Take a Walk on the North Side -- Milwaukee's Asian Markets

My coworker, Phia, is a man of few words. Few, rushed, and often excited words. One day, very much out of the blue (as he's wont to do), he approached me after our morning meeting.

"Gotta new pho place! Asian markets! Tasty!" 

Phia had me at pho.

If you've been a constant reader (and if you have, I apologize, and owe you a debt of gratitude for sticking with us for these three-odd years), you'll know our romance with pho hasn't been an incredibly long one, but riddled with bouts of fiery passion that truly magnificent love affairs often are. 

We've tried good. We've tried meh. We've even been to Hue... the restaurant, not the city, and we liked it... a lot. But really hardcore-authentic pho has been a bit of Beowulfian legend -- traded back and forth in hushed tones in back-alleys and drawn as daydreams in foodie's multi-subject Mead notebooks like so much study hall fodder. Well, Milwaukee, we've found the pho of your dreams. And a lot of other really, really cool food, too. You might even want to try the tripe. 

First, a bit of background: Milwaukee's Asian Markets Phongsavan (which is the business' full title) is, as its name might imply, a market. Like, plywood stalls, chicken wire, everything-under-the-sun market, with hawkers and alien produce and all the smells and sights and lack of climate control you can imagine in an actual Asian Market. Many of the market's customers are Hmong, although you'll find Vietnamese, Chinese, and Thai goods and folks there, among many others. 

The building was previously a transmission workshop, and the owners plan on remodeling the current space, as well as adding a massive building next-door, in the coming years. Right now, the building is a little homely, and it's easy to mistake it for a warehouse or factory. But step inside, my friends, and you are suddenly half a world away...

There's a large grocery section in the market, well stocked and with what seems to be very good turn-over, meaning what's on the shelf seems to move fairly quickly. I was particularly excited to find Red Boat brand fish sauce -- something I had heard about but only now get to experience. 

Stalls of domestic products line the aisles, ranging from innocuous aspirin to slightly intimidating herbs and barks. 

Beautiful fabrics and traditional garments hang willy-nilly, helping complete the journey from North-side Milwaukee to South-Pacific

People here are happy, social, and warm: you may not share a language, but you can share the experience, and everyone we've ever encountered is happy to be a part of it.

In the back of the market is the produce and food stall area (which is where all the action is, of course!), and if a foodie heart beats in your chest, it will arise and thunder at the sight of so many exotics:

Here, our own Adam concentrates curiously at copious containers of chilis, 

only to make dear and life-long friends with a squash(?) a few moments later. Yes, that is the grin of satisfaction on his face.(?)

I thought maybe Adam had found Waldo when he shouted across the room, "OH! LOOK!" which was, to my dismay, followed with, "I actually know what this is! That's some big ginger!"

Big ginger, indeed, Adam, but we weren't here to ogle the produce... we were here for some pho. Some really serious pho. And I was going to get some, big ginger or not. 

BIG IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT THE FOOD STALLS NUMBER ONE: 

A lot of the food is prepared early in the day, and when it's gone, it's gone -- we had our friends from CBS This Morning with us for our review, and by the time we got set up, established lighting, let our awesome imprimatur and EM "superfan" Sr. Stella talk about how awesome we all are (duh), and ordered, a lot of the prepared food available at the stalls was already sold out. Sad face.

This is where Phia chimes in:

"Well, yeah! Get to the market at 11am! That's when everything is still there!" 

Which was really great advice... the next day.

It didn't dilute our spirits, though, or our thirst, and we all ordered rounds of bubble tea.

Poor Adam: it seems every single picture I took of the evening somehow involved him.

The stand which sells bubble tea also has delicious Vietnamese Summer Rolls (gỏi cuốn), which we made quick work of. 

The rolls were everything that a great summer roll should be: a chorus of textures, crisp lettuce, chewy noodles, substantial roast pork, crunchy shrimp (yes, that's the way I'd describe a cooked shrimp), bound together with rich, sweet, hoisin-infused peanut sauce.

The bubble teas, at least on this outing, were nothing to write home about. In the past, I've watched as a ripe mango was de-boned right in front of me, tossed into a blender with ice and Lord only knows what else, and blended to a smooth finish, studded with tapioca pearls. Sadly, all the ripe mangoes seem to have been de-boned, because our bubble teas were of the too-sweet variety made with powdered fruit flavor. 

BIG IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT THE FOOD STALLS NUMBER TWO: 

During the summer months, the dining area is indoor/outdoor, and is exposed to both the heat of the day, and any insect friends that may buzz their way towards your plate.

BIG IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT THE FOOD STALLS NUMBER THREE: 

The pho is quite divine.

When ordering pho, you'll be faced with two very important decisions. The first of which is, Regular Pho or Special Combination Pho.

Regular Pho is filled with everything you'd expect out of pho from an American restaurant: delicious, plentiful meats that everyone's grandmother would never turn her nose up at. If you're new to pho, this is where you probably want to start.

The Special Combination Pho, however, offers a veritable cornucopia of meaty vittles, including, but certainly not limited to:

• Roast Pork
• Krab
• Meatballs
• Shrimp
• Tendon
• Tripe
• Brisket

The second decision you'll be confronted with is size: huge, or mega-honkin'-gut-buster-gargantuan. 

The pork is absolutely amazing. Rich, rich, rich roasted flavor, fatty, meaty, golden brown skin and chewy-in-the-fun-way lean meat. Brisket is good, although it tends to be pretty well done by the time it arrives on the table (I love my brisket rare). Meatballs have that familiar, strange density and cheese-curd squeakiness that we all love so much. The Krab is, well, still Krab, and the shrimp have ranged (on different visits) from perfect, fresh, and crisp, to over-done and iodine-y. Your milage may vary.

The Pho Broth, which, let's face it, is really the raison d'être here, is marvelous. Rich and full of palate-pulverizing umami goodness (did you hear that? It's the sound of my physician reminding me about my already-too-high blood pressure! Sodium ahoy!), it dances nicely around the big meaty bullies, glances off the pungent green onions, and wraps around the chewy rice noodles like a well-worn blanket.

Each table in the dining area of the market is well-equipped with a tray of pretty much anything you'd ever want to dunk in your pho, including:

• Soy Sauce
• Hoisin Sauce
• Sriracha
• Hmong Hot Pepper Sauce (aka, pain and suffering... today and tomorrow)
• Ground Peanuts
• Pickled Chili
• Beef Base

And, let us not forget our friendly trays of pho accompaniments:

Thai Basil, bean sprouts, lime, and chili. Fairly standard.

Did I mention there was tripe in the Special Combo Pho? Yeah, it's a little leathery, a little gritty, and a little like chewing on a wet napkin, but there's also something very... macho... about it. I usually ask the folks at the counter to cut back on the tripe... just a little to remind me of the humble beginnings to pho, but not enough to frustrate the experience. 

Also on the menu for the evening was a chicken curry, which has a lovely Thai name I can't remember. Immediately, I thought of Tom Kha Kai, a heavenly Thai coconut chicken curry soup. There's Thai red curry paste here, and lemongrass -- the coconut broth was light, with a little acidic brightness and citrus notes. Still, it lacked a satisfying punch -- tasty, but probably not the sort of thing I could make an entire meal of.

Roast pork was sadly absent, but there was still plenty of roast chicken and sticky rice to go 'round.

The mangled chicken carcasses were nothing too pretty -- and the well-done meat was a bit dry, but I think I understand what the chicken could be if we were to arrive at the market at, say, 11am, as Phia had suggested. Still, the skin was a beautiful mahogany, and the flavors were there -- but the texture was a bit off. I'm going to chalk this one up to it having been 8pm by the time we actually were able to eat.

Is there anyone who hates sticky rice? Certainly none of the Eating Milwaukee staff -- even when you're busy making network television, and the rice congeals into a massive brick of starch, it's still delicious, ripped apart by hand and used as everything from fork and spoon to bread and napkin. 

While we were a little late in ordering, the pho stall also offers delicious Lao sausage, with all of the garlic, ginger, and lemongrass sass you can handle. I was terribly disappointed that they had run out -- next to the pho, this is one of my favorite dishes the stall offers.

Epilogue

Milwaukee's Asian Markets are probably off most of Milwaukee's radar. I couldn't blame someone for not knowing about them: tucked away, without a proper sign, no advertising, and a bit of culture shock waiting for the average caucasian Milwaukeean. Yet, if one were to be frightened off by the exotic nature of the markets and the very real-life Laotian or Thai or Vietnamese market atmosphere, they would be missing a wonderful experience in spite of its strongest traits. This is not the Ethnic Foods aisle at Pick 'N' Save, and it's not Super A-Number-One Chinese. This is the market of cultures displaced from their homelands, a market made to comfort and assuage as much as it is to peddle and hawk. Not too long ago, neighborhoods of Germans and Poles had markets not too different -- selling food, clothing, and household items from home, a little bit of comfort in a country so dissimilar from their own, a place where customs, language and landscape are so foreign to seem an entirely different planet. Communities are built around these markets, and an identity, an integral part of America's diverse patchwork of cultures and traditions, is forged in the intermingling of natives and new sons and daughters.

Go, and visit. Listen, and learn. Oh, and watch us on CBS This Morning -- it's only fitting that the crazy food blog gets national media attention at the equally outrageous and equally lovable (ahem) Asian Markets.

Report Card:

Atmosphere: A- / C+

Why two grades? Well, there's two very different ways of looking at this. Either you're completely turned off by an un-climate-controlled dining area with flies, or you see it as an authentic experience and enjoy the change of pace. I'll let you decide what camp you fall into.

Prices: A-
$8-$9 for a huge bowl of pho, filled to the brim with meat, is the deal of the century. Hmong egg rolls are something like $1 a crack, and Lao sausage is $4. You really can't beat that with a stick.

Service: B
Despite being counter-service-only, the folks at the food stalls are glad to bring your food to you, bring you napkins, boundless glasses of ice water, and anything else you made need to trim your pho like a spicy, beefy Christmas wreath. I understand I pushed the bounds of the simile there.

The Food: B+
Some hits, some misses -- the challenge here is, there are days the food is phenomenal, and there are days when it's merely okay. The grade, therefore, reflects more the lack of consistency of exceptional taste, not the actual lack of quality.

The Details:

Milwaukee's Asian Markets Phongsavan
6300 N. 76th St.
Milwaukee, WI 53218
414-760-3771

Kyoto Sushi Bar: Revisited

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. 

La Merenda

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