Eating Milwaukee

#MKEFoodies Tweetup 2012 Extravaganza: Harbor House!

2012-01-12T09:47:00.003-06:00

Like a stampede of hunger-crazed gazelles with exceedingly high food standards, the Milwaukee Foodies horde desceneded upon Bartolotta's Harbor House Tuesday, 1/10/12, in order to finally, conclusively decide that oysters are indeed both frighteningly ugly and frighteningly delicious all at once.

Your humble staff at Eating Milwaukee had an awesome time slurping back bivalves of all shapes and sizes (in the name of journalism, of course), and catching up with all of those cool movers and shakers in the food community in our fair burg.

Check out the gallery below to get up to speed with all the juicy (get it... juicy... oysters... oyster liquor... oh, never mind) details...

Harbor House

Coming Soon: G Mirch Masala!

2012-01-08T17:56:00.000-06:00

#MKEFoodies September Tweet-Up: Stack'd Burger Bar

2011-09-23T00:59:00.000-05:00

Our beloved rag-tag group of Milwaukee Foodies descended like a cloud of ravenous locusts on Stack'd Burger Bar this past Wednesday, consuming every Wisconsin grass-fed burger in sight. Adding to the excitement was a number of raffle items, including Stack'd gift cards (thanks again, everyone at Stack'd!) and the kind folks from West Bend even provided a Super-Ultra-Multi-Cooker to one lucky winner!

Interested in seeing what kind of trouble #MKEFoodies get into when not under direct adult supervision? Check out the gallery below! And be sure to check out the #MKEFoodies Facebook page to find out how you can join in the shenanigans!

SeptTweetUp

Day Twelve: Comet Café

2011-09-13T23:23:00.001-05:00

Full disclosure: Guy Fieri did a Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives segment here.

I say that, because I forgot entirely about the fact that the Shah of Second-Rate Simile (yes, it took me ten minutes and a Thesaurus to come up with that one) had once been in Milwaukee, touting the Comet Café's affinity for bacon.

Oh, here we go again with the bacon.

The strange part is, Comet Café isn't, er, all about the bacon. Sure, you can order it on pretty much anything you want. But it's not like the place is bacon themed, for cripe's sake.

So, I'd act shocked that Guy portrayed Comet in a way that wasn't exactly realistic, but then, I understand the way media works, and if his producers needed a certain slant (I can see the pitch meeting right now... "Okay, so we have this funky restaurant on the East Side of Milwaukee... what says Milwaukee to you? Binge drinking? Abandoned High Speed Rail plans? Aha! Bacon! Of course! The country's second most obese city behind Springfield needs a restaurant that specializes in bacon dishes! Let's get it done!"), well, then, I get it.

But Comet is so much more than bacon. I mean, a whole lot more.

I met with Travis, the head chef, to talk to him about what Comet does with local ingredients, why they do local, and to get some shots of what he thought best represented their delicious, only 47% bacon-themed culinary genius.

Travis looks sad in this picture. Personally, I would be ecstatic if I were standing next to that case of cupcakes. But, then again, I'm a grown man who gets ecstatic near cupcakes. Some might call that bordering on kinky.

Travis found himself head chef sort of by accident, much in the same way I've found myself rising to Funeral Director glory. Nonetheless, he shares a palpable enthusiasm for the food he's preparing, and is quick to tell me about the local ingredients he so lovingly cooks.

I asked him to select a few dishes from the menu that he thought represent Comet's outlook on food, flavor, and local ingredients in the most clearly articulated way possible. The first dish he suggested without hesitation, "The meatloaf!"

The preparation of this can be seen in a (probably copyright infringing) clip on YouTube. Guy makes it seem like a bit of a circus, but in reality, the Meatloaf Sandwich is elegant, intricate, and layered with amazing flavors.

First, we start with Wisconsin Grass Feed beef in the meatloaf, perched atop rye bread from Breadsmith, mashed potatoes, crisp bacon, and flat-top griddled onions and a tomato slice, floating life-raft style in a sea of Comet's beer gravy.

The rye is salty, the meatloaf is about ready to crack open with flavor, the mashed potatoes are garlicky and rich, the bacon is, well, bacon, and the tomato and onion come together to provide nice bright top notes. Add in the infinite complexity of the beer gravy, and it's enough to make a foodie's toes curl. You catch my drift. The noises I made while trying this one weren't family friendly.

Travis mentioned that the potatoes were sadly not local. I prodded him a little, reminding him that the challenge wasn't just about the sunny side of eating local.

"Local potatoes... they don't keep well. A day or two, and they're already sprouting. You can't serve sprouted potatoes. There's a reason Wisconsin isn't known for its potato production." I guess you can't be perfect at everything.

It does merit a mention, however, that the beef is from Braise RSA, which brought us such a fine meal at Meritage.

I wanted to eat the whole plate. I really, really did. But it was to no avail: the next plate arrived.

Mac & Cheese.

Think you have a favorite Mac & Cheese? Think again. Comet's Mac & Cheese uses dairy from The Sassy Cow Creamery, and, of course, Wisconsin cheese.

Before digging in, I asked Travis if they used the traditional Béchamel sauce as a base. He chucked.

"Cheese, cream, and a touch of butter."

Oh.

And oh, was it cheesy. And rich. Cheesy and rich. And amazing. And delicious. And sinfully rich. Grandma B. may very well be spinning in her Batesville Cortez Gold, but cheese, cream, and butter win out over Béchamel. End of story.

I would have to say, without hyperbole, that Comet's Mac & Cheese is, without a doubt, the best I've ever had.

No time to dawdle, though! The next plate arrived as soon as I had a second bite. This time, it was the Comet's Medianoche. Or, for the Wisconsin crowd, a Cuban sandwich:

Slow cooked Wilson Farms pork, swiss, ham, brown mustard, and Comet's homemade bread 'n' butter pickles, on fresh Sciortino's bread.

Now, I'm a bit of a Medianoche snob, and I've had more than my fair share of slightly less-than-tasty Cubans. Let me tell you why Comet hits this one out of the ballpark:

The pork is incredibly flavorful, and tender without being mushy -- which is essential. The bread is entirely fresh, keeping in the tradition of using bread-baked-that-day in an authentic Medianoche (traditional Cuban bread usually contains lard, and it doesn't keep well for more than a day or two).

The mustard, an absolute must, is tangy and bright without overpowering the rest of the flavors of the sandwich.

And then there's the pickles.

I asked Travis, "Do I taste curry?" "Sure do," he replied with a smile.

Finally, the last dish arrived.

This was a bit special, as it comes from Comet's monthly specials menu. Travis pointed out that this particular item was vegan, although they make a point to not scream it from the hilltops: non-vegans (read: the staff of Eating Milwaukee) tend to shy away from vegan dishes, thinking they're going to try to tart up some sort of meat-substitute (think Tofurkey) to fool us into eating them. Not so with the Black Bean Polenta Cakes and Mushroom Ragout:

The menu description reads as follows:

Crimini mushroom ragout, sautéed swiss chard, fried black bean polenta cakes, and roasted almond mole with cilantro oil. And hey, it's vegan.

Like I said. Not exactly shouting it from the hilltops.

I demanding to know how much butter went into making the perfectly creamy yet fluffy polenta cakes. Travis just chuckled. "None," he quipped.

The mole was almost the star of the dish: deep, dark, smoky with chili and thick with almonds and breadcrumbs. I must admit, had I never known the dish to be vegan, I wouldn't have even guessed otherwise. While deep-frying the polenta drops the health factor down a little bit, we never said Comet was going for the lo-cal market!

The Comet Café is consistently packed, and with a list of monthly specials constantly changing to the seasons, it's easy to see why. The food alone will keep you coming back. The menu will keep you intrigued as to what's up next.

The interior is comfortable and fun, everything you'd expect a top-notch East Side establishment to be:

Did we mention the cupcakes?

Bakery is fresh from Comet's sister restaurant, Honey Pie. I ended up adopting a Mexican Chocolate cupcake -- complete with cayenne pepper, a buttercream with the faintest hint of coffee, and sliced toasted almonds. Insane.

Epilogue

Despite Comet's fame on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, it's plain to see it hasn't swayed from its roots: a brilliant mix of classic dishes, local ingredients, and upscale twists.

In my conversations with Travis, I got to see the culture of Comet in action. Not a once did our talk change course at any sort of silence -- the entire evening was about food, food, food. And really, if a restaurant is as devoted to eating local as Comet is, there really isn't much room for distractions. The full, busy dining room is a telltale of the quality that Comet puts into its food, and while the pictures turned out gorgeous, it was the flavors that really bowled me over. From the rich and homey meatloaf to the decadent Mac & Cheese and the surprising polenta, every locally inspired dish I tried was an all-star. I'm proud to have had an audience with Travis, and look forward to all the miraculous things Comet does with the bounty we have here right in our backyard.

The Details:

Comet Café

1947 N. Farwell Ave.

Milwaukee, WI 53202

414-273-7677

Website Available Here

Day Seven: The European Homemade Sausage Shop

2011-09-10T01:42:00.002-05:00

My stepfather Paul is a man of very few words. Those that do become audible, however, are precious and jewel-like, crafted (appropriately) with an engineer's precision. Most of them are life lessons, which I find particularly insufferable, yet I find myself quoting them at the most random and strangely appropriate moments.

"Cheap shoes are never a bargain."

"Razor-thin mark-up never built a fancy store."

"He makes a really good sausage."

The last one, of course, refers to Frank Jakubczak, a genuine Milwaukee Treasure, a sausage genius, and all-around person you really should become acquainted with. You see, Frank makes the best sausage in the city.

To some, sausage is those machine-formed rods, greased and fried and slathered with imitation maple syrup in the mornings. Others, it's Johnsonville or Klement's or even Usinger's on the grille or maybe poached in beer in onions or maybe pan-fried. But for some, those world-weary culinary travelers, those never satisfied by "good enough," there is the European Homemade Sausage Shop, deep in the heart of what used to be one of the nation's largest immigrant Polish neighborhoods, second only to Chicago.

Frank doesn't mess around when it comes to his sausage. He doesn't do anything avant-garde: you will find no chicken-blueberrry-gruyere-sage brats here. Nor will you see stacks of styrofoam packaged meats from days previous: Frank does sell frozen product for those from out of town, but the vast majority is fresh, displayed in the single and prominent cooler case in the tiny storefront. There may be a dozen or so varieties, each one in limited quantities daily. I've never stopped in only to find out my favorites were sold out for the day -- still, the scarcity adds a little bit of thrill. Are there going to be any Slovenians left today? How about fresh Polish? Maybe there's just two pounds left... just enough! Perhaps the biggest boon to small quantities is you are always guaranteed that the sausage you buy is the freshest, tastiest, and safest possible: it has happened that the sausage I bought came out of the grinder mere hours before I was grilling it.

I was introduced to Frank's meat treats a few years back, during one of the annual Brzezinski Family Holiday Fiascos, which I blogged about at the time because I really had nothing new to report. Paul had sliced up some Krakowska, at which point I thought I had actually had some sort of a seizure.

I begged Paul with the insistence of someone staring down the secret to life, the universe, everthing... where did this insanely delicious sausage come from?

"Oh, it's this little place down on Muskego, the guy's pretty famous. He's been making sausage for years. Really unusual stuff." This was one of the longer uninterrupted moments of speech I had heard from Paul that evening.

So, what makes the European Homemade Sausage Shop so unique? I mean, with all of the sausage in this city (Hrrmm...), why does Frank's stand out?

Well, for starters, Frank uses only exceptional cuts of meat. Lean when its supposed to be, fatty when it needs to be, but not an ounce of filler, a drop of artificial flavor, or a scrap of gristle, tendon, or cartilage. He uses spices from a variety of vendors, each one picked after years of experience. The cuts of meat are sourced from within the midwest, some even more locally when possible/practical. Meat is chopped and ground, spices are blended, and sausage is stuffed and smoked in Frank's modest kitchen: nothing is outsourced or obtained from a third party.

And, let's face it: Frank is really, really serious about what he does.

He moves in the kitchen with a steadiness and determination of someone entrenched in their craft. His hands and eyes are never idle, his stance solid, focused. Frank is a man on a mission: he is uncompromising and relentless in his quest to create an exceptional product. And every bit of meat that passes over his scale shows this fiery passion: every last item on Frank's menu is without peer.

People know this passion, and are fiercely loyal to it -- sometimes, loyal to the point of obsession. Frank retired once: closed the store, shuttered the smoke house, and packed up the various European groceries that grace the marble counters. Milwaukee threw a fit, like a baby. A hungry, angry baby. And that collective temper tantrum worked: Frank re-opened, and the sausage insanity continues to this day, albeit on a slightly more limited schedule: Thursday through Saturday, 8 am to 4 pm.

On the Saturday I dropped in, I had the privilege of talking with Frank's daughter, Mary.

"Frank's on Holiday," she said, maybe a little relieved he was taking some leisure time. "So we're running a bit low on some things." Luckily, I still snagged a few pounds of fresh Polish, which I de-cased and made into Polish sliders on Miller Bakery pretzel rolls for a recent appetizer bash. Along with the Polish, I stocked up on my usual multiple pounds of Slovenians, and a pound of Frank's home-cured and smoked bacon.

"The bacon is pretty awesome," a co-worker of mine recently told me. The understatement of the century.

Mary was overly kind, offering to take me back in the "inner sanctum" of the kitchen, exploring the smoker, the coolers, walking along rows of hanging sausages so perfect that they almost seemed like movie props. You can tell by the inflection she uses when she speaks of the business that she's rightfully proud of it, but exceedingly careful that her father's brand doesn't become diluted. I asked her if she was looking to get into any restaurants in the city, and she responded that they were indeed, but doing so selectively to make sure they find the best fit for the product.

This is, after all, the best sausage in Milwaukee.

I keep using superlatives in this post, and I imagine that they may lose a little of their wallop eventually, but I don't really know how to convey how much I actually love Frank's creations. I have never, in my whole entire Polish/German food-grab-bag life, eating sausages with so much flavor, so perfect grind and texture, and such freshness. There simply does not exist anything like the European Homemade Sausage Shop in this city: Usinger's, for all of their variety, can't hold a candle to Frank's core of a few authentic recipes, made without compromise, and made fresh.

Here, stalwart traditional blood and tongue sausage mingle with spicy smokey Polish Delights (a Brzezinski family tradition on Easter). Sweet and Hot Italians, Slovenians, and scorching hot Hungarians waft their fragrance of exotic and long-lost spices from behind the glass cooler. Cold cuts -- maybe liverwurst or Franks own smoked ham or my personal favorite -- Krakowska -- are always sliced when a customer orders them. Sausages are still linked together -- buy three pounds of Hungarians, and you'll receive them in one continuous strand.

Certain varieties are available both fresh and smoked -- a fresh Slovenian is worlds different than a smoked, and the contrast can be exciting. Some sausage, if you're in the right place at the right time, can be had fresh, smoked, or smoked and dried -- offering an entire world of different flavors and textures.

Mild and spicy dried hunter's sausage is a staple hanging from the racks next to the register in front:

While in the cooler in the back, Krakowska rests, waiting patiently for the next Brzezinski holiday for people to melt into large puddles of moaning goo upon first bite:

Frank offers a few European groceries: a few bulk spices, fruit syrups, mustards and horseradish, a mythical Polish seasoning called Vegeta:

And traditional Polish Kluski:

Looking around the retail space, you'll see 100 year old fixtures from its time as a sort of general store:

and some still vintage reminders of its long history as a sausage and butcher shop, such as this well-worn chopping block, cozying up to a bag of rice undoubtedly destined for blood sausage:

Epilogue

No amount of praise I can heap on Frank and his family can ever really explain not only the European Homemade Sausage Shop, but also the ideals it represents: Frank came to the US not intending to be a Master Sausage Maker, but fell in love with the craft, and has pursued it with almost a religious fervour. His desire to continue the tradition of the food of his homeland is the same desire that drives so many Milwaukeeans to not just buy his wares, but become zealous devotees. Frank's cultural heritage is so similar to that of so many in this city, myself included. Part of the way we connect with that heritage is through food, and in Frank's case, authentic, delicious food. My childhood memories are dotted with Polish Christmas Wafers, creamed herring, paper-thin German Butterplätzchen with dabs of egg and crushed nuts, Rouladen, spätzle, and the pungent fumes of Grandma B's hot bacon dressing over wilted baby spinach. Frank's sausage is a piece to that puzzle, a non-specific sense memory of How Things Used To Be, and I find immense comfort in that. My heart grows a little sad thinking that life has changed so drastically, and that so many of us have lost touch with that which makes us unique, what has served as our families' foundations for so long: our food.

I want to see the European Homemade Sausage Shop thrive. I want people all over this state, er, this country, to know what amazing artisanal meat products this little shop cranks out, here on Muskego Avenue, in the middle of what has become the epicenter of Milwaukee's Hispanic population. Still, Frank makes every sausage with the care and craft that makes eating them such a transcendent experience, even after decades of business. Mary and her brother Andy have a vision for the shop, to be sure, and I'm excited for them -- I know in my heart (and stomach) that the European Homemade Sausage Shop will continue delighting customers for a long, long time to come. And I will continue to buy my Slovenians, like clockwork -- because I am a complete and utter slave to the sausage!

The Details:

The European Homemade Sausage Shop

1985 S. Muskego Ave.

Milwaukee, WI 53204

414-384-7320

Andy let me know that the Shop will be launching a new website in the next few weeks, however, the current site is a great resource in the mean time.

Day Five: Patterson's

2011-09-08T00:28:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, in the clamor and excitement of all of the new things going on in food, we sort of glance over those classics, those proven winners which have been with us all along. When I tell people I got my peaches at Patterson's Orchard and Farm Market, they look at me, beguiled.

"Where?" they ask, and I cringe a little.

"Patterson's!" I say again, hoping that they misheard me.

"Where is that, again?" they'll ask, with the tone that the name rings a bell, but I know the truth. They have no idea where I'm talking about.

"Uh, you know... Patterson's. On 124th and Layton."

"Oh! The place with the apple trees!" I roll my eyes in disgust, and continue eating my sweet-as-candy peach.

The Patterson family has been growing some of the finest produce in Wisconsin since the early 1950's, but I'm finding that so many of my foodie friends are completely oblivious to their wares. Why is that?

On my visit, I was lucky enough to strike up a conversation with Jay Patterson, third generation and current owner:

When I told him about the Eat Local Challenge, he lit up. As I took shot after gorgeous shot of the rows of packed apples and peaches, pears and plums, he said, "Hey... do you want to go back in the cooler? I'm sure you can get some good shots in there!" He didn't have to ask twice.

Bin after wooden bin, overflowing with perfect ripe Wisconsin apples. The perfume of apple was like honey.

"Here, check these out," Jay said as we walked over to a smaller bin. "We didn't even really get to put these out this year, there was so many orders for them. This is all that's left."

I looked down into the bin, only to see the deepest, darkest blue plums I'd ever seen:

"Wisconsin prune plums," Jay said with a grin. "Try one. They're amazing!" And I did try one -- a few, actually. The plums are tiny by commercial fruit standards -- about the size of a silver dollar around, with a thick skin, and giving, intensely sweet flesh. I can see why they sold out so quickly:

I felt like a kid in a produce department, madly shooting every bin with wild abandonment, wanting to catch every single gleaming fruit before this year's bounty disappeared:

Patterson's has limited distribution in the Milwaukee area, but for best results, I highly recommend a visit to the Farm Market, on So. 124th St. in New Berlin, just a half block North of Layton Ave.. You can really take in the full breadth of selection there, see exactly why so many people on the South Side get so excited about harvest time.

Patterson's is only open from mid-August to May 31st -- and they do sell out of some of their 30-odd varieties of fruit they raise -- so don't feel guilty about stocking up if you see a cultivar you like. The fruit grown by the Patterson family is split between a smaller orchard adjacent to the market, and a larger one in the Town of Raymond, near Union Grove.

Each half peck of fruit looks longing to me, like a puppy waiting to be adopted:

But wait! Apples don't have all the fun at Patterson's... seasonal veggies also make guest appearances from time to time:

I was particularly taken aback by the petite Wisconsin peaches, with their ultra-fuzzy skins (think chenille sweater), soft flesh, and absolutely sugar-sweet flavor. The aroma of "peach" is so strong, it'll make you think they're designed, not grown:

Until Honey Crisp apples are in season, we're able to get Zestar!(s), which Patterson's has in abundance, and I've had more than one person nearly lose their mind biting into one. Megan, a co-worker, nearly ate my entire mid-afternoon snack today, chomping slice after slice of the apple, admitting to me, "Oh, these things are amazing! I stole one from you this morning!"

If fruit incites grand larceny, you know it's good.

With all of the fantastic new retail outlets we have in Milwaukee for local produce, now more than ever, I believe it's important to support independent farmers like the Patterson's. Knowing that your food came from your backyard is wonderful, and knowing the people behind the food is essential. The Pattersons have been feeding the Milwaukee area with their exceptional fruits and veggies for over 60 years, and it's my wish (for purely selfish reasons: I need good apples like I need oxygen) that they continue to thrive. Take a field trip, bring some cash (no plastic accepted here, kids), and bring home a neat paper sack filled with the bounty of an orchard just a dozen miles away from downtown, but a million miles away from mere supermarket produce.

The Details:

Patterson's Orchard & Farm Market

4607 S. 124th St.

New Berlin, WI

414-425-0563

Day Three: Meritage

2011-09-05T21:39:00.000-05:00

As I write this, I take note: it's day five. And the intro image above says day three. Curious, that.

So, why does the image say day three and the post is, er, posted on day five? Because it's a lot of time consuming work producing these things, and I like confusing everyone. Day Three included a visit to Meritage. Day Five is when Joe actually finished editing pictures and wrote the post.

It has become very clear during the Eat Local Challenge (I think I'm going to write a macro that replaces the text Eat Local Challenge with a random brick-laying term. Such as, I've been having so much fun participating in the ~~Eat Local Challenge~~ Flemish Bond! Or, I hope lots of people in Milwaukee have stepped up and done their own ~~Eat Local Challenge~~ Rowlock/Shiner - Soldier/Sailor! See? Much more fun.) that eating local is demanding. When I first volunteered to live under glass, I envisioned going to a few restaurants, talking with them about why they chose local ingredients, yada yada yada. But a funny thing happened -- I started getting really picky about what I was eating when I wasn't at those restaurants. I questioned individual ingredients I was using, and when asked to an "appetizer party" on Sunday, made sure that all three dishes I brought contained 98% local ingredients -- right down to the salt and pepper from Penzey's. When work took me to Waukegan today, I regretfully ate very un-local, and even had to chip in for Illinois sales tax (bleagh). I felt guilty about it. Until I snacked on a local Zestar! apple this afternoon, and all was right with the world again.

Point is, I'm looking for ways to integrate local foods into my diet, and I never really intended to. I mean, a Michigan peach is just as good as a New Berlin peach, right? Wrong. This is such a wonderful time to enjoy the bounty that Wisconsin is beginning to rake in, I don't know what I'm going to do in a few short months when I'm back to eating Brazilian apples. Maybe cry a little inside.

Let's not dwell on the impending winter, eh? Instead, let's celebrate a beacon of cooking local in our community. Let's sit down for a meal at Meritage.

Chef/Owner Jan Kelly is a rockstar. She has a passion (there's that word again) for what she's cooking, the same way I see artists suffer over single brushstrokes. Her life is poured through Meritage, and it becomes plainly evident the moment you speak to her.

"Oh, one of these, again!" she joked with me when I asked to take an impromptu portrait. But when you look around, you see an awful lot of pictures of Jan, and of Meritage: both have had quite a bit of press in the past few years -- and when Chef Jan brought the first plate out to me to shoot, I understood immediately why:

Take that salad in: go ahead. Click on it to enlarge it, because by the time you read this, most of these ingredients are almost out of season. Chef Jan explained, "Growing Power spinach, local feta, and a family recipe for the poppyseed dressing. Oh! Just wait until you try the watermelon!"

I didn't see any watermelon. Although, I did find it odd that Wisconsin produces pineapple, which I did see. Upon first bit, my head swam. The pineapple was watermelon! The watermelon was pineapple! What kind of messed up peanut butter-in-my-chocolate insanity was this?!?

"Yellow watermelon." Chef Jan said, with a little smirk. "Better than candy." And it was. Crunchy and sweet and perfect -- if I had access to a salad like this every day, I'd be half my weight. And that's saying a lot.

But I didn't have time to ruminate on the wonders of the salad (but what a salad!). It was time for the Chicago (gasp!) prosciutto-wrapped local melon, with Growing Power arugula and a mint vinaigrette:

The creamy (goat?) cheese is what made this for me: the well-proven contrast of sweet/salty/meaty/porky in the melon and prosciutto was upped a few notches with the smooth, creaminess of the cheese.

Jan came to the table with a ear-to-ear smile, "I almost forgot!" she gushed, "we're doing tappas tonight!" She brought down a small ramekin to the table, with the most heavenly aroma. "This is how my mom got us kids to eat our vegetables. Local squash in a gouda cheese sauce!"

The squash made the most incredible pair with the gouda: there were pockets of the cheese sauce that completely dominated my mouth, and then the squash would come through, traffic cop of all that is good and healthy, and remind me what the real reason of the dish is. It's not called Gouda Cheese Sauce with Squash, after all. Warm notes of nutmeg rounded out the sauce, and herbed bread crumbs on the top of the gratin made for a nice textural play.

Jeez. In order for me to eat my vegetables when I was a kid, my mom just told me I'd have to go to confession and tell Fr. Chuck what a derelict child I was. I'd have preferred the gouda and squash, frankly. Would have saved on the psychotherapy bills. Listening, mom?

Next up, Chef Jan cooked up the Pork Saté:

(Radish?) Sprouts adorn three pork skewers, perched atop what was possibly the most insanely tasty potato salad I've ever had.

Each local pork skewer is unique in flavor: sweet barbecue, Moroccan spice, and Asian. The tender, juicy chunks of pork literally slide off the skewers in the most seductive way -- and the flavor explodes, both assertive in their individuality, but also playing off God's One Chosen Meat: the pork. The sweet smokiness of the barbecue, the warm and complex Moroccan spices, and the zesty, sweet/soy flavor of the Asian all work to highlight the best part of the dish: the meat

The final dish of the shoot was what I'm going to call Lamb Three Ways. Or Tres Lamb-age. Maybe Trois Agneaux. Drei Lämmer? Nein? Whatever. Call it what you will. It was delicious:

I was torn when I was editing the photos for this -- I have two awesome shots, one which follows all of the rules of shooting high-end food, and one that shows off every element of the dish, while sacrificing some technical points. I'm including both:

Going clockwise from the right, we have: breaded, fried lamb belly; lamb kabobs, lamb spin-roll, and hidden beneath the greens, a healthy dose of tahini-chickpea salad.

The lamb kabobs don't just showcase that delectable Pinn-Oak Ridge Farms lamb that Chef Jan creates masterpieces from -- oh, no. That Pinn-Oak perfection is paraded out like Mighty Joe Young, a gorilla-sized flavor rampaging across the table. The lamb is deep, rich, flavorful, and not the least bit lamb-y.

And the lamb belly. Oh! The lamb belly! Chef Jan gets that one-corner-of-the-mouth-up smirk again, "You see pork belly everywhere. But how often do you see lamb belly? I had to look hard to even find it!" Thank God she did.

The lamb belly is this most ridiculous mix of fat, of tender meat like it should be velvet, of crunchy crust and richness which makes it the perfect small-portion treat.

"If I put lamb belly on the menu by itself, no one would order it!" Chef Jan explained. I interjected, "I'd order it!" She raised an eyebrow, "Okay, you'd order it. And a half dozen other adventurous people would order it. But when I include it with the kabobs, people have to try it. And they're led to discover it." This works, though: given a taste, now I want it all the more. And maybe, just maybe, Chef Jan can start a trend -- have all of the haute cuisine chefs across the country clamoring not for candied pork belly, but rather Pinn-Oak lamb belly!

As I was packing up my lights, a very kind hearted server handed me a to-go box. "Chocolate lovers. You know, for later." It was Jan's infamous flour-less chocolate cake, with chocolate mousse, and topped with a thick chocolate ganache, sided by a rather large puff of vanilla-bean mascarpone cream. Seriously. I would have taken a picture of the cake, but sadly, a wild fork appeared! It was super-effective.

"I'm not a big chocolate freak," Jan confessed at the bar later. I looked at her as if she killed a Muppet. "It's just not my thing."

But this is why I love Chef Jan: we talked for almost two hours about, er, just about everything. Turns out, Chef Jan loves Royal India just about as much as we do. She cried during the series finale of Six Feet Under (which, by the way, is the appropriate response to said show. The inappropriate response is to quit student teaching and go to mortuary school. Ahem.). She loves Mazos and little Asian grocery stores and Penzey's Lamb Blend. Get Chef Jan rolling, you'll find out she's just as invested in this burg as we are.

Which is good.

Meritage is a gorgeous setting:

With warm hued walls, plucky, mod lighting, and a well stocked bar. Rich linens and fresh flower arrangements dot the tables:

And, during the warmer months, a romantic back-yard patio serves as the perfect setting for a local meal under the stars:

This shot actually seems to take in more of the greenhouse next door to Meritage, but I assure you, the patio is gorgeous... wish I would have paid a bit more attention to my framing when I took the shot...

Epilogue

Meeting Chef Jan made my day. Seeing her enthusiasm and energy for integrating quality local ingredients into her dishes made my week. Seeing that passion in action (and, of course, tasting it) makes me want to keep coming back to Meritage, to see what next season's menu will bring.

Meritage is certainly not every-day faire. But the excitement of having such fine dishes, such clever implementation of season, local ingredients, is what makes you want to find opportunities to go. Chef Jan is one of those rare restauranteurs: incredibly passionate, amazingly knowledgeable, and immediately approachable. Talk to her about her favorite Penzey's blends -- she'll tell it like it is. Want to know about what cuts from Pinn-Oak are really top-notch right now? She'll give you the low-down. Give her some grief about her lack of chocolate love -- she can take the joke.

For every restaurant in Milwaukee wanting to carve out a niche for themselves by doing something a little different, a little trendy, Meritage is simple elegance, showcasing dozens of local ingredients, and standing out for it. We here at Eating Milwaukee are big fans, and look forward to years to come of Eating Local at Meritage with Chef Jan!

The Details:

Meritage

5921 W. Vliet Street

Milwaukee, WI 53208

414-479-0620 (reservations highly recommended)

Excellent Website Here

Eat Local Challenge: What's On The Dance Card

2011-09-04T10:08:00.000-05:00

We've been chasing our hindquarters off so far, and we've got some awesome, fantastic, cool, wild, and weird experiences to share with you!

Normally, it's bad luck to give previews of blog posts, but we figured, it'll keep you interested, right?

So, we're excited to announce just a few of our upcoming Challenge posts...

September 5th: Meritage Restaurant

September 7th: Patterson's Orchard and Farm Market

September 9th: European Homemade Sausage Shop

September 10th: Comet Café

September 12th: TBA

September 14th: TBA

We'd like to thank everyone who have helped us along the way so far, and look forward to showcasing some awesome local eats in the next week and a half... we've already learned so much, and it's not even half over!

Day One: The National

2011-09-01T23:37:00.001-05:00

Day one: I'm still not sure.

I'm not sure I know what I'm doing, I'm not sure if I'm doing it right, and I'm not sure if I deserved to be hyped as participating in the "Eat Local Challenge." I had a chimichanga from Grebe's at lunch today, and a hard roll from Sendik's for breakfast. Is that really making an effort? Is it too early (er, day one, Joe...) to start scolding myself? And what did I expect, after all, us being a restaurant blog? I'm not sure.

I do know that I'm excited. I'm excited not so much in the Christmas Morning way, but more of the way you feel when you see a thunderhead on the horizon: still a little far off, but looming, dark, full of friction and electricity and entropy and excitement, and maybe a little danger, a little risk. Bringing the blog back online, bringing myself further into the fold of the food community in Milwaukee, and meeting people chipping away at making a difference, and finding out I'm a lot like them: this is very, very cool. Milwaukee, big things are comin' your way, girl. Get your hairs did and your nails painted, 'cause I can see a thunderhead on the horizon, and I feel like the Eat Local Challenge, food blogs, and #MKEFoodies is just the beginning. So, with that excitement, and my nagging lack of surety, I forged ahead to our first Eat Local Challenge Restaurant Of The Day (or ELCROTD, for short).

The National.

If you've ever taken the National Avenue / 6th Street Exit from 94/43 to get to Walker's Point, you have undoubtedly driven past The National. Maybe you've even wondered what it is, with it's large swath of Cream City Brick bedecked in a painted mural. Maybe, you're like me: never in Walker's Point during The National's business hours (ahem). Maybe, you already know it and love it. We're going to hope that everyone, by the time the Eat Local Challenge is over, falls into the last category.

The interior of The National is requisite funky and mod, with art on the walls, cool lighting, big pleather banquettes, and some nice exposed brickwork.

Being the lighting dork that I am, I was immediately hooked by the dangling clear globes near the cooler:

But smart interior design and clever lighting isn't really what The National is about, I found. General Manager Jean explained to me the rationale behind The National's sustainability and local ingredients initiatives as I swooned over a tray of pumpkin Whoopie Pies:

She told me how The National looks for every opportunity to bring in local ingredients, from the dairy and eggs in the bakery, to coffee, beers and sodas.

You see, The National isn't exactly a three-piece-suit kind of restaurant: it's a casual hang-out spot, a place where the menu shifts with what's available at a given time, where a brunch is a relaxed, informal affair. A place where the breakfast burrito is slightly larger than your head:

As Jean spooned out smooth and ripe avocado, she told me about her passion for the restaurant, and for local ingredients. I watched her spoon vegan bean spread across the huge wheat tortilla, and we talked about what brought the both of us to our current places in life:

Jean never set out to manage a restaurant, she told me. As a former case worker, she thrived on the interactions she had with the people she worked with, though, and the restaurant was a perfect fit for her.

We chuckled about past jobs as she cracked eggs into a sauté pan, and told me about the tofu version of the burrito.

"It's local tofu," she told me, "totally awesome."

The holy mix of omelette, onions, peppers, local cheddar cheese, and the fabulous bean dip made for a fantastic snack on my empty stomach that night, and an awesome breakfast the next day. Yes, it really is that big. The accompanying salsa is bursting with onion and garlic, and made everyone in the office wonder if we had opened up a small produce stand betwixt the computers and BizHub.

Next we examined the seasonal salad, served today with strawberries and blueberries over mixed greens, accompanied by the tomato walnut pesto soup, a piquant and intriguing concoction, indeed:

The greens were bright and excruciatingly fresh, topped off with the tart and romantic strawberries, and those darlings of Wisconsin summers, the big plump blueberries. The soup was a complete surprise: sharp and bold, creamy and chunky in the same instant. The walnuts gave a big, assertive body to the soup: when some co-workers tried it, they immediately commented, "tastes almost beefy!"

Of course, The National also offers a number of consistent and seasonal wraps and sandwiches, so it pays to check the menu out on a regular basis (daily isn't such a bad thing):

The National also features a plethora of baked goodies, and I was honored to consume (very quickly, I might add) the delectable Whoopie Pie pictured above, as well as some of the Orange Dream bread perched, beckoning to me, next to the register:

Add in the inky dark iced coffee as I drooled over The National's gorgeous espresso machine:

Jean said in a justifiably proud tone, "How can you not love that machine?"

The National offers a number of locally brewed beers:

best enjoyed, as I found out, on the secret, tucked-away patio at the back of the restaurant. Both mildly secluded and boasting a pleasant view of busy National Avenue, the patio is centered around a gently gurgling fountain:

I spent almost two hours talking to Jean, and we went on and on about everything: food, politics, life in general -- and I get the drift that our conversation wasn't an exception, rather the rule. The folks at The National are passionate about what they do, the food they serve, the community they support. I walked in to The National not having a real clear idea about what I was going to ask, or how my time was going to actually play out. I left feeling like I had already made new friends, added new allies, and found a new favorite hang out. I wasn't so unsure anymore.

Epilogue

I'm not sure I could have chosen a better way to start the challenge: manager Jean and owner Michael were so incredibly accommodating and enthusiastic, instead of questioning who exactly this rotund guy with a Nikon actually is, they welcomed me with open arms, and shared with me their unmistakable passion: making Milwaukee a better, happier, cooler place -- one breakfast burrito at a time. It was a blast to meet them, and an even bigger honor to highlight them here.

Looking for a new spot to try during the challenge? Put The National on your short list, and then keep it at the top of your list for new and interesting soups, sandwiches, and bakery -- all incorporating the best of what area farmers and artisanal producers, like Braise RSA, Vern's Cheese, Simple Soyman, and the Spice House have to offer. You'll thank me...

Contact Info:

The National Café

839 W. National Ave.

Milwaukee, WI 53204

414-431-6551

Excellent website with tons of great info HERE

Our challenge: Eating Milwaukee Eats Local

2011-08-30T23:43:00.000-05:00

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.

The Triumphant (and much anticipated by 2 readers, my mother, and Dik Evenson) Return of Eating Milwaukee!

2011-08-24T20:56:00.002-05:00

Oh, dear reader. How fickle and frustrating the fates can be. It has been since February that we've updated our fair blog, and that, my word (and tapas) munching friends, is too long.

Why so long? you ask.

Well, I'm going to assume you'd be interested in what's been keeping us from bringing you delicious details and palatable photos. If you're not interested, see our new restaurant review(s?) this weekend, and skip the rest of this post.

Not too put too fine a point on it, but one simple thing has been beguiling our blogging: life in general. Andy has been busy with his more-than-fulltime job, Lauren has been juggling multiple jobs teaching the youth of Milwaukee how to tickle the ivories, and I (Joe) have been finishing Mortuary School and finally (after four years) completed my apprenticeship, internship, and passed both of my National Board Exams. Hooray? Anyone in Milwaukee need a licensed funeral director?

Not to mention, I've been running myself happily ragged on paid photography gigs in town, and let's face it: it's hard to photograph a celebrity one day, then have to write about a hamburger the next.

We've eaten at plenty of new joints (and plenty of old favorites, mind you), and we even have some pictures to prove it. In the very, very near future (read: hopefully this weekend), we're excited to bring to you reviews on

Fortune (Chinese)

Ilija's Place (Serbian)

and a mini-review roundup of Kegels (German) and Stonefly Brewery (Brewpub)

But, perhaps the most exciting news of all is that the staff and friends of Eating Milwaukee will be taking part in the Eat Local Milwaukee 2011 Challenge. We will be joining a group of Milwaukee bloggers who will go through the first two weeks in September eating, well, locally. How we define "locally" changes from blogger to blogger, eater to eater, so we'll be airing a post outlining exactly how we plan to "eat local," but we're really stoked to be taking part in a movement so near and dear to our hearts.

We hope there's still a few of you readers still out there, and look forward to bringing you all new hidden-gems in this fine burg of ours!

MKE Foodies Tweet Up #2: Distil

2011-02-27T13:22:00.000-06:00

Despite the fact that February has, in essence, kicked my rear well into March, Eating Milwaukee did find a few spare minutes to attend this month's MKE Foodies Tweet Up at Distil, downtown.

Some of the tasty food highlights included:

Duck Confit Roulade on crostini with home-brewed pickle:

Scallop Chorizo with Polenta:

Pork fritter with citrus:

And the ultra-decadent Popcorn in Duck Fat with Parmesan Cheese:

The duck confit was a pleasant twist, not quite a pâté, not quite a forcemeat, not quite a paste. The bold duck flavor was at the forefront, with a distinct iron flavor of liver.

The scallop chorizo was my personal favorite of the evening. Smoky notes of paprika meld with deep flavors of the ocean, juxtaposed with a sweet, tart, and richly spiced stewed cherry tomato. The thick and flavorful polenta rounds out the textural fun.

The pork fritter was quite possibly the most cryptic: breaded in cracker meal, deep fried, the fritter was almost creamy in texture, served with a piquant aioli(?) and a thin sliver of spring onion.

No bar would be complete without popcorn, and since we're downtown, it serves perfectly that Distil's be tarted up a bit: popped with duck fat, and tossed with salty and nutty parmesan cheese. The popcorn was both rich and light, a bit greasy but intensely flavorful at the same time.

The full gallery of shots of the tweet-up is available here:

Distil Tweet-Up

The Details:

Distil
722 N. Milwaukee St.
Milwaukee, WI 53202
414-220-9411
Website available here

MKEFoodies Tweet-Up 2011, #1

2011-01-26T00:17:00.000-06:00

It's late, and my writing always starts sounding like a Jefferson Airplane album played backwards when it's done after midnight, so I'm going to save writing the actual blog post until tomorrow. But some bullet points for the MKEFoodie's first Tweet-Up of 2011:

Foodies are, by far, the most fun and outgoing group of people on the planet.
Milwaukee Foodies are crazier, funnier, and generally more agreeable than either Cleveland and Norfolk Foodies put together. Yuma foodies are a pretty zany crowd, though. We're a close second.
The Mason Street Grill's Steak Forks are the weirdest and tastiest appetizer I've had in a while.
My MKEFoodie friends rock, and I raise a digital toast to a new year of eating well. And, frankly, Eating Milwaukee. But that's a different show.

For a look at the pictures (spoiler alert! the whole story will be up a little later!), check out the Picasa gallery below:

MKEFoodies January 2011 Tweet-Up

Phở 27: Vietnamese, Milwaukee Style

2011-01-20T23:25:00.003-06:00

I have been lied to for the majority of my life. My family, my friends, my co-workers have made jokes at the South Side's expense for longer than I can remember. UCLA: University of Cudahy by the Lake, Almost. South Milwaukee, Whitefish Bay, nothing smells like Cudahy. If your side of town has an equal number of bars and churches, you might live on the South Side. You might be on the South Side if you see people wearing camouflage at social events (including weddings and funerals). Bucyrus, Milwaukee Forge, and Ladisch are "Corporate America." Yeah, yeah. I get it.

Frankly, and I don't think I'm alone here, I believe the South Side has been getting an undue bum rap. More than half of our favorite restaurants are South of I 94, and I don't think that's an accident. After having been raised in Washington Heights, and moving to the South Side a few years back, I've grown to love and appreciate the weird, wonderful, happy and strange diversity and opportunity that the South Side hosts. No better do I see this tenet illustrated than in Phở 27.

Located at what is quite possibly either the nexus of the South Side, or what happens when you try to divide by zero, Phở 27 lives in a smallish building which started life as an Arthur Treacher's, and was most recently a Hardee's (or Carl's, Jr., for you folks West of the Rockies), then a Super-A-Number-1-variety Chinese restaurant, right smack-dab on 27th Street, a few dozen feet from Layton Ave. The exterior of the building is homely:

Which we all found almost laughable, considering how beautiful and stylish the interior is:

Warm wood panelling, neat and simple wood-top tables, chestnut ceiling, track-halogen lighting, and a dining area awash in a calming glow from giant lotus-blossom pendants. A small bar area lets you get sauced before your friends arrive for dinner, and a comfortable, long banquette divides the formal seating from the bar.

With all of these amenities, one thing you won't find in the entire restaurant is a CFL bulb. Glory hallelujah, praise be to the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Even the cans in the ceiling have PAR floodlights. Not a single speck of bad lighting in the entire restaurant -- very, very classy.

When we arrived, mind you late in the evening (I think our goal was about 8:30pm), the dining room was reasonably full. It was a Saturday night, but during a snow storm (which, really, doesn't keep people indoors anymore), and late... mind you, late. I get excited when I see dining rooms as busy as Phở 27's was. We sat along the banquette, and our bubbly, youthful waiter helped us get situated by moving a few tables together to better accommodate our food/cameras/drinks/everything else.

It should be mentioned that our orders were inordinately complicated, and we asked to have itemized, individual checks -- and our server didn't bat an eyelash. Not only that, but everything arrived as ordered, no mix-ups, no extra/missing charges. Kudos to Phở 27's fresh-faced wait staff for being on the ball!

Being that it was Pay Day, and I was blinded by my winter-break-no-school full check, I decided to order almost every appetizer on the menu. We started things with an order of Shrimp Spring Rolls:

Served with a creamy, sweet, and thick peanut dipping sauce:

As well as egg rolls (actually, two orders of egg rolls... we were celebrating, after all):

Served with a tangy sweet / sour sauce:

Everyone's favorite dim-sum staple, shrimp toast:

and Phở 27's own Saigon Wings, which, much to my disappointment, were not lowered onto the table via helicopter:

As well as a couple of pots of hot jasmine tea:

And, to be a little out there, a Mango Smoothie Boba Tea Mongrel Conglomeration:

I know, that's a lot to take in. I'll go slow. I promise.

Let's start at the beginning; the spring rolls. I'm sort of a fence-sitter to spring rolls, really. They can either taste fresh, crisp, and clean, reminding me of all of the great veggies of, well, Spring. Or, they can taste cold, insipid, and bland. Despite having a whole garden of veggies, as well as some nice, plump shrimp, the spring rolls fell short of any wow! quality. Combine them with the peanut sauce, and you have an entirely different story. With a little salt, a little sugar, and a little fat, the spring rolls come alive, and all of the different flavors of the vegetables start to sing and harmonize and become an actual composition. Ahh, finally: a dish where the dipping sauce is actually vital to the complete concept, instead of being an afterthought. Okay, the point shall be awarded to the spring rolls in this round.

Egg Rolls! C'mon down! You're the next contestant on In My Mouth This Instant. I'm sure all of my co-workers are going to make some great jokes about that one at the Staff Party this year....

The egg rolls were a solid departure from the usual wonton-wrapper variety we'd expect at a Chinese joint. Densely packed, with pork, bean noodles, minced shitake, and taro root, they were a big hit at the table. I liked mine with a little Sriracha more than with the sweet and sour sauce they were with.

The Shrimp Toast was a complete and utter surprise: I was expecting a very staid version, and instead we received beautiful oily, crispy, savory, shrimp-y triangles of heaven. Strange but true, I kinda fell in love with the shrimp toast.

The Saigon Wings were a real mind-bender. Marinated, then coated in... sugar? Deep fried, so that the sugar? caramelizes and forms little crunchy sweet scales all over the surface of the wing. The photo doesn't really portray the actual texture: it's as if the wing were crackleur. Very, very odd. But tasty. Odd and tasty. I'm still a little miffed... as I was harried, taking shot after shot of our food, my fine Eating Milwaukee staff-mates ate every wing except the one I had on my plate: which was very tasty. I just wish I could have downed may another wing. If not, even just a drummy would have sufficed...

The hot tea had a very, very light floral scent which I will (probably incorrectly) assume was jasmine. Other than one pot tasting a bit stronger than the other, it was everything hot jasmine tea should be.

My beverage, which most would call Mango Bubble Tea, but is in fact a mango smoothie with boba pearls, made me bat my wide-open eyes like I was auditioning for a Nicki Minaj video...

A little bit creamy, a little bit icy, a little bit sweet, and a little fruity. The mango was probably just shy of ripe, and the drink didn't blend entirely smoothly -- I still hit my fair share of ice chunks and fibrous bits of mango. Nonetheless, it was tasty... just not a home-run.

Just about the time I was able to really grasp the breadth of appetizers on the table, our food began to arrive. The run down is as follows:

Andy: Beef Cube Steak with Onions

Adam: Rice Noodles with Lemongrass with Beef and Onion

Lauren: Chicken with Lemongrass

Joe: Special Phở 27

Would you still love me if I told you my heart was racing when our entrées arrived at the table? Each one of us had ordered slightly out of our comfort zone, and right then, on the snowy Friday night, after an exhausting week of work, the thrill of New Food was coursing through my veins. I felt alive.

Andy's cube steak was incredible. Tenderness beyond imagination, and a smoky, wok-fired sear coupled with softened onions -- the flavor was at the same time both very familiar and lusciously exotic. Andy had gone out on a limb -- asked our server what his favorite was -- and order, sight unseen. Thus started our gastronomic Vietnamese adventure.

Adam's noodles were a refreshing bright spot against the dark smoke of Andy's beef. Crisp veggies, chewy rice noodles, mild but flavorful beef, and crunchy peanuts. Despite the bowl being the size of Adam's head, he did an admirable job consuming the lot. No doggy bags for these gents!

Lauren's chicken with lemongrass was spicy: I was actually a little worried at first, because Lauren likes the same spice level I do: mild plus. Bight the sunny notes of citrus and the complex, layered curry-like sauce won her over. I would say it won me over, too -- I had to take a second, third, fourth bite to make sure I wasn't imagining how incredibly tasty it was.

And then there was my Phở.

I've never had Phở. I've seen Andrew Zimmern, Anthony Bourdain, and Rachel Ray eat Phở. I've seen glimmering bowls of the concoction before. Noted how the floating meaty parts looked strangely like offal (I was right), and that the clear, lightly brown broth looked watery and flavorless. I imagined Phở to be like a lot of other so-called "National Dishes": a culinary eunuch, without any sort of will or might or shred of actual heritage or dignity.

Luckily, my Phở had balls. Pork meatballs, to be exact. Along with eye of round, brisket, beef tendon, and tripe.

I broke a rule: I ran away from food I was scared of. The problem is, I hate tripe with a fiery passion. I know that gastronomes everywhere are now taking me off of their favorites bar in their browser windows, and the gathered masses yearning for my head on a stick all started lighting their torches and sharpening their stakes in unison. I'm sorry, guys, I just really can't stand tripe. So I ordered my Phở without it.

The broth was an out of body experience. With so many things going on, your mind disconnects from the idea of both flavor and such thin, simple appearance. Floating above the broth is an aroma; sort of a five-spice smell, there's cinnamon, maybe star anise, maybe clove. The perfume is so light, though, it's almost a whisper, almost a ghost: the spirit of spices hovering in the near-field, lending a little warmth, like the feeling of a loved one who just left a room.

Pull the beaded curtains of spices away, and there's beef: big, brassy, unmistakable beef. The beef is a bouncer at the Door of Club Soup: rippling muscles, piercing stare. You can't help but be taken in by the beef. On the finish of all of this umami-rich beef flavor there's just a bit of the barnyard, an earthy, real-bones-were-used-in-this-stock sort of flavor. Slurp a little broth, let it air out, and suddenly it turns a little brighter, flavors of the green onion snap into the foreground.

My Phở was served with a plate of a accoutrements:

Thai basil, bean sprouts, lime, jalapeño, and culantro. I shredded the basil by hand, tossed in a few bean sprouts, gave Andy the jalapeño to munch on, squeezed in the lime, and cautiously ripped up the culantro.

The basil, lime, and bean sprouts bring freshness and green garden flavor to the deeply rich broth, the culantro just kinda tasted a little odd to me. Probably because I've never actually encountered culantro before, and I had to look it up at home purely by appearance: I didn't even know its name at the restaurant. Regardless, it has a flavor that I can't compare to anything I've tasted before: sort of medical, sort of phenolic, sort of astringent.

The meatballs are not big, crumbly ground-meat style balls, but rather dense, tightly packed little wads of flavor, with the texture of a fresh, warm cheese curd.

By the time I actually finished taking pictures and began to eat, my rare eye of round had pretty much cooked through in the scalding broth. Which was really just fine, it was still fabulously tender and had taken on the salty magic of the broth.

My biggest surprise of the evening was the beef tendon -- something I had, through much inner monologue, convinced myself to approach with an open mind. The gelatinous blob quivered in my China spoon, reminding me of all of the shoe-leather cuts of budget beef my father cremated on the grill when I was a child. I quelled the sighs of fear and disgust, raised the spoon to my lips, and...

The beef tendon was astounding. The texture wasn't frightening, it wasn't even odd. Sort of like a beef-flavored gummi bear -- which sounds a lot weirder than it actually was. Chewy, but giving, and chock-full of lip-smacking gelatin. I was hooked.

The rice noodles themselves were plentiful, lurking at the bottom of the bowl like white slithery sea monsters. Giving nice body to the soup, they were nevertheless a pain to eat with chopsticks. Remember, I am Polish.

We finished off the evening with a serving of Coffee Flan:

Créme Caramel, oddly enough, does have some background in Vietnam, as a product of French influence. So much so, it has a half-borrow-word Vietnamese name: either bánh caramel or bánh flan. Say that one five times fast.

The custard was rich, with only the slightest hint of coffee in the caramel. A little like Jell-O towards the outer edge, becoming decadent and creamy in the center, the one smallish portion was perfect shared with the four of us: just enough desert to cap our food safari experience.

Epilogue

Andy said it best: Phở 27 is one of those rare combinations of incredible food, amazing prices, and exceptional service. Tucked away in an uncomely building, Phở 27 delivered surprise after surprise, from its delightful décor, to mile-a-minute wait staff, to food that is both art and tradition, craft and craftsmanship. We were all a little wired after the meal, probably from the sheer shock of the entire ordeal. From the moment we walked in the door, Phở 27 exceeded our expectations, met us with open arms, and gave us a delicious, challenging, exotic, and magnificent meal. We were able to speak with the owner before our visit came to a close, and he mentioned that business has been steady, which I certainly hope is the truth. Phở 27 opened late in 2010, and has since then impressed a number of food critics in the Mil', and I can certainly see why. My hope is that the rest of the city sees what a diamond in the rough Phở 27 really is, and has the courage to step out of their edible routine and try something just a little daring. The owners of Phở 27 have certainly done so, trying their hand at a restaurant that might have seemed a little out of place just ten years ago. Now, though, the dining room is full, and my prayer is that Phở 27 keeps serving up hot bowls of goodness for a lifetime -- I know they made life-long fans of the EM staff.

Report Card:

Atmosphere: A-

Beautiful conversion of a very homely building. Warm woods, welcoming lighting, and a chíc, airy feel. The classiness of the dining room melds beautifully with the well-executed grub.

Prices: A+

Pretty amazing, considering the quality and care (not to mention portion sizes) of the dishes you receive. My gigantic (actually regular sized) bowl of special Phở was only $7.50. Choose only one meat, it goes down to $6.95. Most appetizers are in the $3.50-$5.50 range, and Andy's exceptional cube steak was a mere $8.50.

Service: A

Fun, talkative, helpful, and enthusiastic about food... and about us. The young men working the tables the night we visited made our meal that much better.

The Food: A

I want to go to Phở 27 once or twice more before I give it an A+, but I can honestly say our meal shone like a diamond. Complex, exotic, fun, and miles beyond ordinary. There wasn't a true misstep in a single item we ordered.

The Details:

Phở 27

4756 S. 27th St.

Milwaukee, WI 53221

(414) 282-9990

Excellent website (with menu) available at http://www.pho27.com

Jake's Deli: Get Excited About Meat

2011-01-10T23:21:00.003-06:00

It's a new year, and the staff of Eating Milwaukee agreed we needed to get back to our roots.

You'll never hear us complain about the rich, the spectacular, or the avant-garde. But often what makes a restaurant great isn't so much the breadth of its menu, it's how long that menu has been around.

In the case of Jake's Delicatessen, it's been around exactly 56 years.

So, how is it that we're so late to the party?

Jake's remained a relatively unknown to most of the Eating Milwaukee staff up until recently. With it's Bronzeville location, niche menu, and mostly take-out business, no one could blame us for not being on a first-name basis with the counter staff. But to pass Jake's by would be like passing up a Picasso at a yard sale: sure, you might not be an art collector... but c'mon!

Jake's lives in one of those great storefront/apartment/duplex conglomerations that used to dominate Milwaukee's Main Streets. The façade isn't going to win any beauty pageants any time soon, but that's okay. Beauty is only skin deep. But good food is to the bone...

Inside you'll find a vintage-chíc set of very uncomfortable looking wooden booths, as well as some tables and chairs:

as well as a reminder of diners and lunch counters-gone-by; a glinting stainless soda fountain:

Of course, the irony was not lost on me that the soda fountain be located directly next to the contemporary Coke fountain: this does seem to be a bit of cruelty, though. It's sort of like adopting a lobster as a pet, only to eventually throw him in the pot...

The actual prep counter is a full half the restaurant, running the length of the dining room.

This is where the tasty delicious meats are hand-carved, and assembled into sandwiches:

What's a real treat is to watch as the staff behind the counter slide their cutting boards aside, revealing steam pans below:

Mr. Prosser, my High School AP English teacher, once said that American authors have a love affair with light. If that's the case, I think us writers must also have a thing for steam, as it draws so easily on images of noir: a New York sidewalk grate, vapor billowing out, overhead streetlamps casting a hazy orange hue as a dame, mascara streaked down her face, takes one step out into the clear air. She says,

"I have the meat you've been dreaming of..."

And, that's when Andy elbows me in the side, and tells me that I'm missing an awesome shot of a hunk of Corned Beef being wrangled from the steamy depths.

Meat I've been dreaming of? Hmph. Must've all been just a dream.

We decided to take our order-to-go, as Lauren was waiting for us back at the Satellite Eating Milwaukee Compound. The kitschy interior design did have its charm, though, and despite the ever-present clatter and the almost debilitating smoke of burned toast and grilling meats, it's a cool place to hang out. If you don't mind smelling like burned toast and grilled meat afterwards:

I kept wondering why all of my shots were turning out hazy, until I realized that it actually was the smoke from the flat-top that was making the whole restaurant a bit... obscured.

Our trip to Jake's was our new, permanent staff member, Adam's, first, so it would be rude of me not to start with him.

Adam ordered a Corned Beef Sandwich w/ mustard:

Andy ordered a Pastrami Sandwich:

and a Reuben:

While I ordered a Jake's Special (which is simply a Corned Beef, but leaner, and with cheese) and a Pastrami Dog:

And, of course, a bowl of Matzo Ball Soup:

Lauren had a Corned Beef as well as a bowl of Matzo Ball Soup, which looked, strangely enough, exactly like the others.

Now, it occurred to me as I was taking these shots that none of this food is particularly photogenic: the corned beef looks mangled, the pastrami looks sort of like, well, I'll leave that one to the imagination, and the pastrami dog... well, it looks like a jumble of meat not even a mother could love. I get that. This food isn't pretty. Come to think of it, it doesn't taste pretty, either: this isn't delicate or particularly multi-layered. This is spicy, sour, brash, trash-talking mustard. This is greasy, peppery pastrami that may or may not give you some spectacular heartburn. This is fatty, tart, saltier-than-hell corned beef. This is a matzoh ball that is as much butter and schmaltz as it is cracker meal. And that's just fine with me.

Andy's pastrami was, as we had heard, to die for. The hours spent in the meat-sauna had done it well, and it was fall-apart tender, spicy, and oh-so-salty. Mixed with the glorious brown deli mustard, it was a fine sandwich, indeed.

His Reuben was equally fantastic, consisting of corned beef, sauer kraut, swiss cheese, and deli mustard. Thousand Island dressing is available on the side for any sandwich, although, as Andy pointed out, there was enough going on in his Reuben that the thousand island was far from necessary.

My Jake's Special was delightful, grilled with swiss cheese and mustard. I couldn't help but feel a bit uneasy, though, looking at the receipt I had in my pocket: the Jake's Special alone weighed in at $11.19. Wait, $11 for a single sandwich? Well, it did include a pickle spear...

What really tripped my trigger was the Pastrami Dog. THIS was a man's sandwich. Which is exactly why I was so intimidated by it.

A 1/4 pound Vienna Beef hot dog, sliced down the middle and grilled, stuffed with swiss cheese, covered in sliced pastrami, and buried in a very, very fresh Miller Bakery pretzel roll. Smother in deli mustard, consume, and take a few Tums now, just to save the frustration later. Oy vey.

What struck me as one of the tastiest aspects of the pastrami dog was the freshness of the roll: tough and chewy pretzel outside, squishy dough on the inside. Against the salty spice of the dog and the pastrami, the roll even tasted sweet -- which was a charming contrast, indeed.

The Matzo Ball Soup didn't disappoint. Little bits of carrot, celery, and onion co-mingled with shreds of chicken, and gigantic honkin' matzo ball in the center of the bowl. The ball was fluffy, giving and tender, soaked with the flavorful, if not a bit overly seasoned broth. We all agreed it fared particularly well against Benji's, our current standard to date.

Epilogue

Our meal from Jake's was all that one could ever want from a deli, if not all-out legendary. Jake's is the epitome of finding a niche, creating a memorable product, and providing consistent and satisfying experiences to customers. It's no wonder the business has been around since 1955.

Jake's dogs, as far as I can tell, are the legendary Chicago Beef Franks from Vienna Beef. I'm fine with that. Vienna Beef has made an entire business out of one single, amazing product. Good for them. Unfortunately, they're from Chicago, which means you need to be careful, otherwise your hot dog might ride up on your rear bumper, zoom around you doing 105 mph, cut you off, then flip you the bird, all while a Wisconsin State Trooper is checking Twitter on his iPhone. I'm not bitter.

Weird thing is, Jake's pastrami is from Vienna Beef, too. And other meat products are from Kelly Eisenberg (this fact is mentioned on the website as well as in the restaurant.).

But does it mean that the deli experience is less authentic when the stars of the show aren't actually cured, smoked and aged on-campus?

It's a tough call for me. I've read that Jakes can go through up to 500 pounds of corned beef on busy days. 500 pounds is far beyond what one small deli is capable of producing... in a month. So, from a purely practical standpoint, if Jake's is doing as much business as they say (and the packed, standing-room-only restaurant we encountered at noon on a Saturday would surely attest to that), then it would be absolutely necessary to serve fully- or partially-prepared meats from a third-party.

Still, I can't help but feel that, for $11, a sandwich should offer me a little more in the way of experience. I want to be able to imagine the brisket being tenderly spiced and salted in the sparse time before Shabbat begins. I want to know that the pastrami I'm eating was borne of a long line of necessarily cured meats, long before delis were retro fabulous. I want Itzhak Perlman playing his violin in the background.

All of this thinking has gotten me a little cranky, though, and one fact remains: the food (everything we tried, as a matter of fact) at Jake's Delicatessen was delectable, and worthy of repeat visits.

Our sandwiches were delicious. Our soup was divine. I even asked Adam to brush up on his Kaddish in case I died from the massive amount of meat we consumed. Prices not withstanding, we all unambiguously conceded we much preferred Jake's to Benji's.

Report Card:

Atmosphere: C- or A-, depending on how you look at it.

If you come looking for an insanely busy, noisy, chaotic deli, then Jake's won't disappoint. A-. If you're agoraphobic, or just have paneropyrophobia (true story... the fear of burned toast), you might not enjoy your visit very much. Did you know that there's a fear of beards? It's Pogonophobia. Either way, I don't think I'd actually want to sit in the restaurant and eat, beard or no beard.

Prices: C-

Just a little on the steep side, considering portion sizes. My Pastrami Dog was a steal at just under $7, but lean corned beef with cheese will run you a staggering $11.19.

Service: B

Engaging, but not overly quick. Our orders were correct the first time, and we didn't have to wait particularly long.

The Food: A

Everything we had was impeccable, if not just a touch on the heavy side. But you don't go to a deli for low-sodium diet food, now do you?

The Details:

Jake's Deli

1634 W. North Ave.

Milwaukee, WI 53205

(414) 562-1272

http://www.jakesmilwaukee.com/ - WARNING! Prices on website are NOT ACCURATE!

Kyoto Sushi Bar: Revisited

2011-01-04T23:11:00.005-06:00

Before anyone starts to cry foul (or, more appropriately for our blog, maybe fowl?), this is not so much of a review as it is an honest effort to keep you, our dear readers, up-to-date on our more interesting dining experiences.

Andy and I are complete and utter sushi nuts. We love the good stuff. We love the baroque stuff. We love the semi-good stuff from the cooler case at Sendiks. We even like my sad-excuse for homemade sushi that I force on my relatives every year at Christmas... but that's another show.

About the only thing we don't like about sushi is how quickly our bills begin to rack up at the finer institutions around town. Which is why, when I first went to Kyoto (the sushi bar, not the city in Japan) about two years ago, it was an absolute revelation: all-you-can-eat sushi on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday nights, and the quality... was really pretty good!

But, ripe fruit soon spoils, right? Well, sometimes. But in the case of Kyoto, I'm happy to report, after a number of Eating Milwaukee outings over the past couple of months, we have nothing but raves about the place.

Sure, more authentic sushi can be found elsewhere. Sure, some of the combinations are kinda weird (teriyaki chicken maki, er, what?). Sure, the service can be kind of slow sometimes, and my inkling is that it keeps the lightweights from ordering so much sushi. But, for those of us die-hards who have been conditioning for such a dare, Kyoto still delivers the one-two punch of quantity and quality that beats my monthly sushi craving into submission.

Let's go to the highlight reel, shall we?

Some variety of maki topped with mango sauce. The sweet/tart mango plays a nice jazz-chord with the salty crunch of the tempura, so I'll let this one go with a, "Eh. I liked it."

The "Sunshine Roll." I'm going to write the exact description from Kyoto's take-out menu, so pardon the tense-shifts, missing pronouns and adverbs, and bizarre syntax. I think it's kind of charming.

Grilled salmon, avocado, and cream cheese inside. Fresh salmon, crunchy, and spicy sauce on top.

The salmon inside was cooked. I guess I wasn't jumping out of my boxers for grilled salmon maki, but it was fun. In a grilled-salmon kind of way.

Shrimp tempura roll. Enough said:

Spicy tuna roll. This is one where I actually was sort of underwhelmed, only because the texture of the tuna vaguely resembles that of strawberry preserves. I think the chefs' chop is so fine that when they mix it with the chili sauce, the tuna loses any sense of integrity it once had, and simply becomes spicy mush. Next!

Philly Maki. I'm ashamed to say, I absolutely loved this one. Cold-smoked raw salmon, avocado, and cream cheese. Absolutely to die for.

And this is the part of the show where it becomes obvious that Kyoto is not aiming for authenticity: the eel nigiri isn't so much broiled as it is deep fried. Whatever. The end bits of the eel are crispy, the filet as a whole is perfectly done, and it's piping hot when it comes to your plate. Traditional? Absolutely not. Authentic? Ehhh, questionable. Delicious? Hold on to your hat, because this is a fantastic twist on the classic...

Miso soup! We've missed you! No, we actually haven't, but you came with dinner, and like a friend-of-a -friend you're not fond of but tolerate to keep from offending, we ate the soup, anyway.

Oh, my deep-fried oyster maki. Still my favorite, after all these years. There's something so holy about a crunchy, soft, creamy oyster in vinegared rice, with avocado and sweet eel sauce.

The legendary snow white roll. So good, we ordered a minimum of two of them. On two different occasions. Here's the menu text:

Shrimp tempura, avocado, and cream cheese inside. Spicy crabmeat and tobiko on top.

I can't offer a reason why this one is so delicious, but it must have something to do with the perfect alignment of flavor and texture. Still fancier than true maki, but a treat nonetheless.

This is either the Magic Maki or some fourth-grader's science fair project. I'm going with the Magic Maki:

Shrimp tempura, crabmeat, eel, cream cheese, cucumber, and avocado

Oh! One of my absolute favorites! Spartan, but nearly perfect in its simplicity. I give you, the spicy shrimp roll (spicy minced shrimp with asparagus)

Our nigiri sushi lineup: Yellowtail, Red Snapper, Tako, Eel, and Tobiko.

Add this under the "I can't believe I ate the whole thing" column: tobiko sushi. Delicious, but one is enough for a single visit.

Four Seaweed salad, three soy burger dinner, two tofu dog platter and one pasta with meatless balls!

It tastes the same. If you close your eyes.

I have to admit, this picture, now that I'm looking at it in my browser window, gives the seaweed a decidedly more yellow tint that it actually was: a bright, vibrant emerald green. The flavor echoed that brightness: crisp, fresh, a little spicy from red pepper flake, and nutty from sesame oil. You can order as many seaweed salads with your meal as you want (remember, it's AYCE!), so give it a try! And you don't even have to put up with snotty waiters who don't like alternative-lifestyle bohemians!

My arch-nemesis, the Spider Roll! Will I ever get past the idea of eating an entire crab, soft-shell and all, and just learn to enjoy the damn sushi already? Tune in next week, same fat time, same fat channel!

It is interesting to note that Kyoto has remodeled since our visit in 2009, resulting in a much, much more chic and open feel. The lighting fixtures scream Downtown, but the acoustic tile ceiling still sheepishly mutters, "strip mall in Greenfield, ho hum." No worries. The sushi was still a massive value, and for the amazing total of $55 for two people (and that also included two sodas), we consumed about $125 (market) worth of sushi. Which will always tip the scales in these days of fighting my cat for his own food and stealing ketchup packets from McDonalds to make spaghetti because I can't afford Chef Boyardee.

In short, Kyoto is still flippin' sweet.

Royal India

2010-12-28T00:00:00.001-06:00

We've already established the supremacy of Indian cuisine, so I'm going to spare you my dissertation on why curry will set you free.

Royal India is, as is the tradition in Milwaukee for great food, located in a strip-mall in a less than chic part of town. Overlooking what has to be the largest Wal-Mart in the Midwest, and the ruins of Southgate, Royal India isn't particularly pretty.

The parking is dodgy, and traffic on 27th Street is a nightmare. But often with great struggle comes great rewards, and this is most certainly the case with Royal India.

Enter, and you're greeted by an ample dining room, softly lit and relatively clean. The usual smells of garlic, ginger, coriander, and cumin immediate storm your sniffer.

Dinner starts with the traditional Papadum,

Accompanied by the equally traditional trifecta of chutneys:

Bright red onion, dark thin tamarind, and paste-like mint.

Now, we've always been fans of Tandoor's home-made chutneys, but never really big cheerleaders for their Papadum. They always seem too salty, and the (ajwain?) seed throughout just give it an odd flavor.

Thankfully, Royal India's Papadum are much less salty, and spare us the odd seed-age. Combined with the tasty mint, sweet and sour tamarind, or absolutely sublime onion chutney, they serve as a delicious warm-up for the rest of the meal.

Did I mention that the onion chutney was superb? Our friendly server pointed out that most of the non-Indian patrons tend to perfer the tamarind, as the sweet-sour combo is familiar to us. However, we gobbled down almost the entire dish of the onion chutney, and were left wondering what, exactly, made it so cotton-pickin' tasty?

First, the onions are crunchy. Score one for texture. Second, the nuclear red marinade they're in is a bit sweet, but intensely sour, a little hot, but also a bit spicy... it's the most odd, fantastic combination. Try the onion chutney on just about anything... it'll make the meal.

We splurged a little on the highly affordable appetizers, ordering Chicken Pakora:

Samosas:

Veggie Pakora:

And Paneer Pakora:

Our helpful friendly server also brought us out each a cup of Masala Tea, aka Chai.

The chicken pakoras were, as would be expected, quite delicious. The meat was well seasoned if a bit chewy in places, and the chickpea batter crunchy and substantial.

The cheese pakoras were more of the same, with firm paneer and a spicy batter.

Not wanting to break with tradition, the veggie pakoras were very fine, with hunks of every vegetable in the garden. Surprise! Was that a battered, deep-fried leaf of spinach? I'm pretty sure it was.

While the samosas were tasty, they lacked the rich pastry texture of Tandoor's, and there was no mistaking the filling for anything else except mashed potatoes. I'll say the various pakoras probably scored either as good or better (in the case of the veggie pakoras) than the Tandoori equivalent, however, the samosas at Tandoor are by far and away the winners.

The Masala Chai was a nice surprise, with a mild sweetness, smoky spice, and rich creaminess. The tea served as an effective palate cleanser between appetizers, and the fat of the milk helped keep the spice of the meal under control.

Well, full yet? Excellent. Because it's time for the entrees!

Andy ordered Chicken Vindaloo:

While Lauren ordered Chicken Makhani (aka Butter Chicken)

And I ordered Lamb Saag:

It should be noted that, despite having a (relatively) complicated order, involving multiple appetizers, breads, drinks, and entrées, the timing on all of our food was nearly perfect, neither cluttering up the table nor leaving us wondering when the next course was going to arrive.

Andy ordered his Vindaloo a Medium+ spice level, which our server told us was probably the upper limit for, er, pale Western European types. In retrospect, Andy says, he probably could have handled a full-fledged HOT, but was satisfied with a Medium+ nonetheless. Andy is kind of a man's man when it comes to spicing, through, so you kids at home don't feel bad about sticking to the mild stuff.

His Vindaloo was true to it's Portuguese/Goan roots: ultra-spicy, tomato, garlic and vinegar based gravy with chicken. This was in no way, shape or form just a manipulation of the house red curry; this was as true a Vindaloo as I've ever tasted. If spicy/sour is your thing, then Vindaloo is your dish.

However, if the intricacies and romance of Indian spicing are your true calling, then the Chicken Makhani might just be up your alley. The gravy is thick and rich, smacking of cream and butter, bright red with tomato, fragrant with garlic and spiced with a harmonious blend that never lets you forget it's Indian you're eating. The chicken tikka were tender and tasty and plentiful, and came together like a symphony with the curry.

My Lamb Saag was heaven. The creamed spinach was thick, thick, and even thicker yet. Realizing, of course, that creamed spinach curry isn't very photogenic, understand that the flavor belies the slightly unsavory sight of the dish.

India's love and respect for the dairy cow becomes readily apparent here: the Saag is a textbook outing of cream and butter, garlic, a little cumin, a little cardamom. Bits of red chili dot it, and my mild+ heat gave me just enough tongue-tingle to keep my interest. The lamb was beautifully cooked, tender and juicy, never tough, and never particularly lamb-y, if you catch my drift.

Combined with the fresh garlic naan (no picture, use your imagination), my Saag was a decadent treat, like licking the spoon after mixing a batch of brownies... something I'm keenly aware isn't healthy nor wise, but the sort of food-indulgence that one needs to engage in once in a while to keep from going completely off the deep end and eating an entire box of petit-fours. Which I did not do this Christmas. You can keep your accusatory stares and your tongue-clucking, thank you.

It bears repeating that our server was genuinely warm and helpful, talking and joking with us the entire time, even recommending better camera angles for the curry! He was quite proud of the food he was serving to us, taking the time to explain how everything in the kitchen, save the papadum, was home-made from scratch, and how he couldn't imagine using canned or pre-made anything.

I like it when my server is excited about the food I'm eating as I am.

We closed the meal with a little bowl of Gulab Jamun, lovely spheres of fresh cheese, deep fried and soaked in a rosewater syrup. Two of these sugary little suckers is plenty much, just a pleasant finish to a heavy and spicy meal.

Epilogue

I will always have a soft spot for Tandoor, but, as the old adage goes, you can never go home again. With Tandoor's new ownership comes a new menu and new flavors. We've been assured over and over that classic recipes haven't changed, yet on our last visit, it was all too obvious there are some subtle differences -- good, bad, or otherwise. As a break from tradition, Royal India satisfies with down-home Desi treats, the heavy curry comfort food that makes you want to take a long nap followed by an even longer night's sleep.

I've heard some folks complain that the service is slow at Royal India, or that things aren't kept as clean as they ought to. Honestly, we didn't see any of that on any of our visits (admission: this wasn't our first rodeo). Despite the dining room being a bit quiet on our visit (it being the day after Thanksgiving, and all), there was a lot of carry-out traffic, so the kitchen was still busy enough to show potential slow-downs to us dining-room folks.

We really enjoy Royal India, and we think it offers a nice change of pace from some of our other Indian standbys in the city. It's always good to have options, and we believe Royal India should be at the top of the list when you get the hankerin' for some curry...

Report Card:

Atmosphere: B-

It's quiet, intimate, and generic enough to be pretty much any kind of restaurant except German. Don't let the chairs stolen from a Greek family restaurant fool you, there is some Asha Bhosle playing from the overhead speakers. I'd say the only thing I really could dock the place for was the faulty dimmer which controlled the pendant lamps over the tables -- they'd blink high-low every couple of seconds, and pretty soon, I developed a pretty wicked eye-twitch.

Prices: B+

We're firmly in the $10-$15 range for entrées, but the portions are fair, and the food quality is peerless. Appetizers are inexpensive and the options are plentiful

Service: A

Quick and gabby, and not the least bit shy about recommendations. It's a pleasant change to have a server who is actively engaged with customers.

The Food: A-

Curries, executed essentially flawlessly, and consistently to boot. A few minor missteps in the samosas can be easily forgiven, I imagine samosa recipes are a lot like chili recipes: everyone thinks theirs is the best.

The Details:

Royal India Restaurant

3400 S. 27th St.

Milwaukee, WI 53215

(414) 647-9600

Tam's Chop Suey

2010-12-21T23:13:00.003-06:00

If you've ever driven past Tam's (and, chances are, if you live on the South Side, you have), you probably thought it was for sale. Maybe even abandoned for at least a few years. The building's paint is faded in places, peeling in others, the neon signs hang precariously, and the lot has, in the summer months, weeds spewing forth from every imaginable crack.

No, Tam's Chop Suey doesn't look like much. But that's okay. Because if you've learned anything from Eating Milwaukee, dear reader, it's that looks can be deceiving.

First, let's get something straight: Tam's is not a gourmet Chinese restaurant. Don't expect any baroque ingredients, any preparations with XO sauce, or intricately carved radishes shaped like roses. Tam's is an old-school Chinese restaurant, the sort of place your grandparents would go to when they felt like eating something really exotic. Like shrimp egg foo young.

Tam's interior is simple. Walk in, and you're immediately at a take-out counter, complete with a large, mostly impertinent visual directory of some of the items on the menu. Behind the counter, a tiny Chinese sparkplug paces back and forth, waiting for her favorite customers to come in and pick up their take out. Open the door on any given evening, and you'll hear her distinct shout, "Helllloooooo!" with the tone and cadence of greeting a long lost friend.

Tam's does a very brisk take-out business. In fact, you'll see more folks sitting on the benches by the counter waiting for their take-out order than you'll see sitting in the dining room. I'll be the first to admit, I usually order take-out from Tam's, too. They offer a huge assortment of lunch specials, and due to their proximity to my workplace, my co-workers and I have been known to order lunch two, three, or even four times a week.

But this is about the dinners, dear readers, and I thought, for a change, we should dine in. So, on a cold and blustery December evening, we took the trip to Milwaukee's most haunted looking Chinese joint.

Inside, Tam's is a blast from the past. You can tell, in decades past, couples would pull up in monstrous Detroit Landyachts with Opera Lights lit, step out onto a weed-free parking lot, and tuck into a night on the town, starting with some of that mystical and wonderfully foreign "Oriental" food. Now, things are a little on the run-down side. I'll forgive that, providing that the kitchen stays clean and the food stays tasty.

The dining room is nothing to write home about, dimly lit and with a few typical Chinese décor touches. The bathrooms, well, er, just go before you go out to dinner. And tell Timmy to sip his soda. Slamming Pepsi after Pepsi is only going to get him a very uncomfortable ride home. And we all remember how that ended last time.

The menu is lush, but easy to navigate. True to the old-school Chinese restaurant roots, Tam's menu is divided by meats, with sections for poultry, beef, seafood, and vegetarian choices. The owners are happy to accommodate, and will gladly cook off-menu for you, if they have the ingredients, and will add/subtract anything to suit tastes.

We started out with the usual appetizers for a traditional old-school Chinese feast.

Tam's fantastic peanut-butter and Chinese five-spice infused egg rolls:

Deep-fried (but also available as steamed and pan-fried) potstickers:

and Cantonese shrimp:

I think everyone I know adores Tam's egg rolls. Filled with a flavorful balance of cabbage and meat, with the wrappers at the perfect nexus of crispy and chewy, Tam's doesn't try anything avant-garde here. These are the egg rolls that I remember from the long-gone dining rooms of China Town and Peach Garden (okay, I know these places are still in business, but nothing like they used to be...). Egg rolls seem to be a barometer for Chinese/American restaurants these days: bite into one and find crunchy, uncooked cabbage and red-dyed "meat," your meal will probably leave you disappointed. Luckily, Tam's egg rolls are fantastic, and doused in their bizarre thin, watery hot mustard, and they're sublime.

I have strong feelings about deep-fried dumplings. It's kind of like deep-fried Oreos or deep-fried carrots... just things that have no business being crispy. But, Tam's makes it work. The dumplings are filled with a tasty meat mixture, and the size of the dumplings makes them manageable, but still in danger of becoming mouth-shrapnel. My advice: if you like dumplings the way I like dumplings, order them steamed. You'll be happier.

The Cantonese fried shrimp are HUGE. Freakin' gargantuan. Served with a nuclear-orange sweet and sour sauce, they're tasty, but a bit on the greasy side. Maybe I'd be more excited about them with a different dipping sauce. Maybe chili sauce?

Andy ordered General Tso's Chicken (which normally features baby corn as well, but since the great Mielke versus Baby Corn War of 1857, Andy has sworn off the tiny ears)

While Lauren ordered the multiple-mushroom chicken:

And I ordered the Hot Braised Chicken:

Andy, in keeping with EM tradition, ordered his General Tso's chicken a fiery hot. Despite this, the sauce was pleasantly sweet and sour, rich and flavorful, without being overly sugary or vinegar-y, which can be a downfall of most chain-like Chinese.

Lauren's Chicken with Three Mushrooms (not three physical mushrooms, but three kinds of mushrooms) was outstanding. I might go so far as to say it was the star dish of the evening. The chicken was tender but never jelly-like, the mushrooms (and I'm not entirely sure the varieties used) were fresh and flavorful, but the sauce... oh, the sauce! Deep, rich, and mushroom-y, salty, a little sweet, full of mouth-watering umami and the occasional crunch of fresh green onion. I would, despite not being the mushroom-fiend that Lauren is, order this again in a heartbeat.

My Hot Braised Chicken was a nice change of pace. Battered and fried chunks of chicken in a sweet and sour sauce which, strangely enough, tasted nothing like the General Tso's sauce. A little tangy, nice and sweet, with some red chili punch, not at all flavored like ketchup or duck sauce. Sliced water chestnuts, carrots and bamboo shoots rounded out the Necessary Veggie Quotient. A Hmong friend at work had ordered Hot Braised Pork at work in the past, and gave it a passing grade, so I figured the chicken wouldn't be far behind, and in that, I was mostly right.

I think my biggest misgiving about my entrée was that the chicken was battered and fried. I'm not entirely sure where the whole "braised" part comes in, since it would appear that, save the garlic in the sauce, nothing in the dish endured a braise. Pair the battered chicken bits with a hot sauce, and suddenly the batter is slipping off faster than a soccer mom's blazer at a Justin Bieber concert. Just savor that image for a while. Lost your appetite yet?

Well, that's too bad, I guess I'll just have to eat your portion of Triple Lobster Sauce. Pictured here, with our old nemesis, Egg Roll, Photo Bombing the poor thing.

I really like Tam's Triple Lobster Sauce. I actually kind of love it. Oh, who am I kidding? I'm addicted to the stuff. I'll order it weekly for dinner, to be sure, and every time I call, the owner knows it's me, and chuckles to herself as I order the exact same thing.

But this is fantastic. Better than fantastic. This is a rare breed: a cross of actually authentic Chinese cooking and saucemaking with the American need for More. Lobster Sauce has no lobster in it, but rather it was served with lobster. While there may be a lobster in every pot in China, we're not quite so fortunate here in snowy Wisconsin, so the more typical American preparation is shimp in lobster sauce.

Lobster sauce is a harmony of strong, potent flavors: black fermented soybeans, garlic, pork, wine, egg, and green onion. Sure, it sounds like a nightmare. Actually, it sort of looks like one, too. But the flavor is immense and unmistakable. Dark, murky, rich, and chock full of funky rotten bean and garlic flavor. You have to be a fan of the ferment to get down with this one, but close your eyes and tell yourself it's just soy sauce you taste... you'll be in Lobster Sauce Oblivion and you'll never know those beans started life lily-white.

Tam's lobster sauce is dead-on, probably one of the better ones I've tasted in the city (excepting my own, of course). The liquid has the right mouth feel, thick and unctuous with a little bit of fat supplied by the ground pork. The black beans give their all, making a flavor that is completely unique but instantly recognizable, even by someone who has never had the dish before.

Of course, you can get just shrimp in your lobster sauce. But Triple Lobster Sauce makes things a little more interesting, adding chicken and beef to the mix. The shrimp are on the, well, shrimpy side, both in size and flavor, with a little more iodine than I'm fond of, but I gladly put up with it for the rest of the dish. Chicken and beef fall in line, with the chicken being tender and the beef being a bit more chewing, giving you all sorts of awesome textural contrast in each bite.

Please, do me a favor, though... don't put any soy sauce on any of Tam's food. The owners season everything perfectly, and add soy (which, oddly, was Kikkoman, which is a Japanese product...) and you've got a veritable salt-lick on your plate. No, nothing we ordered really needed any seasoning at all.

Epilogue

I know there are faster, cheaper, and more authentic Chinese restaurants in Milwaukee. I know this. But Tam's is a pleasant throwback, a nostalgic gastronomic time capsule, a way to re-connect with some of the food that made me love food in the first place. I can remember the smells as the server at Peach Garden would, with a little bit of theatre, lift the cover off the stainless steel serving dish of my Hong Sue chicken, watch as platters of noodles and mu shu pancakes came out of the kitchen. On another day, my dad and I would walk to the Washington Park Lagoon, maybe fish for a while, and Asian families would gather on the shores with camp stoves and woks, cooking their catch only minutes after cleaning them, and those same luscious smells would waft over.

At Tam's, I smell those same smells. I delight as my dinner is brought out in those same stainless steel serving dishes, now a little careworn with the years. I can see the same family passion for food as I saw at Washington Park when I was six, and I feel a little vindicated. Tam's is a little frayed, a little long in the tooth. But the food is what matters here, and it is an exercise in reminiscing. I'll keep going back, as long as the Lobster Sauce is still funky, and the owner still greets me as her favorite customer who works at a funeral home...

Report Card:

Atmosphere: C+

With so few people eating in the dining room these days, it sort of feels like a ghost town. Nothing is particularly pretty, but you're not there to eat the décor. Still, it would be nice if there were a few other diners around...

Prices: A-

Portion sizes are absolute huge. Food quality is good. And if you'd like, when you order carry out, you can get a "single" portion, which is enough for a large lunch or comfortable dinner with no leftovers. Most "single" portions are in the $6-8 range.

Service: A

The service in the dining room was fantastic, but carry-out is equally wonderful. I always tip when I do carry out, and the owner always blushes, thanks me, then scolds me for tipping. Everyone is always pleasant, smiling, and ready to talk your ear off. I don't think I've ever seen her frown.

The Food: B

Tam's doesn't break any new Chinese/American food ground. But it is damn tasty, and brings back a lot of memories for me. For a step above the New Super A-Number-1 China Wall restaurants that are popping up faster than Walgreens', this is a nice option.

The Details:

Tams Chop Suey

6725 W. Layton Ave.

Greenfield, WI 53220

(414) 281-8877

Hellaciously laid out but nevertheless informative website available here

Pancake Smackdown 2010: The Real Deal

2010-12-13T23:08:00.000-06:00

All warm and fluffy, they're the ultimate winter comfort food. Drizzled in entirely synthetic Mrs. Butterworth's syrup, a pad of butter sliding lazily across the top of the stack, the common flapjack is one of the most innocuous things I can think of. Until SIX POUNDS of them are set in front of you...

Such was the scene at the Eatery on Farwell's Pancake Smackdown for Charity, where our own Andy competed against seven other valiant eaters for the coveted Butterworth Belt.

The full roster of competitive eaters is as follows:

Pat Nettesheim - Guitars for Vets
Andy ***** - BESTD Clinic
Tim Cigelske - Crohn's and Colitis Foundation
Dan Augustine - Milwaukee Animal Rescue Center
Mike Beyers - Independence First
Tim Panicucci - Celebrating Brad: A Tribute to Art and Life
Phil Gerb - Brew City HDI
Paul Fredrich - Transition Milwaukee

Andy and I had an awesome time, and got to hang out with a ton of our friends in the Food Blogosphere... something we don't get to do half as often as we like. A big shout out to our friends Paul and Lori from Burp! blog... it's always a blast, and we can't wait for the next Milwaukee Foodie Tweetup!

The full gallery of pictures from the even is available after the jump:

Pancake Smackdown

Also, a big shout-out to the Eatery's owner, Ryan and Social Media Guru David for putting this whole flapjack-stuffing fiasco together!

Oh, and just in case you were wondering... Eating Milwaukee came in Second Place which, as luck would have it, only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and eating competitions!

Mo's A Place For Steaks: An Evening with Chef Ken Arnone

2010-11-30T00:05:00.003-06:00

Maybe some day I'll stop being surprised when we're invited to special events, because, ahem, we have a semi-credible website. Maybe someday I'll become jaded with local and undeserved fame, blinded by half-lit rustbelt stars in my eyes, complacent in my cockneyed celebrity. But, that day, thankfully, has not come, and I still blush a little when those e-mails arrive in my inbox, beckoning me to some of Milwaukee's finest eateries.

The staff of Eating Milwaukee was recently invited to a special dinner at Mo's, a Place For Steaks, celebrating Certified Master Chef Ken Arnone. Because it says so in my contract with the Association for Certified Chef's Certification Certificates Corporation, here's a few facts about Certified Global Master Chef Ken Arnone:

Chef Arnone became a Certified Master Chef in 2003, one of only 65 in the country.
Chef Arnone served as CHef Professor at the Culinary Institute of America from 1999-2005
Became a Global Master Chef in 2008
Worked for the CIA at Ristorante Caterina de Medici.
Thinks Milwaukee is by far the most fun city on the Western shore of Lake Michigan.

Our invitation allowed us a plus-one, and I thought, since my mom has consistently thought this blog to be a slightly silly venture whose sole purpose is to spend money on domain registration and restaurant cheques, I would bring her to help show her the fabulous, glamorous side of being a restaurant blogger.

Look! There's the joyful staff of Eating Milwaukee, and my mom, faking a smile for what I promised would be the first and last picture I'd take of her that night.

Because Mo's invited us to this shindig, I'll gladly share with you all of the tasty details, and the tasty pics, but I'm going to abstain on our usual "report card" section, as I believe that's the slightly stand-up thing to do in this situations.

Mo's is a steakhouse with class and panache, this isn't the Texas Roadhouse, and it most certainly isn't the Ponderosa.

We started the evening with butlered hors d'oeuvres.

Lobster Ceviche:

Veggie Sushi:

And an Amuse Bouche of the regular menu item, "The Big Shorty," which is bleu crusted braised short ribs with asparagus and horseradish risotto. Mmmm... little spoons of heaven...

Lobster Ceviche! How elegant! How Chic! But the citrus kind of trampled the delicateness of the lobster to death. Still tasty, just... I'm poor, and if I'm going to eat lobster, I want to make sure I can taste every sweet, succulent morsel. Because sweet and succulent lobster costs extra (Eating Milwaukee Staff In-Joke Alert!).

I'm an all-out lunatic when it comes to sushi, so the veggie maki we were treated to were just fine. Nothing too daring, but still well-executed.

The snack-size Big Shorty was fantastic, and was a great way to whet our palettes for the rest of the meal. Imagine, if this little china spoon of food was so incredible, what were the other six (six!) courses going to be like?

Carbs ahoy!

Well, hold on to your hats, because here comes course number one!

Oh, good golly. It's Nueske's bacon, about two inches thick, and MEATY, braised for something like eight hours, served with a microgreen salad, sweet potato purée, and seared shrimp. Pork Candy is one of those things that should be an automatic invention for a Wisconsin business, and I hope to see it released in time for grilling season next year. Pork Candy. Between Bacchus' pork belly, and Chef Arnone's braised bacon, I'm sold. The bacon literally melted in your mouth, was both meaty and fabulously fatty at the same time, and just wallowed in the sauce made from the braising liquid. Were you the kid that loved the chunk of bacon at the top of the can of Bush's Best Baked Beans? Well, then this will make you pop a few fuses. Why the shrimp? Well, I guess because the bacon needed to stand next to something, to make you realize exactly how kick-butt it really was.

"Hey, Shrimp."

"Yeah, Bacon?"

"Uh, who has no thumbs, sits around in a low braise for eight hours, and blows you out of the water?"

"Gee, Bacon, I don't know... maybe La Merenda's Osso Buco?"

"THIS GUY, shrimp! Aww, snap! Burned you!"

"Wow, bacon, you really are amazing. If Chuck Norris were a meat, he'd be you..."

Well, that was fun. Stoked yet? Well, cool your jets, 'cause the second course is a salad. I know, I know.

Luckily, this Endive and Radicchio salad had caramelized honey crisp apples, candied pecans, and Montechevré Goat's Milk Brie, just so I didn't feel too emasculated. Because nothing says limp-wristed sally like salad. No, real men eat meat. Meat, meat, meat, meat. There's nothing more manly than meat.

Heeeeyyy... that's not meat! Well, I guess it is, kinda. No, silly me. It's a tasty delicious blackened salmon filet. Served with tomato basil risotto and a spicy Creole sauce. The third course was not accompanied by a wine selection, but rather a mixed drink, a Ketel One Serrano:

This was absolutely delightful, with the texture of the fish at the perfect and almost nearly unattainable point of delicate flakiness with ideal moisture and tenderness. Wonderful, and if I were a man who came to a place like Mo's looking for awesome salmon, I would be impressed. But as I'm a man who would go to Mo's looking for a steak, I yearned for a bovine banquet to bedeck my bowl. I was getting a little nervous...

Victory is mine!

Here's a thing of beauty: a gorgeous, select cut of Snake River Kobe beef tenderloin, cooked just long enough so the Moo isn't so loud as to drown out the dinner conversation, with simple adornments of wilted spinach, caramelized pearl onions, and almond potato croquettes. Yes folks, from the people who brought you the roasted-corn Kit Kat comes the most delicious beef on the planet. I love the Japanese.

It should be noted, if you're a stickler for details (and you are, otherwise you'd be reading someone else's blog right now), that Snake River Kobe should, for all legal purposes, be called Snake River Wagyu/ Angus Proprietary Domestic Cross. But I don't think that has as much marketing sheen to it as just calling it Kobe. Either way, actual Kobe beef is prohibitively expensive, and would probably be a bigger let down than the time we tried Dippin' Dots.

Chef Arnone handles the beef masterfully, and attains such a deep, beefy flavor, it makes even the richest of store-bought steaks seem like pin-the-tail-on-the-cattle. THIS is why you come to Mo's. To have the finest, most exceptionally prepared piece of beast you will ever have the pleasure of cutting with a butter knife.

Okay, so, everyone with me so far? I probably shouldn't have said the word MEAT so many times and with such vigor, because now it just seems like that's all that's on the table, and I sort of feel like my head is spinning and my plaque is going to start flowing... but on with the meat, shall we?

I'm really, really sorry. This was the "surprise treat" fifth course presented to us by Johnny V and Chef Arnone themselves, and I can't remember for the life of me what cut it was. I don't even think it matters at this point. Did you ever, when you were a kid, ride your bike down a drastic hill, paved perfectly smooth with no bumps or cracks? Remember that feeling as your own inertia took you down the hill, rolling faster and faster, until it felt as though the bike tires were lifting off the road, and you were becoming gracefully and effortlessly airborne? Well, this steak was better than that.

Not to be outdone, a member of the waterfowl family decided to make an appearance, thus marking my first ever encounter with Foie Gras.

Seared and buttery, with the most rich flavor, I can't say the entire experience was unpleasant. I do, however, eat with a conscience, and I can only hope that the fowl whose liver I was consuming wasn't force-fed through gavage in an inhumane manner. Any folks out there who want to are free to Google foie gras and research the process themselves -- I'm not going to start a flame war by linking to anything.

I was ready to pass out, Andy was draped across the piano singing showtunes and doing his best Isabella Rossellini impression, Lauren was rambling about the Squeesophone again, and my mom was chatting with the energetic little waiter who kept inexplicably refilling her wine glass, when Chef Arnone wheeled out the portable butane ranges...

Along with that came about ten pounds of butter

Another six pounds of brown sugar

And all of the strawberries in the Western Hemisphere. Yes folks, it was time for the sixth and final course, Strawberries Foster, with Mo's Signature chocolate cake.

Of course half the fun of a Foster dessert is the flambé, and this was no exception:

The finished dish: a wedge of decadent rich chocolate cake a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream, and hot strawberries, brown sugar, butter, and rum all over the top. Holy mackerel.

Here's a run down of exactly everything we had, for those of you with limited short-term memory faculties:

First Course

Fennel Spiced Shrimp and 8 Hour Braised Nueske's Bacon

Sweet Potato Purée

Paired with Far Niente Chardonnay, Napa Valley 2008

Artesa Chardonnay, Carneros 2009

Second Course

Endive & Radicchio Salad

Caramelized Honey Crisp Apples, Candied Pecans, Cider Vinaigrette and Motechevré Goat's Milk Brie

Third Course

Blackened Salmon

Tomato Basil Risotto and Spicy Creole Sauce

Paired with Ketel One Serrano

Ketel One Vodka, Limoncello, Campari, Orange Juice

Fourth Course

Snake River Kobe Tenderloin

Caramelized Pearl Onions, Wilted Spinach and Almond Croquette

Paired with Rubicon Estate "Cask" Rutherford Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley 2006

Fifth Course

Select Beef with Seared Foie Gras

Sixth Course

Strawberries Foster

with Mo's Signature Chocolate Cake

Paired with Taylor Fladgate 20 Year Old Tawny Porto

Epilogue

Dining with the fine folks at Mo's, Chef Arnone, and Johnny V was an absolute dream. No matter what kind of wacky food adventures we find ourselves in, it is a rare treat to sit down to a meal so impeccably executed, so complete in every detail, and so doggone delicious. Despite my rambling and playful prose here, we were truly honored to be included on the guest list, and how fortune everyone is that we play host to such an establishment in our own backyard!

We would also like to share our deepest gratitude with Andrew Stockel, Operating Partner at Mo's, who invited us to this edible extravaganza.

We have an old saying in our family when someone treats us to a meal the likes of which Chef Arnone was responsible for,

"Bed's going to feel good tonight..."

What a meal!

Mama DeMarinis: Accept No Imitators

2010-11-20T14:08:00.004-06:00

A few things have become painstakingly clear since my accident on November 8th, some things have become a little more in-focus. I'm not one to claim that my outlook on life has changed completely, nor that I have somehow become a different, more loving, caring, stop-and-smell-the-flowers sort of person. No, I'm still the food-crazed time-crunched word-mongering lunatic I've always been. But now, there's a little more crazy mixed in. Blame it on the concussion.

No, I've become a little more aware of how much my friendships mean to me. I value them a little more now, relish them a little more. I can see them more clearly, I'm aware of how much my friends mean to me. And, without a doubt, how much I mean to my friends. And sometimes we need to be reassured of that.

Eating Milwaukee is a labor of love born of friendship: we started this as three friends who loved to eat together. And it should go that once in a while, we have the honor of eating at a friend's restaurant. Such is the case with Mama DeMarinis'.

I have the pleasure (and I do mean that) of working with Jessi DeMarinis at the funeral home which keeps the lights on here at the Eating Milwaukee Compound. Jessi married into the DeMarinis clan: her husband Vince is third-generation in the restaurant biz. During the day, Jessi keeps the operations of the funeral home humming along, but at night, almost à la Flashdance, Jessi switches gears to wait tables at the restaurant.

It is because of Jessi that I started going to DeMarinis, in a sign of camaraderie to support her on a Friday night. But it is because of Vince's mastery in the kitchen that we keep coming back, to continue sampling his latest creations, or to be lulled into a beautiful food coma by our all-time favorites.

Now, you might be wondering what all of the keyword nonsense regarding Scott Walker is about. Well, I'll tell you.

You see, I've been to DeMarinis' a million times, but our last visit was Andy and Lauren's first. And, lo and behold, who should be sitting at the waitress' table? Governor Elect Scott Walker. Hmph. Strange, but true, and of course, we have the pictures to prove it!

Now, poor Jessi looks as though someone slipped some horse tranquilizer into her Diet Coke, and such continues a long-standing tradition of my taking her picture at exactly the wrong moment. But, the other shot I had has her looking perfect and Scott Walker looking sedated. And, sorry Jessi, but I'm not about to infuriate our state's next governor!

DeMarinis' is a prototypical Milwaukee restaurant-bar, built on the first floor of a sizable Milwaukee Bungalow duplex. Inside, you'll find a homey dining room, crowded but workable, and a large bar. Since July, every business in Wisconsin is smoke-free, and DeMarinis is no exception.

As luck would have it, Scott Walker and his party were finishing their meal as we arrived, and we were able to snag his table after he left.

The menu at DeMarinis' is comprehensive, but not overwhelming. It covers the basics: pasta and pizza. Don't expect anything exotic, this isn't that kind of Italian. Do expect lots of homemade sauces, crazy delicious (voted City's Best by AOL, btw) seasonal pizzas, a killer Lenten fish fry (or delicious baked fish)..

Vince makes almost everything on the menu from scratch, and it shows. We started our meal off with a half-and-half sampling... the deep-fried portabella (and yes, spelling it portabello, portabella, or portobello is all fine... I checked) topped with cheese is Vince's own recipe, while the breadsticks filled with cheese are bought frozen. Either way, they're both tasty:

Breadsticks filled with Mozzarella

Fried 'bella Cap with Cheese

The breadsticks and the 'shroom are both served with Vince's homemade Sugo, while the portabella is also available with his homemade Peppercorn or traditional Ranch. Both dressings are insanely rich and creamy, with the Peppercorn being the favorite at our table: with grated cheese mixed in, and a spicy but well-behaved finish on the tongue.

The 'shroom is one of our favorites: simple, and unpretentious. The big mushroom cap is meaty and has a nice tooth to it, never mushy or muddy like some can get. Contrast the meaty chew with the crunchy breading, toss on some bubbly melted mozzarella, and you've got an awesome bar-food meal starter.

It should be noted, however, that the night we went as a group, a fryer was down, and as such, we could not indulge in the home-made onion rings that I have probably gained at least 20 pounds from. Vince slices fresh sweet onions on a mandolin -- for every order -- and breads them moments before he sends them to a sweet hereafter in the Frialator. The result is onion strings with tons of flavor, an awesome crunch, and a lot less grease than you'd expect from a steakhouse variety. Served with the homemade peppercorn ranch, they're well worth the inevitable indigestion.

Andy and Lauren ordered a Pepperoni and Fresh Mushroom pie,

while I ordered my all-time favorite off-menu extravaganza: the Vinny Special, also known as a sausage patty completely swallowed by a sea of sugo, mozzarella, mushrooms, onions, and hot banana peppers:

Along with a side of spaghetti slathered in, you guessed it, more sugo:

I think it's important to note I'm a fan of both DeMarinis' red sauces: the sugo is a little more straightforward and what American tastes would be used to. The Marinara is much, much spicier, with an acidic tang, lots of diced bell pepper and onion, and an abundance of oregano.

Lauren also ordered a side of mostaccioli with garlic butter:

I love that Vince tosses his pasta with sauce before plating it. I know it's a simple thing, but every single bleedin' strand of spaghetti on my plate had a perfect thin coating of sauce on it. Lauren's mostaccioli was ideally coated in amazingly flavorful garlic-parmesan-parsley butter. It's little things that take a few extra seconds that show that even simple cuisine can still be elegant and exceptionally executed.

On other occasions, I've also sampled the Chicken Parmesan, along with Vince's off-menu (but soon to be returning) Alfredo.

The chicken parmesan is a fantastically thin chicken breast, pounded, seasoned, and breaded in-house, fried to GBD perfection, and then slathered with either sugo or marinara, topped with mozzarella, and baked until bubbly and melty. It's simple, it's not cutting edge, and it's not avant-garde, but it is fantastically delicious.

Vince's alfredo is a wonderful change of pace from bottled alfredos, or chemically-induced alfredo that we've become so used to at the Olive Gardens of the world. Heavy cream, garlic, and grated cheese come together in a ménage à trois of rich dairy insanity. The texture isn't the velvety smooth sauce many are used to: the cheese stays a bit gritty, and the flavor is less buttery and more cheesy, but I adore it. The night I had it, I asked Vince to add in whatever he saw fit, and he put in the kitchen sink; spinach, bell peppers, onions, broccoli, and artichoke hearts, along with a seared chicken breast.

DeMarinis' pie follows traditional Milwaukee Party Style rules: sheet pan, medium-thin crust, and square slices. Vince bakes his to a moderate doneness by default, resulting in a crust that is neither cracker-crisp nor soggy, but somewhere in between. The kitchen staff will gladly leave your pie in a little longer if you like it on the crunchy side, like I do. Of course, the red sauce or pesto (whichever you'd like) is homemade, and the blend of cheeses is a big flavor bullseye.

Which leads me to DeMarinis' sausage...

This is not from a shrink-sealed package from Klement's. It's not even bulk sausage from a butcher shop. Every ounce of Italian Sausage you eat at DeMarinis' is custom-blended from a generations-old family recipe, unchanged and phenomenal. The same sausage that is plopped in little blobs on the pizza makes up the sausage patty, traditionally found on the appropriately enough named Sausage Patty Sandwich. Salty, spicy, fatty, juicy, and porky... I'm not really sure if there is the need for anything else in life. Maybe a shower once in while. But that's about it.

Epilogue

I know I go into this with a bias: the DeMarinis' are good friends, and I want to see them succeed and grow in their business, so I want to hype them up. But our review of the restaurant is a fair one, biased, but true, and you can ask their legions of loyal customers and you'll hear the same gushing praise. Heck, ask the soon-to-be Governor! DeMarinis' isn't flashy, when you walk in, you're not magically whisked away to some villa in the Italian countryside. In fact, at every turn, in every way, you're reminded that you're in Milwaukee: a hard working, blue-collar town made up of a diverse crowd of people... just trying to make it. At the end of the day, especially these days, it's nice to share some table space with some friends, chat it up with Jessi or Kimbo, listen to Vince get excited about locally sourced ingredients, and relax knowing that we're all in this together, whatever this is, and we're all very, very lucky to have it.

Report Card:

Atmosphere: A

Oh, sure. It's not stylish. You don't need to wear a jacket, and there's no gimmicky theme. Plastic grapes, red ceiling tiles, and the most diverse crowd gathered in any single place in Milwaukee. It's loud, it's crowded, you will no doubt hear your neighbor's conversation as clearly as your own. But this is a community, and this is dining as a shared experience. This is not an intimate date restaurant, this is loud, boisterous, Friday-night-pizza-with-the-family. And I wouldn't want it any other way.

Prices: B+

Nothing on DeMarinis' menu is what I would consider expensive.

Service:

My best friend is a waitress here. I don't think I should make any comments...

The Food: A-

Simple Italian, simply delicious. Don't limit yourself to their pizza! I love the pies, but there's a lot of tastes that languish elsewhere on the menu that you'd be a fool to leave uneaten.

The Details:

Mama De Marinis

2457 S. Wentworth Ave.

Milwaukee, WI 53207

(414) 481-1770

Of course, they do a brisk carry-out business, too!

The Eatery on Farwell

2010-10-30T19:19:00.004-05:00

It's really breathtaking how time gets away from us these days. It feels like only yesterday that summer was beginning to bloom, and we had all the time in the world. Now it's cold, it's been two weeks since we ate at The Eatery, and I'm sitting on a sunny Saturday afternoon looking out the window at bare trees and watching my very angry cat pace back and forth in front of his empty food dish. I'm hungry too, jerkface. We'll both eat when the blog gets done.

We were introduced to The Eatery, at least formally, at Burp!'s Gumbo Gitdown at the onset of October. We were a little surprised, but in a pleasant way, that the folks at The Eatery brought their andouille chicken chili, as opposed to gumbo, to the event, but I was happy to find out it was, at least, a regular menu item.

At GGD, we really enjoyed the chili, with one little gripe... the beans were crunchy. We weren't the only ones who observed this, so I'm fairly confident in saying it wasn't just my imagination. The flavors were great, the chive cream topping, despite its frightening institution-green color, was delightful, and they certainly brought enough -- ten full trays! -- but the beans were undercooked. I chalked it up to cooking a massive batch of something they probably normally did pot-by-pot. But more on that later.

The Eatery is located in a funky old brick building on Farwell which has housed a number of businesses over the past few years. Rumor has it that the location is cursed -- restrictions from the neighboring condo developments limit hours on the patio during the summer, thus stunting the potential of the location from becoming a high-class hangout. I'm not completely sold on this -- there's plenty of successful businesses on the East Side (and elsewhere) that don't have any patios at all and still are able to maintain a vibrant following... but a late-night patio certainly doesn't hurt, either...

Inside, the décor is spartan and a little disjointed. Walls of pumpkin and sage are dotted with black and white prints of vintage photos, and faux oiled-brass caged workshop lights hang next to dainty chandeliers.

It's not that the design is bad... far from it. I guess I just couldn't help feeling a bit at sea about the whole thing. Is it supposed to feel a bit post-industrial loft-ish? That would explain the old work lights and the dark wood and ceiling. But what about the chandeliers and the conflicting color palette? (oh, I know. I'm getting a little detailed here. But really... I pulled out my color wheel! Sage and pumpkin are incompatible hues!). The bathrooms are lush, with floating glass-basin sinks with overflow fixtures, but the grout work is a little rough. So, what message do we take away?

The bar area makes up the vast majority of the floor space of the restaurant,

and well stocked it is, including The Eatery's own Frankenstein monster, an in-house infused vodka used for their generously garnished Bloody Marys:

and, of course, a smiling face serving it all up: (sorry, couldn't resist!)

We started our meal off with the "Tootsie Rolls" (please, Tootsie Roll Industries, don't sue us!), wonton wrappers filled with cream cheese, red peppers, shrimp, and spring onions:

My God, these were amazing. Perfectly creamy, cheesy, and with the distinct flavor of shrimp that I don't mind one bit. The wonton wrappers weren't fried to a crunchy crisp, but were left a little flaccid, which I actually liked here... sometimes, we get overzealous with these things, and when you bite into them, shards of hard-fried wonton wrapper rip into your soft tissue like shrapnel. Nope, no mouth-ripping here. Only creamy, rich shrimpy goodness. Oh, and the honey dijon dipping sauce? The sweet was a fun contrast with the fatty cheese, but we all agreed they were splendid on their own. I understand the unwashed masses clamor for a dipping sauce. That's fine. But don't feel obligated to have to dip... these gigantic shrimp rangoons stood on their own.

We also ordered the Andouille Pepper Jack Dip:

Which left us all incredible confused. Were the deep fried bread chunks garnish? Was that what we dipped? The GBD bread was oily, what being little sponges dunked in the Frialator for a few minutes. Remember our discussion about Mouth Shrapnel? There ya go.

There was too much dip in the sourdough bread bowl to start by tearing off pieces, it would have been like the Boston Molasses Disaster except with searing culinary-napalm molten cheese. So, we used the cubes until things cooled down a bit.

The dip was nice, but lacked a "killer app" for me. It was a bit gritty, and while spicy with the pepper jack and andouille, didn't have any bright or truly salty notes for me. A good outing, but needs a bit of tweaking.

Andy ordered the "Turn Up the Heat" burger:

While Lauren ordered the Mac and Cheese:

Adam ordered the Pecan Chicken:

and I, the "Pig in a Pot":

Andy's burger had amazing flavor, and despite the name, wasn't painfully hot. The combination of mozzarella, jalapeño, cilantro, and onion in the patty, along with chipotle mayo, pico, and pepper jack was tasty hot harmony. Certainly not as spicy as it sounds.

Lauren's Mac and Cheese was mild and well executed. The noodles were plentiful and well cooked, and the cheese sauce was demure and present in a quantity perfectly proportioned to pasta. Lauren also ordered a small crock of French Onion Soup:

The thick, rich soup was topped by the usual croutons and mozzarella and swiss cheese... sorry, purists, no Gruyère or even Provolone here. Lauren noted that the soup had an off note: I tasted it, and knew exactly what she was talking about: wine.

Okay, villagers, put down your pitchforks and douse those torches, I'm not going to get into an argument here. I know wine is an essential part of French onion soup. Every recipe I've ever seen calls for it -- either red, white, vermouth, or cooking sherry -- it's always there. Alton Brown, whom I'm apt to follow, uses white in his version. So what's with the "off note" comment, you ask?

It was too forward. The onions were singing back-up to the wine's James "Thunder" Early. And as you already know, Effie does not sing back-up. Neither should onions.

Adam's chicken was delightful, with a sweet champagne sauce and creamy risotto. The chicken was cooked perfectly, tender and juicy and not the least bit dry.

My Pig in a Pot was an interesting animal indeed... and I immediately got the punch line: it's much less about the pork in a terra cotta flower pot, and much more about the flavors all being "earthy": baked potato, Brussels sprouts, mushrooms, and pork loin. I get it.

The potato, while cooked through, was dry without toppings. I have a deep-seeded aversion to baked potatoes stemming from them being on nearly every dinner menu served at our kitchen table as a child, so there is some bias there. But even with my dislike of roasted spuds, don't baked potatoes need something on them? I asked for a side of butter, which helped. But it was still, er, kinda blah.

The 'sprouts were delightful and hearty, but when they cooled down (and they did...), that stinky jock-strap smell of cabbage starts to creep up on you. This isn't the Eatery's fault: this is the veggie being true to what it is: tiny little jock-strap smelling cabbages. I still liked 'em, and the fragrance only became noticeable late in the meal, once they had cooled to room temp.

My pork loin was planted in the midst of sautéed mushrooms in a rich, wine (or was it cognac? I can never tell...) based pan sauce. Topped with muenster cheese, then with the Eatery's version of a duxelles, and then adorned with an edible flower. Awww...

The pork loin was like butter. The pan sauce was Holy. My conflict arose with the duxelles, which was drier and coarser than I've ever encountered. For those of you unfamiliar with a duxelles, please be sure to study before coming to class. Run along to the Principal's office.

It just was a bit too much. A little dry, but well flavored, the duxelles became the star of the dish. The whole point of duxelles in French cuisine is that it serves as a foundation to flavor. As AB says, "I'm pretty sure there are whole buildings in France that are mortared together with this stuff." Eatery Guys: I really liked it. I really really did. But consider making the duxelles a bit finer, a bit more most, and a bit less... I felt like Zahi Hawass trying to unearth the long-lost remains of Pharaoh Tut Ahnk-Porkman.

So, where does that leave us?

The Eatery is new, and still growing into their britches. If a restaurant makes it through their first year of trial-and-error (and sadly, 75% don't), they're usually in good shape. The Eatery has some really brilliant flashes, some genuinely good ideas and a really solid foundation to build upon: I think there's just a bit of fine tuning to be done. This is fine, as long as The Eatery stays an organic, malleable restaurant.

And as for the case of the chili with crunchy beans? Well, we wanted to see if it was a fluke, so we all had a little taste of the day's batch. And the beans? Crunchy. Crunchy? Is this a new food trend? I always hate to critique something I don't understand, which is why I don't watch golf. Maybe undercooked legumes are the new hip thing, like skinny jeans and fixed-gear bicycles?

On the whole, we liked The Eatery, and it's the sort of place we look forward to revisiting, and watching grow. After all, a truly successful restaurant isn't one created with fancy marketing campaigns and focus groups -- it grows out of experience and change, adjusting to the time and preferences of its customers. I'll be interested to see exactly where The Eatery is one year from now -- I certainly hope that by then it has become an East Side fixture.

Report Card:

Atmosphere: B-

An odd mix of industrial and Home Depot chíc. I'm not quite sure what to make of it. Maybe the vibe would be different on any other night than Sunday.

Prices: A-

Very, very fair. Portion sizes were comfortable without being overwhelming, but the food by and large is rich and heavy, so you end up feeling like you ate a lot more than you actually did. Which I guess is a mixed blessing. Either way, the quality of the food belies the price.

Service: A-

We were among two other tables occupied the night we visited, so wait staff didn't really have a huge challenge on their hands. Nonetheless, everything went smoothly and our food arrived quickly.

The Food: B

I see great things on the horizon. As it stands now, The Eatery provides an above-average dining experience at prices I'm still a little surprised at, but is a bit hit-and-miss with the details. We all enjoyed our meals, and that's the important thing. I look forward to seeing how the menu evolves, and watching The Eatery shocks the pants off of everyone.

The Details:

The Eatery on Farwell

2014 N. Farwell Ave.

Milwaukee, WI 53202

(414) 220-1110

Website with menu available here (Danger! The website is Flash-based, thusly is not iPhone friendly)

Iron Cupcake: Booze 10.17.10

2010-10-20T22:55:00.000-05:00

Abandoning my Tee-totalling ways, I made the pilgrimage to the latest Milwaukee Iron Cupcake competition to cheer on our friend and yours, Mel from Bites of Life with her Absinthe cupcakes. While we were there, we had the pleasure of rubbing shoulders with Paul from Burp! (Lo, apparently, was under the weather. Feel better!), Neil, and a host of other Milwaukee food bloggers, as well as the royal Ruthie (of Dear Ruthie fame) as Mistress of Ceremonies.

Well, I have absolutely no tolerance left, 'cause about six cupcakes in and I was already buzzed. Maybe it was the Absinthe...

There was a ton of gorgeous little cakes out there, and lots of awesome folks enjoying the Sunday afternoon... too bad it's the last Iron Cupcake of the year!

A few highlights below, but check out the gallery for the whole story!

Legend Jose "Conejito" Garza Died Thursday

2010-10-08T08:47:00.000-05:00

It is with a heavy heart that I let our readers know that Jose "Conejito" Garza, the owner of Conejito's Place, died Thursday, age 75.

For those of you who have had the honor of eating Jose's paper-plate delicacies, this is a sad day, indeed.

The Journal-Sentinel has a wonderful obituary about Jose, available online here.

Our hearts go out to all of Jose's family and friends, and we know that the Milwaukee Food Scene has lost Prince among Paupers. He will be missed.

In Loving Memory Of

Jose "Conejito" Garza

December 14, 1934 - October 7, 2010

La Merenda

2010-09-28T00:59:00.005-05:00

Well, if we have any readers left after that little hiatus... awesome. I owe you guys (and girls) an apology for our broken promises -- August was a tough month for us! Weddings, DJ'ing gigs, Photography gigs, and going back to school full time has taken a toll on my spare-time-to-write-food-blogs. But! We're here now, and that's what's important. Shall we take a moment to reflect on tapas?

My first contact with La Merenda was back in 2007, when I was working at Magnolia Hi-Fi at Best Buy (they don't deserve actually being linked to, btw). A gentleman came in, looking for a good sound system for a restaurant he was opening up. He told me it was going to be an International Tapas Bar. In Walker's Point. I thought... hrm, a stylish restaurant in the 'Point. Gentrification claims another victim.

Fast-forward four years, and suddenly I'm writing a food blog... and an International Tapas bar in the 'Point sounds like a pretty cool idea. Enter, La Merenda:

La Merenda is located on National Ave., East of 1st street, right next to Triangle Bar. The building is unassuming, and the signage isn't the most noticeable, so keep your eyes peeled. There is street parking, however, it's scarce and not metered, and you're in competition with every bar and club in the area, so you might end up walking a little bit. Don't worry... the walk is worth it.

The first rule of La Merenda is, it's always busy. ALWAYS. You may wait a few minutes for a table. That's okay.

The second rule of La Merenda is, it's close quarters. The dining room is large, but there's lots of tables, and it's pretty comfy. If you're agoraphobic, take a few Xanax before you go for dinner.

The third rule of La Merenda is, tapas is lots more fun with a big group -- and the awesome wait staff will gladly accommodate such a group -- so bring your friends.

I've always had a dream of opening a restaurant that would adhere to the No Dogma concept of dining: having absolute no set rules or bounds other than awesome dishes, perfectly prepared. A place where Chinese, French, Italian, Greek, Mexican, and Thai can all exist on the same menu, and all ring true of their respective traditions. A place where I can make all of my favorite dishes and serve them in small amounts to large crowds and allow people to experience an entire range of cuisines in one dinner. La Merenda is this restaurant.

La Merenda is the epitome of the No Dogma concept. Mis-matched chairs and tables litter the helter-skelter dining room floor. Wonky light fixtures illuminate loud orange walls. The interior is chíc, but not pretentious, fun without being silly.

For this review, we attended La Merenda twice: once in early August as just diners, and once again, later in August, as a warm-up for the Milwaukee Eat Local Challenge. Both times, we tried an insane amount of dishes, some seasonal, some more permanent on the menu... and I'll try my best to summarize all of the tapas insanity below.

We started things out with a cheese plate, featuring, of all things, Wisconsin Cheese! The star of our selections was a gouda with fenugreek, made by one of my favorite creameries, Marieke Gouda from Holland's Family Farm:

The smooth, creamy gouda was the perfect match the maple-syrupy sweet fenugreek, and Lori from Burp! immediately commented on how the cheese would be perfect for stuffed French Toast. But that's a different show. The cheese is served with a selection of nice 'n' salty cured meats, and kalamata olives.

Next up: Duck Confit Crêpes with rosemary cream sauce.

Good God are these rich. And delicious. Rich and delicious. But I think that the order should change... delicious, then rich. The duck is tender, flavorful, and fatty in the best possible confit-way. The crêpes were nice... a little crispier than I'm used to, but when I make crêpes at home (and yes, I do make them...), they're always the consistency of a whoopee cushion. The woody flavor of the rosemary was a perfect counterpoint to the strong fatty flavor of the duck. An absolute victory.

Cut to the Veal Osso Buco. Osso Buco is Italian for This Is So Damned Delicious I Think I Just Wet My Pants:

Tender, tender Wisconsin veal, in a stew of approximately fifteen gallons of red wine, served with a red pepper risotto that was good enough to warrant ordering the whole dish again. And again, and again, and again. There are simply no words for the veal. No. Words.

Oh, there has to be one in every crowd, doesn't there? Like the lady who breaks wind in church, or the guy who yells "Free Bird!" at every concert, everyone and their uncle is trying their own version of spring/summer/fall/winter/egg rolls. La Merenda does a Cantonese Spring Roll with pork and a menagerie of veggies and oyster sauce:

They're good. But a bit on the oily side. Perhaps par-fried, and finished in the Frialator again before serving? I have to say, I wasn't particularly enthusiastic about them. But Asian cuisine is touchy... if French cuisine is all about sauce making, Asian cuisine is all about flavor marriage: combining domineering flavors like fish sauce and fermented soy beans into a harmonious chorus. It's a difficult task, and I don't fault anyone for missing the mark.

Oh, look! It's a Caprese Salad!

Wisconsin tomatoes, Wisconsin mozzarella, and Wisconsin basil. Did I hear even the Balsamic was from Wisconsin? Maybe I'm losing my mind. But it really doesn't matter where the vinegar was from, 'cause tomato season was over ten minutes after our salad came out to the table, and hot house tomatoes are one step above eating acidic beach sand. This is most def a seasonal menu item, and rightfully so. When tomatoes are one of only four ingredients, they have to be spot-on.

To be fair, the La Merenda Caprese has sautéed spinach and roasted red pepper rolled in the mozzarella, so there are a few more ingredients. And this may still be on the menu coasting into fall, although at the end of August, we were told that it was the end of local tomatoes.

Empanadas, no caramel apple. Well, no caramel, at least:

Tasty little Colombian versions of the pocket pie, filled with seasoned pork and apples. The sauce supplied with said little pockets of porky joy was divine, and the spicing of the filing was dead on tasty. Perhaps a little pedestrian, but sometimes comfort food is the best interlude in a parade of crazy...

Thai curry... chicken, peppers, and potatoes in a coconut milk based gravy. Tasty, for sure, and I would have no problem eating a whole plate of it if it were my only entrée. But we're back to the Case of the Asian Food again, lacking a certain pop or flash that really makes your taste buds bounce around like kids on a sugar bender and your eyes roll back in your head. A good outing, but not the strongest offering on the menu. Which is fine, because it was a special that week, anyway, and was not on the permanent rotation of items.

And then there was the Prosciutto and Sweet Pea Arancini. Which is Italian for Delicious Enough To Drive You Mad. As you slice open the GBD alien pods bobbing about in a home made red sauce, you immediately notice the nice slices of prosciutto. Taking your first bite, bright green sweet peas pop in your mouth like Pop Rocks, and the salty goodness of the ham and risotto take over your soul:

Is this on the list of Must Try? Oh yes, it is.

Ahh, the Tomato Basil Ravioli. We were wondering when you'd show up...

Delicate little pillows of home made tomato basil pasta filled with Cheese Rock Star Sid Cook's Carr Valley Benedictine cheese, along with a host of others, with a light-ish basil cream sauce. The Benedictine lends a very, very nice funkiness to the pasta, while the dough itself cooks up tight and firm, with a good chew and excellent tomato and basil flavor throughout. Simple, reserved, but very well executed.

Ever wonder what Heaven would taste like? It would taste like La Merenda's Beef Wellington:

A classic dish, with a Carr Valley twist. Which is fantastic, because you could serve Carr Valley Casa Bolo on an old shoe from a leper and it would still knock the socks off of anything you can find in a fast food joint.

Here, the grass-fed beef tenderloin (which is an odd turn of phrase, by the way... the beef tenderloin never ate anything. Imagine the absolute shock and horror of seeing herds of tenderloin primals grazing away in a field somewhere. *shudder*) is stuffed with more Benedictine, ricotta, mushrooms, and rolled in a tasty tender blanket of puff pastry, served over sautéed spinach, and topped with horseradish aioli. Imagine an angel coming down from the sky, singing the most beautiful song in the world, whispering in your ear the absolute and total truth of the universe, and then punching you in the puss with a solid-gold brass knuckles. That's this Beef Wellington.

My favorite part: the horseradish aioli, which, not unlike peanut butter and chocolate or LaVerne and Shirley, just makes perfect sense with the, er, beefy beef.

My least favorite part: the plate was finite.

I believe the tenderloin was a bit over done, but I'll let that slide. Maybe. If you give me another plate of it.

Remember how, at Prom, there was the one kid you always thought was a complete dork and you never wanted to acknowledge that they were alive, and all of a sudden, they were out on the dance floor doing moves you only saw on MTV (back when they actually played videos...)? Well, the Sambal Goreng Udang is that kid.

Rich, creamy with coconut milk, and packed with shrimp and diced tomatoes, served over coconut mashed potatoes. The gravy was infused nicely with sambal, and I was really surprised by how much I loved this dish. My only gripe? My shrimp was a bit iodine-y. But I think I've become hyper-sensitized to this flavor as of late, it may just be me.

If there was one dish that I flat-out didn't like, it would have to be the Jamaican Jerk Trout. While on paper it seems to be a winner, in execution, it fell flat:

The fish, steamed in a banana leaf, was still a bit fishy for me. I was immediately taken back to the Friday nights during Lent when my father would go down to our chest freezer, pull out a bag of cryogenically preserved fish we had caught years before, and proceed to batter them, drop them in a gigantic pot of smoking oil, and light the entire kitchen ablaze.

Wait, what were we talking about? Oh, right. The trout.

It had the same murky freshwater flavor that I just don't have a hankering for. The jerk seasoning wasn't half as potent as I like, and the presentation was sort of sad and anemic. The rice, however, was fantastic! See, I'm not all doom and gloom. There was something positive to the dish!

Phew. Full yet? Yes? Well, tough titty toenails. It's time for dessert!

Crème Caramel, anyone?

Heavy, rich, decadent custard with a sugar-crack crust on top, sprinkled with the Official Taste of Up North Wisconsin Summer, blueberries. The half of this ramekin I was able to eat wasn't enough. Maybe two of them. No, three.

If you're not a custard fan, this will totally freak you out. Crème Caramel is very sweet, and very rich, with a texture softer than flan, but heavier than a standard custard (since the principal ingredients are sugar, eggs, and heavy cream!). If, however, you're a fan, then La Merenda's version won't disappoint.

I wasn't able to actually try the unfortunately named Irish Car Bomb cupcake (I'm not a fan of glorifying violence through food... I understand the origin, I don't like the notion), but I was told it was the absolute end. I did, however, snag a nice picture:

Walking into La Merenda, one is greeted by a large chalkboard proclaiming the ever-changing list of local ingredients included in dishes:

With our large and lively group,

we were afforded the opportunity to both speak with the chef himself,

and try a massive number of his creations, running the gamut of traditions and influences. If you've never tried a tapas restaurant, La Merenda is like starting at the top: local ingredients, brilliant pairings, and ever-changing specials. I like that there's a few dishes I tried that I didn't like: it means the variation on the menu isn't safe. When chef takes risks, exciting things happen. Go ahead, try it. I bet you get addicted to the Osso Buco. Mark my words!

Report Card:

Atmosphere: A-

Funky, cool, and totally No Dogma. But a bit crowded, and with concrete walls and floors and metal ceilings, it can get loud in there. If you're looking for a quiet, romantic dinner, find a place with shag carpet.

Prices: B

Oh, this is a tough one to grade. Each plate ranges from $4.50 to $9, which isn't half bad. But keep in mind, for two people, look forward to ordering at least two to three rounds of two or three plates each. Things do add up, but this is dinner as experience, after all, and the experience is downright thrifty compared to a world tour. Individual items are fairly priced, but your tab will be substantial. Deal with it. The food is fantastic.

Service: B+

The wait staff is harried and dodging chairs and tables, but friendly and will gladly suggest items if you get stumped by the massive menu.

The Food: A

Marvelous. Lots of wins, and a few stinkers, but every single one a valiant and deserving effort. It's not every day that your dinner challenges you... here, you get to step outside your comfort zone a bit, explore some new options, and maybe come away with some new favorites.

The Details:

La Merenda International Tapas Bar & Restaurant

125 E. National Ave.

Milwaukee, WI 53204

(414) 389-0125

Comprehensive Website Available Here