This is a topic I've touched on before, but given that we are now in the midst of the Lenten season, I thought it appropriate to again examine the scene of Fish Frys in Milwaukee. Having now lived here for about 9 months, I continue to believe that Fish Frys are an extremely important cultural aspect of Milwaukee, and I would list eating at one as a must do when visiting Milwaukee and/or Wisconsin. Of course, the real way to experience it would be to go to a small town for the fry at the local church or VFW hall, but if you can't make that I think you could settle for the Lakefront Palm Garden and do just fine.Without getting into the whole debate of religious based dietary restrictions and whether they make any sense or not, the background you need to know for Friday Fish Frys is that in Catholicism, it is forbidden to eat meat on the Fridays during Lent, that is the 40 days before Easter. There was a time when meat consumption was not allowed on Fridays during the entire year, but at some point some people in funny robes decided that this was too difficult, and so the rules were relaxed a bit to make Catholicism more exciting.Milwaukee, which has seen large immigration waves from several highly Catholic areas in Europe such as Germany, Ireland, Poland, and Italy, has evolved one of the strongest identities around the idea of Friday Fish Frys that I have ever witnessed. Most local restaurants have a fish fry available on Fridays, and a majority do so year round. There are always articles in the papers debating the merits of who has the best fry. And where one can get a good fry is a conversation topic I've heard several times already in my short time living here. In short, it is a topic taken quite seriously around these parts.What is a fish fry exactly one might ask?
Thorough investigation has led me to the answer that at its heart is fried fish. Shocking! In Wisconsin and much of the Midwest this means locally available fish: cod, bluegill, perch, walleye, or perhaps smelt. Said fish is then battered and deep fried to golden perfection. A side of tartar sauce and some coleslaw is almost always provides accompaniment, along with french fries or perhaps potato pancakes if the fry has German roots. Maybe a side of buttered rye bread or a roll is served as well. This of course is all washed down with a good amount of beer on your Friday night (I don't understand how the equations meat = bad and beer = good are fine by Church dogma, but you'll hear no complaints from me).
As you can see, a light, healthy meal that perfectly symbolizes the model of fitness and good health that perseveres throughout the Midwest.Or maybe not, if I can editorialize for a moment. Personally, most of the fish frys I've had are just too heavy for me, and therefore I probably don't qualify enough as an expert to be writing about this. I just don't understand the idea of smothering the fish in heavy batter and frying it to the point where mostly you can only taste the oil and batter and tartar sauce. Not to mention just the thought of putting down the entire meal as described gives me stomach pains. My favorite fry still to this day has been the lightly breaded perch at Lakefront, which allows you to still taste the fish, not to mention leave the table under your own power after the meal.One other favorite I have tried, though less common, is a smelt fry. This little fish, often resembling a smaller version of a salmon, can be caught, fried and served whole to hungry customers. I must admit that the smelt fry I had was not at a VFW hall or local diner but a nicer, high end restaurant in Milwaukee, but still I enjoyed it quite a bit. These tiny fish, only a couple inches long and basically served whole as finger food, can be dipped in tartar sauce or ketchup and eaten in a quick bit that turned out to be pretty damn tasty. You can find lots of variations of fish frys in Milwaukee, and just as many opinions about which is best, which is really at the heart of why I find them so culturally interesting. People here feel it is a staple of their community, and for that I respect the idea of a good fry, even if I usually am tempted to begin researching how to become bulimic after the meal.
Eurotrip 2011 is on! And with that the travel season begins to take shape, so perhaps I will have something more meaningful to write about...3 months from now.
My airline tickets are now booked for a 2 week trip to parts of northern Europe, which will help balance the fact that 90 percent of the traveling I've done in Europe thus far in my life has been in the southern part, mainly Spain and Italy. The itinerary includes a flight into Prague, a flight out of Copenhagen, and likely stops in Berlin, Hamburg and maybe one other place in between. I'd like to maybe make a quick swing into Poland, to 1) see the country and 2) check another country off the list, but that will be dependent on the schedule and how much time we have. I've learned the hard way what happens when you plan too aggressive of an itinerary and find yourself spending 50% of the time on buses and trains.
Because we (myself and traveling companion Mike) will be going during the peak tourist season, airfare was less than ideal, so this route came about almost as a matter of finding cheap flights and working a trip out from there. After spending a couple weeks just typing in European cities with major airports this turned out to be the best, most affordable route available. This is hardly an attempt to justify it though; rather, I think we have a great itinerary regardless of the fact that it happened almost by nothing more than chance. Cuisine-wise it might not be quite as good as a trip through Paris and Belgium that had been originally proposed, but will still hopefully offer up some great meals. On the other hand, it should offer up some great beers to be sampled, so everything seems to have balanced well in the end.
In perhaps an early attempt to research for the trip, I had a chance to check out my first Polish establishment in Milwaukee this weekend. For the uninitiated, Milwaukee has a size-able Polish and Eastern European population (or the descendants thereof), though small in total numbers compared to Chicago. My Dad happened to be visiting, and in an attempt to offer him something different that isn't normally available in our hometown of Des Moines I suggested we try a Polish place. This led us to Polonez, in St Francis just south of Milwaukee, which was one of the few places open on a Sunday, though for a brunch buffet only (also at the time I was unaware that Zimmern had been there).
I have to preface this with the fact that buffets, especially brunch buffets for those who have read Kitchen Confidential, are a terrible way to spend your dining dollars (sorry to offend all the trendy ladies who love Sunday brunch). The brunch was what it was though, and I accepted it for its shortcomings and decided to revel in the cultural aspect instead.
I don't know much about Polish cuisine really, but there were pierogis and paczkis, the two names I did recognize, along with what seemed like a more Americanized selection of sausage (polish of course), bacon, eggs, and potato pancakes. Some smoke salmon added a pleasant surprise though that helped remind me that we weren't at a continental breakfast of the neighborhood Holiday Inn. That, and the guy playing polkas on an Accordion in the dining hall. Now, I don't claim to be an expert on Polish culture, and I'm sure there's connection between Poland and Germany that stretches much beyond a history of forced invasions, but by my count our Accordion Polka player sang only in English and German. I had a hard time seeing how this was a entertaining and pleasing show for the Poles in attendance.
It was kitschy and nostalgic for sure, so the "cultural traveler" in me appreciated this, even though my faux culinary prowess could tell we were not dining on the best Polish food in the world. My attempt to ask our waiter (who was probably 18 years old) for a Polish beer recommendation resulted in me drinking a malt liquor for brunch (I was under the impression that the "malt" style meant a maltier and sweeter beer) so if nothing else, a good buzz helped compliment the whole experience.
Since this is more or less an amalgam of a travel and food post, a section on Bourdain's latest offerings is in order.
I caught his episode on Haiti which debuted a few weeks ago, and I must say I highly recommend checking it out if you haven't already. Its interesting to watch him try to envelope parts of a travel show into the production while being situated in a part of the world that has become so completely disparage by poverty, corruption, and now disaster. I thought he did a great job at balancing his attempts to visit and understand the country while at the same time witnessing the devastation and need for rebuilding that has occurred there. On top of that, the cinematography, especially in HD, was fantastic. Powerful and compelling, the visual images perhaps told more of the story than Bourdain could have ever hoped to himself.
Ah the personal responsibilities of the seldom-read blogger. I've really struggled to get myself motivated to work on this lately, no small part of which comes from the fact that I haven't been traveling anywhere of late. In fact, I didn't even leave the Milwaukee metro this month, and don't have any plans to do so next month either....
To fill the void I have been attempting to work on some writing of past travels that take a more narrative and developed tone than my usual updates, but my motivation to do so has been lacking. What I want to post is some excerpts from some writing I did last winter, but unfortunately that was all lost during a hard drive crash. Starting over from scratch leaves me feeling a little daunted, so I keep procrastinating. The irony is that when I lost the material I wasn't that broken up because I didn't like how it was turning out, and now I wish that I could at least edit and rework some of it.
And that's it. This post was 100% filler. Hopefully the guilt from such a meaningless post will get me going again.
Ah the travel doldrums of February. I find myself in Milwaukee, the lovely city that it is, for the next few months, with no real trips planned from now until the beginning of summer. While its been good to spend some time here and begin to feel more at home in my new city, I am beginning to get the travel itch again slowly but surely. With a need to save some money for trips this summer I am purposely not trying to plan anything in the near future, but this static state has left me nostalgic for past trips, and most recently the one that I feel was really the genesis for my state of mind as I write this blog.
It was San Francisco, and a weekend trip there with no other purpose than the need to use some airline credits that were about to expire, that was the genesis. I had booked the trip with no real plans, and amazingly despite the last minute preparations, two friends were able to join me as well. The next thing I knew it was a legit trip with friends.
There was very little on the agenda: walk around, eat good food, drink good beers, and try to see the Golden Gate Bridge. That was about it. And I'm happy to say that we easily accomplished all of our goals. San Francisco is easily one of the most charming, walkable cities in the US. The rolling hills provide a challenge to all the aspects of city planning there, and what you are left with is a city that twists and turns while doing its best to conform to the natural landscape around. This is really a rare sight in America, where our cities are almost always nested in plains and valleys. I think I could have easily spent another week there just roaming the streets like a dumb, lost hippie (how appropriate), admiringly endlessly the architecture and layout of the city. But alas, there was food to eat and beer to drink.
San Francisco is regarded fairly high as a culinary destination, so it was no surprise that we ate well while there. What did surprise me though was the quality of food we found for relatively little money. At the time I was without a job, and therefore quite budget conscious, especially considering we were traveling to one of the most expensive cities in the US. But thanks to some research and tips from local friends we made out well on a slew of meals for under $15, all while eating our way around the world.
The highlight was Shalimar, a Indian/Pakistani place that not only was cheap and delicious, but BYOB as well. There I tried my first dish of lamb brains, served in some sort of curry dish if my now augmented cranial capacity can remember correctly (I think that's what happens when you eat brains at least). The flavor was quite good, but the texture, light and slightly gelatin like, took a bit of getting used to. I find this to be most often the case with non-traditional (by western standards) animal parts that I have tried. It's rarely the flavor that gets me, its the texture. My damn Americanized palate likes what it knows and is familiar with; I was definitely raised on one too many chicken tenders.
In addition to Indian, we had Thai food somewhere around the Richmond area, Dim Sum in Chinatown, Sushi in a neighborhood I can't remember, and finally a stop at Ike's Place in the Castro neighborhood, a sandwich shop that just seems to epitomize San Franciscan culture down to the core. It was actually Ike's that brought back my memories of San Francisco in the first place, when I flipped on Man vs Food to see the bloated meat bag that is Adam Richmond talking to the owner in a segment on the place, and realized quickly that I had been there before.
For all of this, I think $25 for sushi was the most I spent on a meal the whole weekend, and this was while eating positively great food. But the food wasn't really the only reason to get excited about San Francisco. We were in the center for some of my favorite beers in the world: the pale ales and IPAs of Northern California. There's something about the cascade hops that are so prevalent on the west coast that hits me just right. Sierra Nevada is arguably my favorite and also one of the best known. But Lagunitas IPA, and Racer 5 from Bear Republic Brewery rank very highly for me as well. Putting back more than a few Racer 5's on a cool August night while sitting on the patio of Zeitgeist in the Mission District will always be one of my favorite memories from San Francisco. Perhaps a return to Northern California for some brewery tours in the future will be necessary.
And with that, our trip to San Francisco was just about finished. Outside of seeing the Golden Gate Bridge (which was just as spectacular as I had hoped) and walking through Fisherman's Wharf (as disappointing as I expected, with the exception of the Musee Mecanique), we didn't do much else, and that seemed fine. We strolled through Golden Gate Park and Haight-Asbury to look at the burnouts, hippies, and weirdos, an entertaining look into the world of why our vices are usually best enjoyed in moderation. I will give a shout out to the drug dealer in Golden Gate Park for originality when he approached us with the line, "Congratulations! You're the next contestant on 'Who Wants to Buy a Bag of Weed?'".
I applaud creativity in all its forms.
While researching the culinary scene in Dallas I stumbled upon a Chowhound thread that went completely off-topic into a discussion about getting Vietnamese food in Dallas versus New York City. It's a widely known fact that internet posting boards are the best, most accurate places for getting information, so I was intrigued by said discussion. Apparently the DFW metroplex has a large Vietnamese population, coincidentally enough, they are known to make some great Vietnamese food.To me that was reason enough to warrant some investigation, which meant getting in a friend's rental car (damn! and we were so close to making it through the trip without a car!) and heading up to the Richardson and Garland area just north of Dallas, where a large community of Asian-Americans resides.
We were headed specifically to Pho Bang, a Vietnamese restaurant located, perhaps not surprisingly, in a nondescript strip mall in Garland. Upon being seated I was happy to this had the right amount of asian-ness to it for our group. 90% of the customers were Vietnamese, always a key thing to look for in ethnic restaurants, but they still had English translations on the menu, which meant we weren't walking into a complete minefield.
First things first we decided on ordering some pho, which for the unfamiliar is a Vietnamese soup that can be customized in countless ways and provides a backbone to the cuisine of the region. It's tasty, filling, and a staple for Vietnamese restaurants. I haven't had pho enough times to consider myself an expert, but I found the offering from Pho Bang to be as good as hoped. I did leave the restaurant wondering perhaps if my pho etiquette was a little off. I have been under the belief that the bowl of pho is much like a plate of nachos, in that you just customize it how you want by throwing in all sorts of things like chili paste, sirachi, plum sauce, greens, thai basil, and making one big bowl of super soup. But casual glances around the restaurant showed some of the locals eating theirs by mixing up small side dishes of spices and sauces in which to dip the solid contents of their soup, leaving the broth pristine and in its original form. Was I creating the Vietnamese version of the Chimichanga? By throwing in a bunch of shit into a bowl of carefully crafted soup was I just ruining the balance and delicacy of the flavor? Part of me wants to say yes, but I am not sure what the proper procedure is here, or perhaps there is none at all.
But the ethical dilemma of properly consuming a soup was nothing compared to our attempts to order an appetizer for our meal. Seeing as the menu at Pho Bang offered Spring Rolls, a light, delicious favorite of mine, I suggested we try the Summer Rolls, something different but most likely similar. Our order prompted some concern from our Vietnamese waitress, who seemed to think (correctly, I might add), that we didn't know what we were ordering. After a few minutes of her repeatedly saying something in unintelligible English and tugging at the skin of her arm, we decidedly nodded that we in fact did want to order the Summer Rolls, despite not really understanding any of what she had been trying to tell us.
"Pork Skin" was the magic translation, lost in a sea of accents and flesh grabbing. Honestly I don't remember exactly how we figured that one out, but our rolls arrived in true Vietnamese fashion, stuffed with shredded (probably boiled?) pork skin. The rubbery strings of skin snapped back and whipped your lips with each bite, a sensation unlike any I had ever had before. It was most akin to eating an egg roll with roughly chopped rubber bands in it. The rolls themselves had a pungent taste that was far from agreeable with my Western taste buds, and no amount of dipping in the bowl of sweet and sour sauce that accompanied them could dull the flavor. I did my best to finish the roll, determined 1) to be adventurous and eat something I did not like right away, and 2) to not let the waitress see that we should have heeded her warnings. My dining companion Mike perhaps summed it up best by describing them as "one of the most 'ethnic' things I have ever eaten".
But the adventure is part of the thrill of it all, and in the end we were rewarded with a delicious, authentic (at least as far as I can tell) Vietnamese meal. It was a small way to enjoy another side of Dallas, and a style of food that's not as readily available to me in Milwaukee.
This post devolved more into an exploration of Vietnamese cuisine than I was expecting, but perhaps that is much more interesting than our trip to Taqueria El Si Hay. This place was just a classically good Mexican taco shop in the Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas. All I can say is that when you find a solid place like that you just have to appreciate that they know what they are doing. Nothing I've never had before, but just about as good as I've had elsewhere. In fact their salsa verde was pretty kick ass, and had that rich color that I can never seem to achieve with mine. I have thought that maybe its because I don't cook mine down enough, but it could also just be that my gringo blood will never allow me to achieve perfection in Mexican cooking.
And on top of everything else it had the classic signs of good ethnic food. We were there at 2 in the afternoon, it was packed, and 90% of the customers were Mexican.
....
A few years ago, following a 3 day backpacking trip in Arizona, myself and my two hiking companions decided to make a stop off at a BBQ place just off highway 10 north of the Phoenix area. The name of the restaurant was "Kick Ass BBQ" or something similar along those lines, and appeared to be just the place three rugged campers would want their first meal to be at after 3 days in the harsh wilderness (full disclosure: a swollen river limited our penetration into the forest and made fishing fruitless so we basically spent 3 days drinking on a big rock overlooking the stream, but you get the idea).
Such an occasion called for a manly man's meal, so I decided to order the beef ribs, which were delivered to me as the full length ribs and rib meat uncut: a gigantic tower of beef and bone that looked like it was straight out of the Flintstones opening scene. Though visually impressive, the meal was average at best. The meat was dry, semi-flavorful, and unremarkable in every way. That was my impression of beef ribs from then on, and being an Iowa native, I decided that there was no reason to ever have anything but pork ribs.
....
Dallas is near the heart of cattle country, and specifically Central Texas, where the BBQ is beef based and pork runs a distant second. Arriving in Dallas, mission number one on the travel checklist was get some BBQ, and for that reason our party found ourselves heading towards Garland on the blue line, an inner suburb of the DFW metroplex. Some internet research had led us to Meshack's, basically a BBQ shack on the side of the road in a nondescript part of Garland, that enjoys a fabulous reputation amongst the locals.
Meshack's is not a restaurant, not even a food stand with outdoor seating. It is a roadside BBQ shack where Texans drive up, order large amounts of BBQ, then return to their cars and drive back home to enjoy their meal. So you can imagine how well our group of Yankees fit in when we showed up, walking down the sidewalk-less streets of Garland to get to Meshack's, and then taking our meal to a nearby baseball diamond to enjoy our delicious BBQ from the bleachers behind home plate.
I had a spiritual awakening on those bleachers, at least in regards to beef ribs. They were smoked beautifully, smothered in tangy BBQ sauce, and chopped into tender, manageable pieces. These ribs were everything that the ones I had had in Arizona were not. Texas. And the beef brisket was far better than any I had had before as well. Texas. Sausage links with BBQ sauce as a dish? Delicious. Texas. Everything we ordered as amazing, and well worth the adventure of getting there without a car. Eating this meal was probably the most connected to Texas I felt during our entire 4 day trip to Dallas.
We also ate at Twisted Root in Deep Ellum, though I swear to god I did not know at the time that Guy Fieri's hair and wrist bands had been there before. It was a friendly, entertaining place where every order is called out by celebrity or famous character names (Buzz Lightyear was one in our group) and the burgers come with a nice variety of Tex-Mex style toppings. It's a good burger joint that adds a Southwest touch to the idea of gourmet burgers. Honestly, if they could learn to properly cook them (when you have a sign that says "all burgers cooked to medium well unless otherwise requested", and someone requests medium, it helps to actually cook them to medium instead of medium well), they would have a pretty banging restaurant. The ketchup with ancho chili powder in it was all sorts of amazing. Wash it down with a Lone Star or six and you've got yourself a great meal just blocks from downtown Dallas.
Unfortunately not much to write about in the world of Texas beers as far as we could find during our trip. Lone Star proved to be a solid, low cost beer, and their caps provided a bit of entertainment for us while waiting for food. I can imagine a popular night time in the plains of Dallas suburbia might be to pick up a bunch of Lone Star and drink until you can't figure out the puzzles on the caps).Craft or Micro Beer wise I really felt that Dallas was still Boulevard territory compared to anything else. But we tried, and knowing is half the battle.
Texas. Come for the BBQ. Stay for the BBQ.
Ok, so Fuel City isn't an actual nickname for Dallas, rather the name of a place in the metroplex to buy supposedly some of the best tacos around. I didn't get a chance to eat there during my visit however, mostly due to the fact that we did not have a car in which to drive to said gas station/convenience store/taqueria located in a desolate area just southwest of downtown Dallas, surrounded by roads and highways. I've done some things I consider fairly adventurous in my travels: paragliding in Colombia, hiking a Volcano in Guatemala, showing my gringo face in Caracas, but trying to see Dallas for 3 days without a car might be one of the most irrational of all of them.
The truth is though that you don't need a car to see where Dallas puts its focus. "30,000 dollar millionaires" was the phrase that a friend used. Though I had been told that before that Dallas is a city all about showing off one's wealth, or "appearance of wealth" to be more specific, I had a hard time believing that such a blanket statement could really be so easily applied to the 4th largest metropolitan area in the country.
Rewind a couple weeks before I boarded a plane for DFW to join a couple friends on a Third Coastin' research trip to Fuel City (it's catching on already!). A combination of thriftiness and stubbornness had led us to the decision to forgo a rental car and attempt to see the city using public transportation alone. Reputation be Damned! I was determined to use the same method I would use for seeing any other city: get on a bus or train to somewhere, walk around til things were no longer interesting, and then get on a bus or train for a new part of town and repeat.
Interestingly enough, the public transportation part was not the hole in the plan. DART proved to be a more than capable transit system, and thanks to God's greatest gift to mankind, Google transit on a smart phone, it was surprisingly easy to move around the city. No, the real flaw in the whole operation was that there just wasn't much to see. Despite some research, we were left more or less underwhelmed by the various areas of town we visited. Downtown, Deep Ellum, "M" Streets, Greeneville, Oak cliff, Bishop Arts District: all of them failed to strike any sort of tone with my hipster, new urbanist soul. There were pockets of bars or shopping districts here and there, but nothing that would scream out major metropolitan center and Beta world city.
So where do the rebellious youth, the jaded hipsters, the upwardly mobile young professionals, the awkwardly lost cowboys go in Dallas? Why did everywhere we went feel about as lively as downtown Detroit? Uptown baby. The only place we heard, the only place anyone ever said to go, was Uptown. A trendy, chic area north of downtown that is the anything and everything to Dallas as far as I could tell. Populated with bars, upscale restaurants, galleries, condo buildings, this is where you want to be. It's exactly the type of area that I would've expected to find in Dallas, streets crawling with the "30,000 dollar millionaires".
I should be careful not to come off as too bitter or scathing towards people who like nice things, new buildings and post modern minimalist decor. Really I had no problem with Uptown other than the fact that it seemed to have sucked the life out of every other district in the city, which seemed a real shame to me. I say this in all honesty, that it was almost startling how few people there were out and about in the city while we were there. Downtown Dallas made downtown Milwaukee look like Manhattan by comparison. Deep Ellum was the alternative area that was either in decline or hadn't yet taken off, depending on who you asked, and though the area around "M" streets and Greeneville seemed to have a nice laid back atmosphere, there wasn't a whole lot there to begin with.
Even though this was my first trip to Texas, I want to refrain from forming too many concrete opinions of it overall. Perhaps it should be fairly obvious that Texas isn't know for its world class, cosmopolitan cities. The Texans themselves were more than friendly, constantly surprising me with their congeniality towards us as visitors and customers. The service we received at the bars and restaurants we went to was impeccable, which augmented the dining experiences even more.
To step aside for a moment, this trip represented exactly why I've started this blog in the first place, and why food has become so central to my traveling experience. If you truly want to go everywhere in the world, you will eventually come to the realization that every city is not as cosmopolitan as New York, as charming as San Francisco, or as romantic as Paris. Sometimes you're going to end up in Montgomery Alabama, in Guatemala City, Guatemala, or in Dallas, Texas. Food is the ultimate safety net in these situations, because no matter where you are, there is bound to be something good, local, traditional or best yet all three, that will help you better understand where you are right then and there.
In this respect, Dallas did not disappoint.
to be continued....
As you can see, a light, healthy meal that perfectly symbolizes the model of fitness and good health that perseveres throughout the Midwest.
