Dennis the Menace

Holy shit! I cannot contain myself. Dennis Getto is at it again. He reviews Carabba’s Italian Grill in today's Jounral Sentinel and is crying because they use Romano cheese instead of Parmesan. What is his fucking obsession with Italian Restaurants and cheese? He also essentially compares the difference between Romano and Parmesan to the difference between cheddar and limburger. What?!?! I would argue that 9 out of 10 Americans couldn’t tell the difference between Parmesan and Romano, but 10 out of 10 could tell the difference between Limburger and Cheddar. Getto also complains about the fact that the servers grate the cheese for you. He claims restaurant managers are probably afraid you'll use too much and cut into their profit margins if the customer is allowed to put their own cheese on. No, they do it because they want you to have freshly grated cheese. They will let you pile the cheese as high as you want…just don’t say stop until you get what you want. Do you really want to use some cheese that is left on the table that every dirty little kid has stuck their hand in?

Also, he has to drop his obligatory know-it-all bullshit on readers again. In reviewing the Spiedino di Mare he says: “My main objection to a dish called Spiedino di Mare ($16.49) was its name. In Italian, a spiedino is some sort of roll-up and in Milwaukee, the word usually refers to beef rolled around a seasoned breadcrumb filling. Italian fish roll-ups are usually bread wrapped around an oyster. Carrabba's dish didn't even come close to the latter. This was a plate of eight shellfish - four scallops and four shrimp, rolled in crumbs, grilled, and then topped with lemon-butter sauce. The resulting flavor wasn't bad, but this was no spiedino."

What part of “shrimp and sea scallops coated with Italian breadcrumbs grilled and topped with lemon butter sauce” described in the menu didn’t you understand. If you wanted true Spiedino di Mare you should have read the fucking description, realized it was not what you wanted, and ordered something else. But then you couldn’t spew out your elitist food snobbery garbage. Nobody who goes to a chain Italian restaurant is really looking for authentic Italian. They are looking for Americanized Italian.

Oh and why does someone who complains about the crappy tastes of Milwaukeeans when they vote for the Olive Garden as best Italian continue to review more and more chain Italian restaurants? Does he simply like to point out the “errors” these chains make in the names of entrees to make himself feel better? My point is that if it tastes good, eat it and don’t worry about what it is called. You could call Sol Fire's Steak Frites "Turd steak and fries" and I would still order it because it tastes good

My weekend was saved!

Shit - blogger accidentially deleted this post. What the hell?!?!?!

This was supposed to be a review of Botanas. I will retype it later on. Anyhow it kicks ass.

Please revoke my Passport

We recently moved from Wauwatosa to Waukesha. It has been somewhat of a culture shock. We are used to having tons of good restaurants within a short distance after living on the East Side of Milwaukee and in Tosa. We are encouraged by the renaissance that downtown Waukesha is experiencing. Without it I don’t know that we would have moved here. I was delighted when I read this summer that a new restaurant called Passport Point would be opening downtown. There is already one good upscale restaurant near downtown and that is Eric’s Porterhouse. This Friday we decided to venture out an try somewhere new. I had a bar in mind but when we walked by it seemed empty and nobody was eating. Not a good sign. My backup was Passport Point.

When I checked out their website and menu I had a hunch that this was mediocre restaurant trying to sell itself as a place for upscale international cuisine. Something seemed off. The tag line on the website and menu was "A Chef's Tour." The prices seemed obnoxiously high for what appeared to be average offerings. A Southwest Pasta dish with fettuccini and shrimp for 20 bucks and Pecan Chicken for $17 seemed very overpriced, especially considering a couple bucks more would get you a entrée at Ristorante Bartolotta and a couple dollars less would get you an incredible meal at Sol Fire. Despite my perception of the menu and prices I decided to give it a try. Perhaps we would discover a gem within walking distance to our house. We were promptly seated and I was encouraged by the fact that about 60 percent of the tables were occupied. Our server stopped by and told us about the specials which included a traditional fish fry with beer battered cod, a coconut crusted Mahi Mahi, and Talipa with fruit salsa. I love Mahi Mahi and coconut encrusted stuff so it was a no-brainer. My wife ordered the traditional fish fry and we decided to share them with each other. We were offered our choice of starch and soup or salad. We both opted for the twice baked potato and clam chowder.

Soon after placing our order our server brought out a bread basket and our soups soon followed. The clam chowder had a bit of a spicy kick, which I appreciated. It was not too thick and was loaded with clams. It was delicious and I eagerly anticipated how our entrees would fare. Unfortunately the chowder was the just about the last good thing we would taste that evening. The Mahi Mahi crust was good but was somewhat thick. The fish on the inside was terribly overcooked. When you overcook fish it becomes chewy and the delicate flavors are lost. The twice baked potato looked like it had some panko bread crumbs on it and it was flat on top, not stuffed and fluffy like you would expect. The panko (if that is what it was) wasn’t even toasted, just kind of dumped on there. I couldn’t tell if there was any cheese inside. It tasted like bland garlic mashed potatoes crammed back into the skin. Technically they were twice baked but the result was definitely half-assed. The vegetables were sautéed zucchini and squash. They were ok but nothing too outstanding. Overall the dinner was pretty bad.

On to the fish fry. Fish fries shouldn’t be too hard to master. Take fresh fish, batter it, fry until lightly golden, eat. Somehow they managed to fuck it up. My measure for the success of a fish fry isn’t very complicated. If it tastes as good or better than Culver’s fish fry, it is good. You see, Culver’s chain of fast food restaurants creates a perfect everyday Fish Fry. The fish (Cod) is always cooked perfectly; the tartar sauce is great, cole slaw is good (a rarity among most fish fries) and the French fries are excellent. If a fast food establishment can mass-produce such a good fish fry, I believe a bar or restaurant should have no problem doing the same. I am by no means one of those suburban asswads who votes for Red Lobster as the best seafood restaurant (I’d vote for Scotty’s Crab House) and Olive Garden as the best Italian (Carini's La Conca d'Oro if my fave). People like that should continue to eat at those shitholes so people like me who enjoy independent restaurants don’t have to wait 2 hours for a table. But I digress. What I am saying is that my bar for quality isn’t really set that high.

Unfortunately Passport Point must have mistaken my bar for a limbo stick. How low can you go? Very low apparently. The smallish pieces of cod looked like something out of a Mrs. Paul’s box. The fish inside was also way overcooked and didn’t even appear to look like a filet inside. It was mealy and falling apart and not in the good “flaking apart” way that you like to see. It was so terrible my wife couldn’t eat more than a few bites. We are not usually complainers but we informed the server (who was awesome) that the fish was overcooked when asked how our meals were. They also provided a comment card, on which we made our complaints known.

This place reminds me of Indigo at 60th and Vliet Street. They have a neat name, great location, interesting décor (more so for Indigo) and good beer and wine selection. However both are mediocre to bad restaurants masquerading as fine cuisine. Just because you have interesting names, high prices, and a variety of items found on the menus of upscale restaurants doesn’t mean shit if your kitchen cannot cook them properly. My measure of a good upscale restaurant is if I can reproduce a dish better in my own kitchen, it isn’t worth spending my money. How this place can charge upwards of 20 bucks an entrée for bad food is beyond me. We should have just gone to the empty bar or Culver's to eat.

We went to Dicsount Liquor and got some Port and Lakefront Pumpkin beer so the night was not a total loss.

Vote for me!

For some unknown reason I was chosen to participate in the MKE Newspaper blog of the week contest. Now if I could only fix the damn formatting with my links. Hey voters, please understand that I am still working on getting this going. I will hopefully begin using Moveable Type or some other blogging software and get my own web domain name. If this becomes a popular site I would like to add some additional cynical correspondents.

Nonetheless you should vote for me because nobody likes to pay for a shitty meal…but enough about Indigo and Passport Point…vote by clicking here

Undelicious - Week of October 19th

Watch for the following posts this week:

Dining Review - Botanas
Dining Review - Passport Point (Waukesha)
Sushi Smackdown (Lunch Version) - Who has a better sushi lunch Japanica or Koyto.
Beer Review - Lakefront Pumpkin 2005

Great Wine...Just a Stone's Throw Away

Wisconsin is not really known for its wines despite the fact that we have upwards of 30 wineries throughout the state (Click here for a map). Maybe its just too tough to look past the incredible Microbreweries and Artesian Cheese makers. Anyhow on my recent honeymoon we had occasion to travel to the Stone’s Throw Winery in Door County. As you walk into the winery, located about 4 miles east of Egg Harbor, you are greeted with one of my favorite signs ever. It outlines the winery, tasting, and what you will find inside. There are also two lines on this sign that led me to believe this was my kink of place they read something along these lines:

“Children are allowed if they behave and stand by their parents side”
“We do not have Cherry Wine. Cherries are for pies, grapes are for wine”

The intent of the first sign is obvious. The second sign I assume is the result of Door County tourists coming and asking for cherry wine and walking out when informed that they do not have any (several wineries in Door County specialize in cherry wine). The sign hopefully clears up any confusion though I would wager they probably get 20 people a week who don’t read the sign and ask for cherry wine. I for one am not a huge fan of other fruit based wines. Maybe it comes from my early years in college when I would make apple and cherry wine from sugar, yeast, and juice from the UW-Milwaukee dorm cafeteria. A few glasses and you were drunk for about 6 hours, hangover for 24.

Stone’s Throw offers a $3 tasting. You get a great chardonnay-style wine glass with the Stone’s Throw Logo and the chance to sample 4 or 5 wines. They provide a sheet with a description of the wines and encourage (as any good winery should) you to go from light to dark. I tried the Chardonnay, Rose’, Big Mouth Red, Cabernet, and Port.

The Chardonnay ($17) was really enjoyable. I love Chardonnay when you can taste a hint of Oak and I like it even more when there is a creamy finish (an affordable bottle of Yellow Tail is a perfect example of what I like in a Chardonnay), this hit the mark on both fronts.

Prior to my visit the only Rose’ I had was an Italian brand so disgusting that I dumped the remainder of the bottle down the sink. I figured the best way to see if it was the style of wine that I hated or if I had only uncorked a crappy bottle was to give it another try. I was pleasantly surprised at the taste of the Rose’ d’Beatrice. It was somewhat fruity tasting but not sweet at all. It tasted like summer. I guess I do like Rose’. Enough so that we bought a bottle ($10)

Moving on to the Reds, I tried the Big Mouth Red, which was a delicious, full bodied red. It had the peppery bite of a Zinfandel, which I loved. I almost used one of my allotted tasting samples for another glass, but decided to buy bottle instead ($18).

The Cabernet ($20) was only average. It wasn’t bad it just didn’t do much to distinguish itself from other Cabs. Maybe the Big Mouth Red spoiled me.

Finally the moment I had been waiting for arrived. The Port! I absolutely love Port and was excited to see how Stone’s Thow Port ($22) would stack up. I was even more excited because it was a Zinfandel (my favorite wine style) based Port. It was pretty good. It had a bit of a strong aftertaste and didn’t finish as smooth as some other similarly priced Ports but I really enjoyed it. It would make the perfect after dinner drink in the dead of winter.

I didn’t have any here, but their Old Vines Zinfandel rivals any California Zin. The nearby Mission Grill (see review elsewhere on this site) offers this and several other Stone’s Throw Wines.

My only complaint is that they don’t offer a cracker or pretzel or hunk of bread to help cleanse the palate between tastings. The first couple of sips of each wine were a bit off because I could still taste the previous sample. Oh, and it would have been nice if our tasting glasses were rinsed out before they wrapped them up for us. I was surprised to find a sticky red wine residue in my glass when I unwrapped it a week later.

If you are stuck in Door County on a rainy afternoon I would highly recommend killing an hour at the Stone’s Throw Winery. They also have occasional concerts and other events, which I hope to be able to attend in the future. There is a small food section as well with many great wine-related food items. Try a bottle of Sarah's Dipping Sauce. Grilled salmon glazed with this stuff is incredible. Also try the Volpe’ mozzarella and prosciutto roll. Prosciutto and basil wrapped in a creamy mozzarella. Goes great with any of their white wines.

Stone's Throw Winery

3382 County Road 'E' (Intersection of A & E)

Egg Harbor, WI 54209

Toll Free: 877.706.3577

Related Links:
Wisconsin Winery Association
http://www.wiswine.com/index.cfm