Beans & Barley: Tasty AND Good for You

There is a reason the restaurant at Beans & Barley is a Milwaukee institution: tasty, good for you food. Ideally, all our meals would be just that. But often they are one or the other, or neither, so eating at the affectionately nicknamed “Beans” is always a treat. Having lunch with the lone carrier of the xx chromosome on the WMSE staff, Music Director Erin Wolf, was a treat as well.

 

WMSE Music Director Erin Wolf presents black bean and sweet potato burrito

Fittingly, Beans is known for its burritos, so we ordered up a favorite of Erin’s mom and our server, sweet potato and black bean. It’s clear they know how to do a burrito. The elements and flavors are well balanced, it’s pretty hearty and all the stuff is tucked in tight so you can eat it by hand (though Erin and I went for the ladylike approach with utensils). Branching out was a hard decision as the menu is full of so many healthy and interesting options. We went with the fishcake sandwich which was all sorts of comfort food. What is it about beige colored foods that make you feel all snuggly? The tilapia fishcake was crispy on the outside, tender inside and served with a barley and veg salad that was a fantastic combo of nutty and fresh tasting.

Cozy little fishcake

Even on a rainy day and especially on a sunny one, that huge wall of window and lime green walls make Beans a cheery room. Cherry pie goes really well with a good mood so we had to wrap up the meal with a slice. We were pretty excited to find it of the sour/tart cherry variety. A little oatmeal crumble on top and a generous side of real whip cream put it over the top. This was damn. good. pie.

Happy girl with pie

“In a nutshell, this was really satisfying,” Erin said. “You really feel like you ate good food, like mom has cooked for you.” Erin who once lived on the East side says Beans is part of the perfect East side night trifecta: dinner at Beans, a movie at the Oriental and a drink and popcorn at Von Triers.

Erin’s musical pairing pays homage to the city that supports those great institutions, and local music: The local band, The Trusty Knife. “When I lived on the East side, I frequented Beans pretty often and got to know some of the Beans employees who were also involved in the local music scene. I’d notice the familiar faces from shows when I went in to grab groceries, a coffee or dinner. Past and present musicians who work (or worked) at Beans include Doom Buggy, The Scarring Party, Druome, Call Me Lightning, Jonathan Burks, Deprong Mori, Heavy Hand and The Trusty Knife (among more), but among those, Trusty Knife is one the one I’d highlight, for I think their music reflects the easygoing and upbeat energy of the establishment. Milwaukee food culture is heavily linked with its local music culture, and I think that’s a pretty cool realization in regards to the history/stories and community it builds and has been building for years.”

Yours, in cheery satisfaction,

Steph Kilen

Jownai Fouquet: Mouth Party

It was a mouth party at Jownai Fouquet. Everyone was there; crunchy, velvety, sweet, spicy, fresh and all the rest. WMSE Station Manager Tom Crawford and I were there too and boy, did we have fun.

As of last year’s Food Slam, Jownai Fouquet was not yet open in the space that was formerly Abu’s, but the curry they offered at the event had us pretty excited about the prospect. A year later they have made the space their own, a whole lot of gorgeous packed into that little building. Done in pastels and lovely wood inlay, the modern room is calming yet lively. The BBC’s Planet Earth is projected on a wall.

Fresh and happy veg in Cream of Awesome Soup

Our meal started with Thai ginger soup or as Tom calls it, “cream of awesome soup.” Big chunks of vegetable and chicken and many of sticks of fresh ginger float in a coconut broth that is so rich and velvety Tom calls it “sexy.” It is. It really is.

The server brought Tom a tall glass that looked like it was filled with the sunset pattern that graced household furnishings in the ‘70s. When I asked him what it was, Tom informed me it was “angel tears” and offered me a taste. How did I not know about Thai ice tea?! What joy! The creamy sweetness would certainly come in handy as the meal heated up.

A glass of “angel tears” watches over crunchy fried shrimp

The spring rolls were extremely fresh and included shrimp and chicken. The coconut shrimp were the most perfect example of fried food I’d ever had. The breading was super crunchy and delicate and not one bit greasy. There were big, happy sighs all around.

Fat noodle happiness

Could it get any better? Yes, indeed. For the main course we had fat noodles with shrimp and red curry with chicken. The noodles were that fun sort of squishy/gummy that they should be without crossing the line into goopy/pasty and the sauce offered up the salty/sweet/spicy trifecta of good Thai food in perfect balance. (Warning, I’m about to gush…)  The red curry was flat out amazing. Once again the vegetables were really fresh and the chicken was done really well. And, it was hot. Owner and cook Aom explained Jownai’s heat scale, which basically runs 1 to 3. The red curry is a 1. Tom and I both like our food quite spicy, ordering on the upper level of heat scale in most restaurants, and this did the trick and got us sweating toward the end. Aom said what passes for “medium” in other restaurants is half of their 1. At Jownai, 2 is “native” and 3, well, I don’t even want to think about it. One seemed perfect to us. Enough kick to get the endorphins up but not too much that you couldn’t taste how great the rest of the flavors in the dish were.

Tom says, “THAT, is amazing.” Red curry mouth party.

Having eaten all we could possibly fit into our bellies, Tom summed it up, “The food here is really top shelf. This is my new favorite Thai place. I’m not kidding.” The man does not kid about something like that.

Tom’s musical pairing: “Cataclysmic” and “Seaward Say” by Perfect Angel. He says, “They are an Indonesian post rock shoe gazer outfit. Like a warm south seas breeze. Their sounds would offset and subjugate all that was on my plate. All fragrances and spicy heat. The band sounds nothing like the traditional music of their country of origin. Some bands use their country’s musical  traditions and westernize them to make pop songs. This band does not do that overtly like so many bands would do. Yet there’s a just and sincere tone to the compositions that’s so subconsciously far east.  Ethereal Post Rock Shoe Gazer Red Curry Coconuts!”

Yours, eating like it’s 1999

Steph Kilen

Bike Raffle: Bike off the Food Slam Calories

Oh, Ben’s Cycle  you are so kind to once again donate a killer bike for the Food Slam raffle! It’s a white Bianchi Milano. Ain’t she a beaut? Your friends will be so jealous when you ride by and wave “Ciao!” Grazie mille, Ben’s Cycle. You guys are the best!

Steve at Ben’s Cycle musical pairing: “The Boogie Man” by Todd Rollins and his Orchestra. “On those late night fall rides, watch out for the Boogie Man!” Steve says.

SALA: Happy Meal

Volunteer Coordinator Chris DeMay sooo happy at SALA

Good food is a treat. But good company and good atmosphere really make the dining experience.  The WMSE Food Slam has all that in spades, do did my visit to SALA. WMSE Volunteer Coordinator Chris DeMay and I had one of those dinners that leaves you smiling until you fall asleep.

Run by Teresa Balistreri, a peach of a gal if ever there was one, and her brother Tony, SALA  (the restaurant formerly known as Sala da Pranzo) has recently been remodeled and its menu given a bit of new spin as well. It’s cozy, lively and friendly and the same can be said of its food. Everything about it has an energy that makes you comfortable and happy. It’s lovely to feel like something special is going on right at your table while something else special is going on in the room around you. One of the joys of eating out is being part of a convivial communion. SALA is the place for that.

You’ll find a menu full of Italian favorites, all sounding so good it’s hard to choose. Chris and I settled on classic bruschette, beet, arugula and goat cheese salad, saltinbocca and one of the night’s several specials, lasagna. If ever two things were happy together it’s tomatoes and bread. A crunchy and fresh combo is a great, if messy, way to get your appetite going. (Seriously, has anybody ever been able to eat bruschette gracefully?) Speaking of grace, the beet, goat cheese and arugula salad was all sorts of delicate, each element of great quality, making it a really good version of this favorite. The lasagna delighted in similar ways. “It’s exactly what you want from lasagna,” Chris said. “It’s really well layered and the ricotta is so creamy.” Each bite was a little different, showing off more quality ingredients, all playing so well together whatever combination came in the forkful.

The saltinbocca, chicken breasts topped with prosciutto and parmesan over angel hair pasta with a sage beurre blanc, well, I wanted to just snuggle right into the plate. “Velvety and fortifying,” Chris said. Perfectly done chicken breasts, a rarity when eating out, I find, made it even better.

By the time we were taking our lasts bites, I’m pretty sure we were glowing, prompting Chris to say, “They do it really well here; to create something special out of something people do (eat) several times a day.” Which brings us to Chris’s musical pairing: “Great meals, like great records, are journeys of the mind and senses. At best, something that takes the participant on a ride—not merely from point A to B—but to another place altogether new and original, a world unto its own. One record that comes to mind is Ghost of the Great Highway by Sun Kil Moon —Mark Kozelek’s masterpiece from 2003. It sustains as well as enriches the listener. It never fails to take me somewhere.”

yours on a convivial journey,

Steph Kilen

Terra: So Full

WMSE Development Director Justin Shoman and the beloved enchiladas verde

One of the best things about living in Milwaukee: numerous Mexican restaurants, each with its own specialties. The newest, Terra, which opened in May, just west of 6th Street on National Ave., well, they have the best enchiladas verde in the city. There. Said it. Mean it. WMSE Development Director Justin Shoman will back me up. Not too much tang and the perfect amount of heat in the sauce, fresh avocado and cream on the top, very tasty steak inside and enough of it to feed a small radio station staff.

Ceviche: shrimps love being tucked in under blankets of avocado

Bless Justin and his willingness to share dishes because we both got to try the chili rellenos and ceviche, also specialties, as well. The shrimp ceviche was beautiful, fresh and, Justin noted, “really citrusy – just the way I like it.” It was hard to pull away from it to try the other dishes. Like the verde, the rellenos sauce was well balanced with a lot of flavor layers, and the chilies were stuffed with a lot of cheese. And again, the spice level was right in the sweet spot. I made a fantastic mess of eating it but could not have cared less. Food messes are the best kind of messes. Justin and I kept trying to stop eating, but this was really one of those meals that while our stomachs were full, our mouths kept begging for one more bite.

Run by a small staff and in a small space, Terra is warm and lovely. Nibardo Sepulveda, our host for lunch said, “We didn’t want to have sombreros and Corona flags.” Indeed it feels very different from the other Mexican restaurants in the area. Done in earth tones, the dining room features mosaic tables and a bar made by Nibardo and his two partners and striking original art. The menu features around 100 items including American favorites and a few Greek dishes. They serve breakfast all day. That’s the kind of thought that makes one’s heart swell. Perhaps it will catch up with your stomach.

Justin’s musical pairing for Terra is “Islero” by Crooked Fingers. He said, ”It’s a beautiful song with this great Spanish guitar and slowly building trumpet part. I can remember the first time I heard this song, I listened to it 4 or 5 times in a row. I would do the same thing with this meal if I weren’t so damn full.”

It’s exciting to have such a new restaurant be part of the Food Slam. At the event – because you’re going, right? – be sure to wish them a warm welcome.

yours, rolling out the door and down the street

Steph Kilen

Burger Update

You’ve done a fine job of showing your love for WMSE and the great food at Honeypie and Comet Cafe so far:

Honeypie: 344 total - 253 atomic, 91 modern

Comet:  544 total - 340 atomic, 204 modern

If you are craving a second go at one of these burgers or haven’t yet gotten in on the action, you have just until Sunday to grab one (and they’re not sold during Sunday brunch). You don’t want to be pouting come Monday, do you?

Purple Door Ice Cream & Clock Shadow Creamery: Dairy Delight

Could there be a better way to start the day than with ice cream and cheese? A sunny Tuesday morning is a pretty great time to visit Purple Door Ice Cream  and Clock Shadow Creamery. But if you are the kind of Milwaukeean who has love of dairy in your blood, I can’t think of a bad time to visit.

Lauren Schultz, who owns and runs Purple Door with her husband Steve, is just the sort of person you want to see first thing in the morning, friendly and the right amount of cheerful, like a scoop of chocolate ice cream, which she quickly offers. Unbeknownst to Lauren, I’ve been on a search for a really good chocolate ice cream, and there it was, right in our own backyard. In addition to really, really good chocolate flavor, what makes it so good, and all of Purple Door ice cream for that matter, is that it is not just ice cream, or premium ice cream, but super premium ice cream, a distinction which means it is 14% or higher butterfat. Oh, yeah. Even the lemon sorbet is creamy, and yes, delicious, like I-want-to-drive-back-there-right-now delicious.

Testimonial: chocolate ice cream so good I ate it all before I could take a picture

So, there’s all that butterfat and almost all natural and/or local ingredients (chocolate don’t grow ‘round these parts and it’s hard to get a caramel that doesn’t freeze hard), but I’m inclined to believe part of the reason it tastes so good is that Lauren first conceived of the Purple Door in middle school. When she and her friends talked about what they wanted to do when they grew up, Lauren said she wanted to run an ice cream shop and call it the Purple Door. “Twenty years later, here I am,” she said.

Purple Door Ice Cream shares the space on the first floor of the Clock Shadow Building (which has its own fascinating story) with Clock Shadow Creamery. Clock Shadow Creamery is an offshoot of Cedar Grove Cheese in Plain, WI, but it has its own focus. “We really wanted to make cheese locally, right in the community” said Sarah Marcks, storefront, sales and outreach manager, “and to tread softly on the environment,” making them a perfect fit for the environmentally friendly, socially conscious, Clock Shadow Building.

With little room for storage, Clock Shadow Creamery focuses on making fresh cheese, an operation you can watch from the storefront.They currently offer juusto, cheddar cheese curds and quark (“like the sub-atomic particle,” Sarah said). Wheels of cheddar aging in the case still have some time before their ready. The creamery will be offering the Wisconsin favorite, curds, and a European favorite, quark, at the Food Slam.

Good morning! Would you like a cheese curd?

I don’t mind if I do. And while I can’t muster the restraint to wait long enough for it to warm up to the point of squeak, it is, indeed all that a curd should be and has real cheddar flavor, not like those curd-in-name-only kind of things you may have had about the state. Sarah said she recently took some home and ate the whole bag in bed. Her smile at revealing this betrays her bliss. They post their fresh curd days on Facebook and have folks who follow them just to jump on that info.

Squeak, squeak, squeak

Quark is as fun as the curd. (Say that a few times to prove it!) Sarah describes it as a cross between ricotta and cream cheese, very popular in Europe. The fun is in its versatility, it can be used in sweet or savory dishes and the creamery offers garlic and dill, and maple syrup varieties. Indeed, it is a taste shifter, giving different, but equally pleasing enjoyment when Sarah suggests drizzling honey on my second sample.

I left that little dairy heaven on 2nd and Bruce ready to face the day and so excited to see them again at the Food Slam. With a belly full of ice cream and cheese, I half expected a choir to greet me on the street to tell me it was going to be a good day. So, my musical pairing for Purple Door Ice Cream and Clock Shadow Creamery is “Light and Day” by Polyphonic Spree. This song is like rainbows and sparkles and the opening scene from Sound of Music (otherwise known as “the feeling of eating dairy products”) mixed with the collage of life and architecture in the 5th ward.

Presale for Food Slam tickets ends Friday, Sept 28 at 5 pm. If you want to ensure your feeling of spinning around on a mountain top with your arms stretched wide you better get on it!

Yours in dairy state pride,

Steph Kilen