milwaukee art museum

so we only went to the area that was free...that didn't really house that much artwork...whoops.

but it was a really cool-looking building and drewsy had some fun with my camera. check out some of his cool pics

koppa's fubeli deli

after visiting lakefront brewery, we circled back to koppa's afterward...which is directly across the street from the comet cafe and where our car was parked at.  this place is a corner store with a deli and are supposed to be really famous for their sandwiches.

the uranus (hehe): corned beef, horesradish, swiss, alfalfa, red onions on rye

inside is really...interesting. there are old couches, an atari set, and animal heads along the walls. although "interesting", not really the most comfortable place to want to eat at/i don't know if you can eat there??? so we ended up bringing our sandwich back to the hotel. we had to check in anyways lol

in normal swong fashion, i had more places to eat at to than meals available and had to have the boy split a sammy with me.

for $5.99, it's was pretty good. at first i thought it was kind of expensive, but the boyf rationalized it saying it's close in price at potbelly's but with more interesting/better ingredients. goood point.  and i guess the deli guy knew we were splitting because he packed two pickles and two crybaby gumballs with our sandwich. extra like!

lakefront brewery

after brunch at the comet cafe, we took a walk over to lakefront brewery which took about 20 minutes.

sign by their bottling station

everyday they have tours for $7, which includes:

• 4 6oz pours (aka 2 full beers)*
• a very entertaining tour
• a pint glass
• a coupon for ANOTHER beer from a list of restaurants**

*only used 3/4 tokens because i'm a loser

**didn't use because reason of above :(  

this was our second time visiting/doing the tour. and i would totally go back again. in addition to having delish beers (their organic ESB is drewsy's all time fave), it's a great place to hang out and daydrink at.  they have a huge room w tons of windows and it's located on the river. also  - reddit/yelp/the bloggies say that their fish fries on fridays are pretty great. sadly our hotel was for sat-monday and we missed out this time :( 

hanging out in their hall while waiting for our tour

beers we tasted on this visit: 

1. fixed gear, red ale
2. fuel cafe, organic coffee stout
3. rendezvous, biere de garde
4. riverwest stein, amber lager
5. local acre 100% wisconsin grown, imperial pilsner
6. *unnamed*, IPA (which they're not sure they're going to bottle)

IDK WHO THIS PERSON IS

even though we had done the tour before, it was still a total blast. the tour guide was super entertaining and even referenced falcon punch. waayyy worth the $7. i'm down for going back -- esp on a friday to check out their fish fry. (maybe summerfest weekend? eh? eh??)

the comet cafe - milwaukee

took a trip to milwaukee for memorial day weekend.

our first top was the comet cafe for brunch. arrived 11ish and got seated right away.

gin bloody mary w/ bacon and high life beer back

a thing i would quickly learn is that milwaukee loves its bloody marys (and general drinking for that point). literally every restaurant has one, if not three or four, on their menu.  comet cafe's was pretty good. no lula gin bloody, but decent. and loved having the high life. brought back college nostalgia haha.

the comet benedict (homemade biscuit, fried egg, ham, cheddar cheese)

i got the sausage gravy on the side, and am glad i did. the biscuit was awesome but super rich and would have been way too much soaked in gravy. yet still...only finished about 3/4 of the benedict, and maybe half of the hash browns. fail :(

it wasn't until i was halfway through my meal that i got the text from my friend wes to get their meatloaf and cupcakes/pie to go. did neither of those things. was too full. and had a whole trip to still eat on. next time...

food pics from LA (feb 2013)

met up with hams for a short trip in LA back during presidents' day weekend. here are some pics of the food we ate. 

ramen at daikokuya

mac n goat cheese, big texan (grapefruit juice, bourbon, simple syrup & basil), & mimosa at ktchn dtla

al pastor, steak, and fish tacos at el siete mares in silver lake

poach di parma from urth cafe

carnitas taco from loteria grill in the farmers market

beer flight at hanger 24 brewery (located somewhere in between LA and indio)

MARK RONSON TONIGHT AT THE MID

he's doing a dj set...so i'm not really sure what to expect. but i guess that's how he got his start? anyways..i've been a fan of his stuff for a few years and i'm super pumped to see him in person :)

easter 2013 - brunch at cafe spiaggia

easter brunch this year was spent with the boyfriend, my grandparents and my mom.  picking a spot was a bit hard -- i had to find some place that was special, but was somewhat reasonably priced, and had options that would please everyone. especially my grandpa aka the world's pickiest eater (he was a chef and basically criticizes any plate he gets so he'll only be happy with the simply prepared meats with no sauces/fruit/certain veggies)

 

after a few days of checking my reader/google/evernote list, i decided with cafe spiaggia.  cafe spiaggia is the sister restaurant of spiaggia. same kitchen, just a little less fancy with a smaller dining room and more casual food you can order a la carte.  it's one of tony mantuano's restaurants and the head chef is sara gruenberg who was a finalist on top chef texas last year, and how i became aware of the restaurant.

 

**side note - my friend sam and i may or may not have gone to the chipolte cultivate fest to see sara speak a few months ago. she made panzanella with her fiance. and was super adorable.

i know you're probably thinking swong - this doesn't sound like it'd be reasonalby price.. but it actually turned out to be perfect.  they had special plates for easter and were serving their lunch menu. before tax and tip, our bill was ~$38/person, which is less than brunch at shaw's or a hotel buffet.

since there were five of us and the plates are a bit small, we ended up having a lot of dishes. i'm gonna through them quickly...

sooo the breads. up front in the picture is pane pasquale, which is apparently traditional italian easter bread.  it was sweet, with a hint of orange/anise and some salt on top...kind of reminded me of mexican dead bread? that's a colored egg in the middle, and it was "recommended" it... too bad because i definitely would have tried haha. there were also rosemary focaccia and some cheesy crackers but the winner was definitely the pane pasquale.

for my drink i got the fan favorite - Maker’s Mark bourbon (seems to be the trend for the day..), ginger, lemon juice, Berlucchi franciacorta (italian sparking wine), and marschino cherry. although i wanted a bit more bourbon-ness, but this was really refreshing and i guess more appropriate for drinking at 1pm on easter sunday...

photo courtesy of @leidermeister

as an appetizer we shared the Boscaiola pizza, which had cremini mushrooms, prosciutto,
castlerosso (which i thinkkk is goat cheese?), mozzarella, on a whole wheat crust.  and some fresh sage on top. we were expecting more mushrooms but were totally okay with what we got. the salty/briney prosciutto & goat cheese worked reall well against the mushroom/sage/wheat crust.  the dough was baked in a wood burning oven so it crispy, yet chewy. it somewhat better than what's been made at my pizza parties ;)

another app we got were the sardines w/ salsa verde. so this dish basically became all mine, since everybody else at the table thought it was too fishy (it was meant to be for me and my grandpa but he wasn't into the sauce).  while it was fishy, the onion and lemon(?) in the salsa verde cut through that and so i really enjoyed it. and there were fried capers too..so total nom nomz :)

we also had perlagrigia, which was a cow's cheese with cinnamon and black truffles and ash (?) on the outside and came with honey. (i forgot to take a picture of it.) but my mom was really chatty about the honey and the the maitre'd ended up overhearing her and showed us a really cool tube that showed the range of different honeys they served with their cheeses.

we got two pastas. one was gnocci with a wild boar ragu. the gnocci were thinner than i've normally had and were more tender than i was expecting.  a lot of time they can be really gummy/stick to your teeth but these weren't like that. and i think they had some cheese in their dough because it had a really good umami-ness. and there were tons huge chunks of flakey meat. so while it $18 for a pretty small portion, i think it was worth it.

action shot!

the second pasta we got was gigli pasta with breadcrumbs & clams in a butter/garlic/parsley sauce. to me, the pasta was a bit too chewy/undercooked.  i also think it was a bad pasta choice...chewy pasta + chewy clams?? and the dish overall was a bit bland. i had something similar to this in seattle at anchovies and olives (post coming soon i promise!!), and i thought that one was better than cafe spiaggia's.  the clams were yummy though...

focus fail :(

we ordered the gramberi, without orange segments, for my grandpa.  this basically was wood-grilled seafood over some fancy toasted cous-cous/califlower/nuts.  i wish i took a better picture because this was definitely the prettiest dish out of our meal.  my grandpa was happy about the seafood (ish...he wasn't impressed with the shrimp haha)

it was easter, so we had to have their lamb special.  this order came with three grilled lamb chops with grilled ramps, over a bed of safron scented/cheesy orzo. the lamb was cooked awesomely..it was crispy on the outside and super tender/moist. but my favorite part of the dish -- the orzo. it was like an epic mac n cheese that was savory/creamy/amazing.

fiiinally for dessert, andrew and i split pineapple/basil sorbet, pistachio gelato and stracciatella gelato.

so i can see why tony mantuano and this restaurant have been around for so long. the food really is that good. having eaten at terzo piano, one of tony matuano's restaurants at the art institute, it was cool to see his take on modern vs rustic italian food.

 

and one dish was kind of a miss, but it wasn't thaat bad. would i come back sometime soon? no...but that's because the prices are a bit higher/its a trek to go out to north michigan ave for a meal like this. the next time i could see myself being back here would probably be next easter.  but i kind of like that? 

 

also - worth noting - my gradma kept raving about the value of this meal..and how we would spend only marginally less in chinatown but not have the same service or drinks with it.

 

so wooo easter brunch success! although even with coffee, we were in a total food coma, which didn't really help having to go over to the boyfriend's house for easter part deux..

easter 2013

99 cent chocolate bunnies...filled with maker's mark.

ma'ono fried chicken and whisky - seattle, wa

SHOCKER - swong went to a restaurant that serves whisk(e)y and  fried chicken.

but in my defense, it wasn't like i just googled "whiskey restaurants near seattle". (although that would be a legitimate assumption)

I actually found this place while searching food and wine's for seattle restaurant ideas. mark fuller won best new chef 2009 for his restaurant spring hill, which also happens to be on this (dated) list of best seattle restaurants. when i did some more researching, i discovered that spring hill had rebranded into ma'ono fried chicken and whisky in feb 2012.

award winning chef serving hawaiian influenced fried chicken and whisky drinks?? UH OK I'LL GO.

outside

** a little heads up, when you make your reservation (on opentable to get your points, obviously)...order the fried chicken then because you need to give a 24 hour notice in order to get it.  i'm not really sure what happens if you try to order it the night of, but let's just pretend they give you dirty looks and 'tude for not checking yelp/their website/swong's blog. :)

the open kitchen

selfie!!!

the gold 'n brown

for my drank, i asked the waiter to help me pick. i was between the gild (Bulleit Bourbon, Dolin Blanc, St. Germain, Grapefruit Bitters) and gold 'n brown (Dry Ginger Ale, Maker’s Mark Whisky, Charred Cedar Bitters) i was really underwhemled with it. it was like a mammie mae but with less whiskey taste and sweeter. uhh...rude. (and yes i did just link an fbook picture..) what's also annoying is that he said it was his favorite on the menu! also, maybe i've become a bar snob but if you're going to brag about being a whiskey restaurant, you should have more than three whiskey-based cocktails. there are standard bars in chicago that have more than 3 drinks per alcohol. just saying....

the whiskey drink was meh for me ...but how was the fried chicken?

so with the order, you ended up getting a whole fried chicken, housemade kimchi, two dipping sauces (one mustard, one gochujang-like), and a bowl of rice.

the price for all of this....$40.

pretty steep, i know. but hey, we were on vacation. was it worth it? in my opinion yes. the skin was thicker/more breaded than crisp's and was super flavorful.  like, pepper/ginger/oniony flavors going on. and if its the restaurant's namesake i had to check it out... and this dish became the majority of our meal. i mean, it is a whole chicken. we ended up with tons of leftovers (which were still delicious by the way)

we were told to order an extra side so we ordered an arugula/spinach salad that came with proscuitto and honeycrisp apples. sounded good but didn't really come out well. i think the apples were cut too thick, so you couldn't really get a good bite that wasn't too heavy on the apple. cold apple + room temp lettuce and proscuitto = swong not having it.

ok...so is it worth checking out? i'd say yes. how many times can you say you've been to a hawaiian fried chicken restaurant that also specializes in whiskey?? lessons learned though - don't get that salad, maybe pass on the whiskey cocktails, and go with more people so you can try more plates. (other stuff on the menu looked really great but we had that whole chicken to eat for dinner..saddies)

the crab pot - seattle, wa

sooo a few months ago my dad and i went on a trip around the pacific northwest.

first stop: seattle.

my friend diane is from seattle and gave me a really awesome list of places to check out - with info about restaurants' hours, what meals they're good for, and even when their specials are.

the crab pot was on this list (under the lunch category). after doing a bit of googling here's what deducted from this place: 

1. it's a franchise
2. it only has 3 stars on yelp
3. man vs food came here. meaning this could go one of two ways - it's either really epic, or a total mistake with food your tummy will hate you for.
4. their whole schtick is that they pour a pot of seafood and veggies onto your table and you just eat it with your hands. 

well i like seafood. and eating with my hands. and we don't really have places like this back in the chi. so i decided it was worth checking out, touristy or not. #wheninseattle, right??

Note: we ended up going at 3pm for an "afternoon snack" before our 7pm dinner reservations, and we went to their bellevue location which was out of the city. so swongy successfully avoided crowds (yay!)

outside

"afternoon snack"

eating utensils

for $15/person, we were surprised by the amount of seafood we got. (like i said before, this was a pre-dinner so we were being conservative and ordered the smallest seafest) but this was also our first meal and we were still used to chicago prices...so we kind of forgot that well, seafood is going to be MUCH cheaper and better out here.

the food's all boiled in old bay....standard but tastes good. plus, getting to sit outside on the water, enjoying the nice sub 80 degree weather (vs chitown august summer grossness), and $5 pint of their signature lager...not bad at all.  

you have to take it for what it is - a local franchise with silly menus and bibs and seafood only served one way* (boiled/on your table). but overall, it's worth checking out.  i'm glad we just came here for a snack, because while the food was good, it's not something that you need to spend more money (or room in your stomach) for. a good thing to experience, but not necessarily devote an entire meal to ;)

*jk, you can get a grilled chicken sammy or burger!