Eating Milwaukee: Our challenge: Eating Milwaukee Eats Local

About Our Methods

At Eating Milwaukee, we try our best to adhere to the ad-hoc Food Blog Code of Ethics, which is itself a version of the very official and very serious (no laughing!) Association of Food Journalists Food Critics' Guidlines. We're very proud of our strong reputation as a fair and honest restaurant-based food blog.

We review restaurants based on a few basic ground rules:

1) No chains.

We will not review chains. We eat at chains, we even like some chains, but we won't review them. Multiple locations of the same small business don't count.

2) Smaller is better.

We like dives. We like clean dives even more.

3) Culture rules.

There is no cuisine that is off-limits with us. We're foodies, we like it all. With a few small exceptions, we'll try almost anything twice.

4) Don't take our word for it.

Get out there and support local Milwaukee businesses!

5) We may inform the folks at the restaurant about the blog -- but, if we can, after we eat. We don't like the idea of anyone knowing about the review before we get our food... in case of, you know... tampering. Although it's pretty hard to keep a low profile when you have a huge camera on the table, and your flash keeps going off taking pictures of the chicken soup...

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Our challenge: Eating Milwaukee Eats Local

It is our honor to be one of the five Milwaukee area food blogs to officially participate in this year's Milwaukee Eat Local Challenge.

During the next two weeks, we'll be bringing you posts highlighting Milwaukee area establishments which have made a commitment to using local ingredients in their dishes. The rules are simple:

1) "Local" is not going to be another buzzword like "green." Restaurants do not cook "local" just because Dierks is based in Waukesha. The restaurants we've teamed with take local ingredients seriously.

2) "Local" means the ingredients used support our community. We don't grow mangoes or oranges in Wisconsin. We understand this. But the greater Milwaukee area has a number of suppliers who take raw materials and produce finished or semi-finished products, and using these ingredients still helps.

3) "Local" is not an excuse to be elitist. Just because a restaurant pledges to use local ingredients doesn't mean they have to serve haute cuisine. An omelette made with local eggs is just as important as veal marsala made with Strauss meats. Not that there's anything wrong with Strauss veal. Actually, everything is right about Strauss veal. Great, now I'm hungry again.

4) There is no number four. Actually, there was, but I forgot it when I went to grab a slice of cold Marco's pizza from the fridge. Yup. Still hungry.

We've already had a blast talking with restaurant owners, managers, and chefs about their passion for local and sustainable ingredients -- and the challenge hasn't even started yet. Keep checking back these two weeks, and we might just let you in on where the best Pumpkin Whoopie Pie in the city can be had. Made with local eggs, milk, and butter. Of course.