The Accidental Foodie in Milwaukee

Cold enough for ya? If not then try Milwaukee in the Winter. We headed up there last weekend for a change of scenery. It was actually pretty warm there when we arrived Saturday morning, around 25F, little E kept calling it Hawaii.

Our first stop was The Milwaukee Art Museum. I highly recommend parking in the museum garage, it's the coolest carpark I have ever seen. Next we tried Wicked Hop for lunch, it had a nice pub atmosphere, and a lot of wraps on the menu. I had a wrap. After a couple of Lakefront IPA's, we sashayed across the street to the Milwaukee Public Market.

Sausage in the shape of a football, what will they think of next? At the market we loaded up on snacks for the slumber party: Beer, cupcakes and cold pack. Time to check in.

We booked into the Milwaukee Hilton. The front desk was kind enough to put us up in a "Murphy Bed" room ("You mean an executive suite?"): Double sized room, wet bar, fridge, and one full sized bed. We pushed the furniture around, set up a tent for the kids, and then went to the water park.

You see, the kids don't care too much about fine art, pub food or cheese counters, they came for the waterslides. Paradise Landing is a part of the hotel, so we were set for the evening.

For dinner we had smoky bacon cold pack and a chunk of Pleasant Ridge Reserve (my favorite cheese), along with the last of the magret sec and the smoked trout. We also had a focaccia from home and six pack of pilsner from Lakefront Brewery. We fell asleep watching cable.

Sunday morning H took pictures of the Ninjas he had won playing skee ball, and then we headed for our next stop the Sprecher Brewery Tour.

It was a brief tour that ended in a beer garden like setting where we could sample the brews and the kids could drink their fill of root beer.

After draining that joint, we headed down the street for a late lunch at Solly's Grille.

For those of you that are up on your hamburger stand history (I'm not), This place is a Mecca, making claim as the originator of the butter burger (Yes, a regional specialty where they put butter on their hamburgers). Food writers from around the nation travel to the counter service spot to bow down before the butter burger. The boys each had a Solly cheeseburger (ez butter), I had a Super Glendale.

That would be a burger with Monterey Jack, mushrooms and grilled onions. Boo-ya. I liked the size of the sandwiches (small) you could enjoy it without feeling like you ate a whole cow. Everyone was very friendly and the service was great.

That's about it, We made the late afternoon drive back to the Southside and got to bed early. Milwaukee is a great place to get away for the night, two hours or less away from Chicago and it's very reasonable: The Hilton, with admission to the water park, and parking, and some voodoo drink Bonne Femme ordered, was less than $175. Fun and food without a fuss.

Cheers.