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.

Milwaukee Public Market

Milwaukee Public Market.


This place was so cool we went twice. We drove to Milwaukee last Saturday to spend the night at the downtown Hilton. The have an indoor water park and the kids love it. I get to watch HBO and drink beer. But before we checked in we stopped at the public market.

At the West Allis Cheese Shoppe, we got some cold pack beer cheese and a little summer sausage.

At the St. Paul Fish Company we had a cup of the shrimp and sausage gumbo.

The smoked fish case looked pretty nice.

Sushi a- Go- Go, had the Hawaiian Big Plate Lunch. This place was a revelation: Giant pork buns called Manapua.

Pulled pork baked into a bun, Manapua? More like Manna from Heaven.

The next day we stared at the beautiful displays of cured meat at Ceriello Fine Foods.

From Ceriello's we got a mozzarella tomato and basil panini.

We drank a lot of coffee from Cedarburg's and got chocolate covered Oreos from Kehr's Candies.

All the stores there looked great including an outpost of The Spice House. If you are visiting Milwaukee, the public market is a great place to stop and load up. A couple other places to go is the flagship Spice House location on Third St and right across the street from there is the Usinger sausage factory. Good times.

Cheers.