the end of the night I was very surprised we were not asked the final question of the night--"any room for dessert?".  We were just given our bill, which we had to get split because our server didn't ask if we needed to be on separate bills.  

Overall comments/rating: the bread and cheese spread was really tasty, and I really liked the french dressing.  The fish was good, but the tartar sauce was even better!

Some of the downsides:  for being a "supper club", the only area that reminded me of a supper club was the bar area.  And the salad was not really a 'salad' and more of plate of lettuce. The service was not terrible, but they were not overly attentive. 

The price of $15.95 for a fish dinner seemed high even before we made a reservation, and after experiencing the dinner, I would say it seems high for what you get, especially when supper club's seem to have more reasonably priced fish dinners. 

Overall rating: 7 out of 10.  Fish was good and the tartar sauce was awesome!!  The choice of sides did not wow us, especially for the price. 

Would I go here again for fish? Yes, but it wouldn't be at the top of my list. 




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