Road Tips

Appleton Beer Factory - Appleton, WI

I was in Appleton calling on a couple of accounts and I decided to find someplace to eat lunch before I left town.  I thought about a couple places that were brew pubs that I'd been to before, but in doing a search on my smart phone I came across a new place in downtown Appleton that I hadn't been to - Appleton Beer Factory.  I put in the address in the GPS and headed there.  

Appleton Beer Factory opened in 2013, but the genesis of the brew pub began 30 years before when Jeff Fogle - a pipe-fitter by trade - became interested in brewing beer.  He was actually fabricating piping systems for Anheuser-Busch and he became intrigued with the brewing process.  Fogle soon realized that he had the tools and materials to build his own brewing apparatus.  He started to brew beer with his father, then when his son Ben was old enough, Jeff Fogle began to brew beer with him.  

Jeff and Ben Fogle experimented with different styles of beer and about 10 years ago they looked at one another and said, "There's all these micro-breweries that are opening.  Why can't we do something like that?"   It took some time for the dream to start to grow from a concept to reality.

In 2010, the Fogle's found a building in downtown Appleton that housed an auto parts store since the 1940's.  With the help of family and investors (as many as 30 investors are involved in the business), the Fogle's gutted the building.  They tore down drywall that covered windows, found old wood in the upper portion of the building that was used to make the bar top, and brought in Amish woodworkers to do much of the craftwork.  They built window sills, the bar, put in coffered ceilings, and built table tops.  

When Fogel first started the project, the working name of the brewpub was "Das Brewery".   However he later found that the name was already trademarked.  Since the brewpub was going to have sort of an industrial look, they settled upon Appleton Beer Factory.  More financing had to be secured above and beyond the money raised from the group of private investors to finish electrical wiring and plumbing, and it took awhile for permits to be issued and inspectors to sign off on the project.  The Fogle's opened the doors to the public - quietly - on November 26, 2013.  

It's truly a family affair at the Appleton Beer Factory.  Jeff Fogle's wife (Ben's step-mom), Leah, is the head chef and Ben's wife, Mairi, is the marketing manager.  Leah and Jeff Fogle were married in the gutted building where the main tap stands today.  Leah always had a passion for cooking and went through the culinary arts program at a local community college while the brewpub was being built.  

Appleton Beer Factory is located on College Ave. which is the main street into downtown Appleton from the west.  (see map)  I found a metered parking spot around the corner and went inside.  The tap room has a large three-sided bars with brick walls, wooden floors and a maple coffered ceiling.  The building's original coal chute and fire doors were preserved and re-installed to give the place more of an old time factory look.

The beer hall is located behind the bar and features a glass-walled look at the four large brewing kettles Appleton Beer Factory uses to make their beers.  A skylight lets in natural light in the day time and the room was open and spacious.  A third dining area was off to the side of the tap room.  When I poked my head in there to take a picture, the room was empty save for a table of six men having a lunch meeting.  All of them stopped and looked at me when I entered the room.  I figured that I probably didn't need to be in there.

I took a seat at the bar and my server/bartender, Erin, came over to greet me.  She gave me a menu and pointed to the seven beers from their microbrewery that they had on tap.  They also had "guest beers" on tap from the St. Francis Brewery on the south side of Milwaukee, Lakefront Brewery in Milwaukee, and the Potosi Brewing Co. in Potosi, WI.  (Click here to see the Road Tips entry on the brewpub at Potosi Brewery.)  They still had some of their Oktoberfest beer on tap and I took one of those.  

The menu isn't extensive at A.B.F. - it features a number of the requisite appetizers with brewery twists on some of the items.  They had hop pickled eggs, barley pretzel nuggets with mustard ale dipping sauce, and something called "Beer and Bacon Mac & Cheese Bites" made with Wisconsin white cheddar cheese, a house-brewed American pale ale, applewood smoked bacon, and cavatapi pasta served with a variation of French peasant bread.  All the appetizers are designed to be enjoyed with one of the craft beers.

I was thinking about getting one of Appleton Beer Factory's "build-your-own-burger" - a 1/3 pound black angus burger with nearly three dozen toppings as diverse as corned beef hash, Granny Smith apple slices, braised red cabbage and Wisconsin cheddar cheese.  That was until I saw Erin come out with the reuben sandwich for another guy seated down the bar from me.  "Was that the reuben," I asked her as I looked at the large chunks of corned beef spilling from his sandwich.  

She said, "Oh, yeah."  I told her that it looked damned good and she said, "It IS very good."  I immediately changed my mind and went with the reuben.  For a side I got the pub fries.  

About 10 minutes after I ordered, Erin brought out the sandwich.   I looked on the plate and saw that she brought me out sweet potato fries.  I said, "Are these the pub fries?  They sure look like sweet potato fries."

She said, "You ordered sweet potato fries."  

I said, "Noooo....  My wife likes sweet potato fries and I'll eat them from time to time, but this is not one of those times."

Erin went over to look at the ticket.  She said, "Huh!  I wrote down pub fries but told him sweet potato fries.  I'll get you a plate of the pub fries." 

Actually, I almost stopped her because it didn't matter if it were sweet potato fries or pub fries, I probably wasn't going to be eating many - if any - of them.  She brought out a plate of pub fries along with an empty plate for me to push the sweet potato fries onto.  She was very nice about it.  

The corned beef was in large stringy chunks and served on a swirled rye bread.  There was a large amount of Swiss cheese on the sandwich and it was topped with 1000 Island dressing along with a little surprise.  Normally, a reuben comes with sauerkraut, but this came with sweet red cabbage.  I like red cabbage and it went very well with the corned beef.

However, the corned beef was a little dry.  It pulled apart easily, but it was a little lacking in moisture.  The overall taste of the sandwich was very good, but more than once I found myself having to take a drink of beer to help get the rather dried out corned beef down the gullet.  It was really a minor thing because the corned beef had such a good flavor, but I found it somewhat distracting in the quality of the sandwich.

Dried out corned beef, notwithstanding, I was happy enough with my first visit to the Appleton Beer Factory.  The sandwich was fine - it would have been better with a more moist and tender corned beef - and the beer I had was actually pretty good.   I like a good Oktoberfest beer when it's available and Appleton Beer Factory had a good one.  I liked the atmosphere of the place and Erin's service was cheery and efficient.   There's now a couple three good brew pubs in Appleton with good beer and good food.  Appleton Beer Factory is a welcome addition to the brew pub landscape in that city.  

Korma Sutra - Overland Park, KS

Indian food is fast becoming my go-to for comfort food while I'm on the road.  There's something about a good curry sauce that opens up my tastebuds, especially if I've gotten into a food funk when I'm on the road.  It was a cold, rainy night in Kansas City and I was staying at the Hilton Garden Inn in Overland Park.  (Click here to see Road Tips entry on the Overland Park Hilton Garden Inn.)  I contemplated staying in, but then I did a quick search on the Internet and found an interesting sounding Indian restaurant less than five minutes from the hotel - Korma Sutra.

Korma Sutra is a play of words on the Kama Sutra, the ancient Hindu guide to a guide to "a virtuous and gracious living that discusses the nature of love, family life and other aspects pertaining to pleasure oriented faculties of human life."  Oh, and it's a sex manual, too.  Baljit Singh is the owner of Korma Sutra (Korma is an Indian dish consisting of braised meats in spiced yogurt/cream sauce) which hails the "sensuous cuisine of India" served at the restaurant.  Chef's Inderjit Singh and Makhan Singh run the kitchens at Korma Sutra.  In addition to the Overland Park location, there is also a Korma Sutra in the Westport area of Kansas City, and a new Korma Sutra opened in late November of last year in the north Kansas City suburb of Liberty, MO.  

The Overland Park Korma Sutra, which has been open since 2004, is located in a small strip mall on the northwest corner of Metcalf and College Avenues just south of I-435.  (see map)  The restaurant is actually hidden from both streets.  It took me awhile to find the place tucked into a corner on the back side of the mall.   

As I went in, I was greeted by Baljit Singh, a gregarious host who is also somewhat of a comedian.  When I told him that it was just myself that evening, he asked, "Whatzza matter?  You have no friends?  Here, I'll put you at the 'no friends' table.  You can make friends with these people."  The tables were rather close to one another and there was a threesome of younger people eating at the table next to me.  Neither of us had any intention of starting up a conversation with one another.  

The dining room is a lively combination of colors, wall decorations and light ornaments.  Linen table cloths are under glass table top.  The place was over half full when I was there that evening.  

There is a buffet that is very popular during the lunchtime hours at Korma Sutra.  They also seemed to be popular with "to-go" orders as a number of people stopped in to pick up food while I was there.  

As I was looking through the menu, one of the servers came over with some papadum bread and an interesting sauce to go along with it.  I'm not quite certain what was in the sauce, but I could taste some sweet plums as well as something spicy.  The papadum was crisp and tasty.  The sauce was very good with it.  

The menu at Korma Sutra was very extensive with a number of lamb, chicken, seafood and vegetarian entrees to choose from.  It was what I like to call a "true Indian restaurant" because they also had tandoori items, biryani dishes and entrees made with goat.  My colleague, Todd, likes goat meat in Indian food.  I still haven't been able to cross that line. 

For someone who doesn't care for lamb all that much, however, I've grown an affinity for Indian lamb dishes.  They had five different lamb entrees at Korma Sutra and after almost jumping on the lamb vindaloo, I ended up with the lamb curry with some garlic naan.  They also have wine and Indian beers available at Korma Sutra.  I got a Kingfisher beer to go along with my meal.  

The lamb curry featured tasty chunks of lamb meat in a garlic, ginger and curry sauce that was somewhat spicy, but not the type that will burn your face off.  Mixed with the basmati rice, it was a great tasting meal for a cool and rainy late fall night.  The naan was mixed full of garlic and fresh cilantro.  I couldn't get enough of the curry sauce using the leavened bread as a sponge to sop up any that was left over in the dish and on my plate.  

It was also a lot of food.  I was getting pretty full when a lady brought over what amounted to a sweet Indian dessert for me to try.  It was all I could do to take a couple bites of that before I threw in the towel.  This was a very good Indian meal.  

I waited for my check to show up and I sat there for a long time before I decided to just go up to the register and get my check from Baljit Singh.  When I went up to the counter, he came over and started to protest.  "No, you musn't go," he pleaded.  "We have more food for you!  Lime juice and towel!"  (I guess their closing act is providing the customers with a warm moist towel and lime juice to squeeze onto the fingers to get rid of the smell of the spices.)  But I declined - I'd had enough.  Baljit Singh feigned hurt feelings.  "Next time, you stay the whole time," he said as I waved goodbye.

And there will probably be a next time.  I like to stay at the Hilton Garden Inn in Overland Park when I'm in Kansas City and since Korma Sutra is close by, I'm sure that I'll be swinging back at some point.  The lamb curry was very good, the service was impeccable and efficient, and the floor show with Baljit Singh's interaction with his customers was rather entertaining.  Korma Sutra is somewhat tough to find, but it's worth it once you get there.    

El Mexicano - Moline, IL

We live in a city where there are numerous very good and authentic Mexican restaurants.  I have a good friend who is Hispanic and he swears that - other than his mother's kitchen - the best Mexican food in the Quad Cities comes from El Mexicano, a combination grocery store/meat market/restaurant in Moline.  The guys from QC Mexican Food, a web site that features all the Mexican restaurants in the Quad Cities, also think highly of El Mexicano - they called it the top Mexican restaurant in their list of Top Ten area Mexican restaurants.   

Roberto Carillo was a Mexican immigrant from Guanajuato who came to the U.S. in 1984 to help pick fruit with his father in a field near Fresno, CA.  The 15-year-old Carillo didn't know English and didn't attend school when he first got to the U.S.  But Carillo soon learned that the more educated you are, the more you can get out of life.  

After getting his temporary resident status, Carillo was contacted by friends in the Quad Cities about a job opportunity at a beef processing plant in the area.  He moved to the Quad Cities in 1990 and started to take English language classes held for Mexican immigrants of all ages.  By 1995, he was taking classes in American history and he passed his citizenship test later that year.  

Carillo continued to work at the beef processing facility, but saw a chance to be able to be his own boss by running a Mexican restaurant.  He took classes in food management from Black Hawk College in Moline and graduated in 2005.  In February 2006, Carillo quit his job at the beef processing plant to start El Mexicano.  His first employees were his wife, his oldest daughter and his brother.  

Initially, El Mexicano was just a restaurant.  But Carillo found that he could sell Mexican sourced items for a growing Mexican population in the Quad Cities.  Over the years, El Mexicano has transformed from a restaurant only establishment to a full service grocery store complete with a meat counter.  While the restaurant is still going strong, it now takes up about a third of the total space of El Mexicano.  

We tried to go to El Mexicano on an earlier visit, but we found that the restaurant closes at 4:00 p.m. daily.  It opens at 10:30 a.m. Monday through Friday and is open for breakfast on Saturday and Sunday starting at 8 a.m.  This time, we went on a Saturday afternoon for lunch.  

El Mexicano is located on Railroad Ave. in Moline, across the tracks from the John Deere Seeding Works.  (see map)  I have friends who work at John Deere Seeding who get lunch from El Mexicano delivered to them a lot.  My one friend told me, "They have monster burritos just full of stuff.  I don't know how one person can eat the thing."

Walking into the front door of the deep green building, you enter the grocery store at El Mexicano.  A large "L" shaped meat counter was chock full beef, pork, chicken and other Mexican specialty meats.  The shelves were filled with colorful packaging of Mexican food items.    

The restaurant part of El Mexicano is located on the right side as you walk into the building.  It's not a large space - it probably seats about 30 people comfortably - but it didn't seem cramped at all.

We took a seat at a table and a young lady came out to drop off menus.  The food items on El Mexicano's menu were certainly authentic with both Spanish and English terms for the foods.  The first thing we ordered was some guacamole.  It was too cheap to pass up - $3.50 for basically a whole plate of freshly made guacamole.   El Mexicano also had a number of Mexican beers to choose from.  Cindy got a Negra Modelo while I got a bottle of Sol.  

El Mexicano is known for their carnitas - seasoned pulled pork that cooks in its own fat and juices.  The young lady told us that Roberto Carillo has a recipe of spices that he adds to the carnitas that gives it a signature taste.  The portion was absolutely huge.  Refried beans and rice came on the side.  Then - for good measure - I also got a barbacoa taco on the side topped with onions and fresh cilantro.

I got some soft corn tortillas to go along with the carnitas.  I piled on some of the shredded pork, beans and rice, and topped it off with some guacamole and some of their wonderful chile verde sauce the young lady brought to the table with the chips.  The first taco I made, well, the pork was a little dried out.  But I rummaged around the carnitas on my plate and found a bunch of more moist pork meat interspersed with bits of cooked fat to give the carnitas their distinctive flavor.  The next two tacos were absolutely wonderful.  

Cindy went with the tacos.  Her daughter is married to a Mexican who knows his way around a kitchen and he is adamant that you need to try the tacos at authentic Mexican restaurants to see if the place is good or not.   At El Mexicano they feature ten different types of meat to choose from for tacos - chicken (shredded or grilled), carne asada (steak), beef tongue, carnitas, ground beef, al pastor (pork in a red sauce) and other fillings.  They also have pepper slices and Nopales - chunks of cooked paddle cactus.  

For her three tacos, she went with grilled chicken, barbacoa and the cactus.  She got them all Mexican-style with the chopped onions and cilantro.  Refried beans and rice came with her tacos.  Since I had a barbacoa taco already and I don't care for chicken tacos all that much, I had a bite of the cactus taco.  It had the consistency of a roasted green pepper but with more of a sweeter taste.  Cindy had eaten cactus before and she thought the one at El Mexicano was very good. 

With the barbacoa taco and three loaded carnitas tacos down me, I still had about half of the pork that they served me left on my plate.  I was getting stuffed, but I couldn't quit eating the pork.  As I said, the initial amount of pork was rather dry and sort of tough, but everything else under that was moist, tender, flavorful and just simply outstanding.  I ate nearly all the pork I had and was wonderfully miserable the rest of the day.  I didn't even have dinner that evening because I was still stuffed from the wonderful lunch we had at El Mexicano.  

I can't say enough about my meal at El Mexicano - the portions served versus the price paid was outstanding.  The authenticity of the food they served was irreproachable.  The overall quality of the food was exceptional.  Everything I've heard or read about El Mexicano met my expectations.  This was simply some of the freshest and finest Mexican food that I've ever had.  

Cerno's Bar and Grill - Kewanee, IL

My wife had taken a half day off on a Friday recently and talked me into playing hooky with her for the afternoon.  I didn't feel guilty because I had been doing a lot of traveling and even some weekend work before then.  A few weeks before, she had told me of a place in Kewanee, IL that had pretty good pizza.  One of our neighbors had been working on the electrical system as part of an expansion at the place and had brought home a pizza and invited my wife up to share with him and his partner one night while I was traveling.  With that in mind, we set out to go to Cerno's Bar and Grill about an hour drive away in Kewanee.  

There's a rich history to Cerno's, one that dates back to just before the turn of the 20th century.  Years ago, breweries used to build taverns for patrons to enjoy their beers.  They were usually built in larger cities or industrial towns.  It so happened that the Pabst Brewery decided to build three bars - one in their hometown of Milwaukee, one in Chicago, and one in the then industrial town of Kewanee, IL.  The first saloon keeper was a young local businessman, John P. Brady.  Brady started out as a horse dealer before getting into the wholesale distribution and retail sales of beer and liquor in Kewanee.  His initials are still etched into the glass on the front door of the place.  

John Brady ran the tavern through Prohibition and into World War II.  In 1944, failing health forced him to sell his bar to Gustav Van Hulle, a German immigrant who fled Germany before the war.  Van Hulle ran the place up to his death in 1954 and his wife, Ann, took over the place.  She changed the name to simply Ann's and she ran the place up until it was sold to former auto parts dealer and stock car driver Lloyd Ewing in the early 70's.  (Two different accounts put the sale in either 1971 or 1974.)  

Lloyd Ewing ran the place as Ann's for a number of years before he changed the name to Lloyd's Club sometime in the late 70's or early 80's.  But the spirit of Ann's lived on - and still does today with a neon lighted Ann's sign on the wall in the back of the bar.  In 2001, Ewing sold out to partners John Cernovich (the "Cerno" in the name) and Brian Crabtree.  The name of the place was changed to Cerno's Bar and Grill and the two continue to run the place today.

Cerno's is located on West 3rd Street across from the Amtrak station in Kewanee.  (see map)  West 3rd was known as Whiskey Row for a number of years until bars along the two block stretch of the street.  Only Cerno's remains out of all the bars and taverns that thrived along the street from the 40's into the 80's.  

The showcase of Cerno's is a 50 foot mahogany bar that was built for the Pabst Brewery in the early 1890's.  The bar was built in Belgium, then shipped to the United States and put on display at the Pabst exhibit at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.  When Pabst built the saloon a few years later they moved what was at the time - and for a long number of years after - the largest bar in Illinois to Kewanee.  

Back-lit Pabst signs are inlaid into the pillars on each end.  Small ornamental eagles sit on top of buzzers that were used to summon waiters to the kitchen to pick up food orders.  The original handcarved figurines stand at each end of the bar.  The original brass fixtures attached the bar are still there.  Brass spittoons that were used by men to expectorate tobacco years ago are used as tip jars behind the bar.  

Along part of the walls of the restaurant is the original wallpaper that featured the Pabst logo.  Stained glass-leaded windows along the east wall sit over a the orginal mural wallpaper.  As you walk into the building and look to the right, an old time teller cage still sits where it did 100 years ago.  This was a small check cashing area where men could come in, cash their checks and drink at the bar.

For years, women weren't allowed in the bar.  There was a small room upstairs where the women could sit and enjoy a drink.  Orders were placed and drinks were sent up to the second floor via a dumbwaiter by the bar.  The dumbwaiter is still in place - and still works.  But, of course, women are now allowed in the bar.  

As I said that there was an expansion to Cerno's not long ago.  They took the space next to the bar to the west which used to be a water distribution company, put in a larger dining room (with a serving hole in the wall behind the bar), expanded the kitchen and put in new bathrooms replacing what I was told were abysmal facilities by my neighbor who helped wire the new place.  Secondary expansion is on going with John Cernovich moving a golf simulator business he has in Kewanee into a space in the back of the old warehouse, while the front part of the warehouse will eventually house the Kewanee Brewing Company bringing back the tradition of brewing beer locally.

We got into Cerno's just before 2 p.m.  A number of people were seated at bar and at tables in the bar area.  A few of them were finishing up lunch while we were just getting ready to order.  A young lady by the name of Jane came out from behind the bar and dropped off a couple menus.  She asked what we wanted to drink and I wanted to know what they had on tap - Cerno's features 20 beers on tap.  Jane said, "Oh!  There's not a beer menu on the table."  She walked over to the bar and pulled a beer menu off the top and brought it over.  To my surprise and somewhat elation, they had Kona Castaway India Pale Ale on tap.  I've been drinking a lot of that lately at home, but it was the first time I'd found a bar that actually served it on tap.  My wife got a Castaway IPA, as well.  

Looking through the menu, I cast my eyes down toward the thin crust pizza that Cerno's offers.  Then to my horror I saw at the bottom of the menu that pizza was served beginning at 4:30 p.m.  (11 a.m. on Sundays.)  When Jane came back to drop off our beers and we told her that we were crestfallen to find that they didn't serve pizza until 4:30.  "Oh, yeah," she said as she apologized.  "Our pizza guy doesn't come in until 4."  But she told us that they had a ribeye steak sandwich on special for lunch and that their burgers and pork tenderloin sandwiches were good.  We asked her to give us a few more minutes to look through the menu.  

Cerno's has the typical menu of appetizers, soups and salads, sandwiches and wraps, as well as burgers, pork tenderloins and grilled chicken sandwiches.  Entrees such as a sirloin or ribeye steak, salmon, and fettuccine alfredo are available after 5 p.m. 

I went with the mushroom/Swiss cheese burger for my lunch.  I was sort of intrigued because it said the burger was also topped with gravy.  There was a similar instance at a burger place I'd been to prior to this visit to Cerno's where I encountered a burger that had been touted as having gravy on it, but they forgot to add the gravy.  I asked Jane if she could put some bacon on the burger and she said it was no problem.  For a side, I had my choice of crinkle fries, seasoned fries, potato salad and a couple three other offerings.  I didn't know what to get, so I asked Jane what I should get.  "The seasoned fries are probably my favorite out of that group," she told me.  "They're pretty good."  I went with the seasoned fries.  I wasn't certain that I'd eat many of them. 

My wife went with the patty melt with a side of cole slaw.  When they brought out the burgers, we were both impressed with the presentation.  The patty melt featured a thick hand-pattied burger, chargrilled, and it was topped with American and Swiss cheese, bacon and grilled onions.  1000 Island dressing was served on the side.  The bread was a caraway-seed rye bread that was toasted.  My wife exclaimed the patty melt was very good - a lot better than she expected it to be.  She said the carraway rye bread was a nice touch.  

My burger was also thick and loaded with Swiss cheese that was melting down the side of the burger.  Bacon was criss-crossed on top of the sauteed mushroom that were sitting on the burger patty.  And, sure enough, they put beef gravy on the burger, a little bit of it was running down the side of the burger.  The toasted bun was light and fluffy, but wasn't too much of a bun to detract from the taste of the very good burger.  The gravy was an interesting touch to the burger.  Other than having a hamburger steak made in a pan with gravy, I don't think I'd ever had gravy on a burger before.  I immediately liked it.  

And, quite actually, the seasoned fries were just as Jane said they'd be - very good.  In fact, between my wife and I, we ate all of them.  It wasn't that her cole slaw was bad - it was a sweet and creamy type of cole slaw - it's just that we both liked the fries.  A lot.  

Other than being disappointed in the fact that we were way early for pizza (Our neighbor told us afterward, "Oh, yeah!  I should have told you guys that."), our dejection turned into a surprised elation with the very good burgers that we had at Cerno's.  Having Kona Castaway IPA on tap was a plus, as well.  Jane's service was proficient and able.  We're definitely going back some evening to get a pizza.  When we do, I'll add a little addendum to this entry to let you know how it is.  

(UPDATE - June 2019.  We still haven't made it back to Cerno's for pizza, but their burger was just voted as the best in Illinois in a contest sponsored by the Illinois Beef Association.  Yes, it was a ballot box-stuffing situation, but it was still a very good burger.)  

Cosmos Cafe - Milwaukee, WI

I stopped by one of my dealers in Milwaukee, Ultra Fidelis, in the early afternoon on a recent trip to the area and they were getting ready to have lunch.  They asked me if I'd like to get something with them and I said, "Sure!", joking that I knew they waited for me to show up so I could pay.  One of the guys suggested getting burgers at a place called Cosmos Cafe.  When I asked where it was, he said it was just up the street.  I said, "Is that the little place back off the street up at the corner?"  He said it was.  I have walked past that place a number of times walking to Ono Kine Grindz, a Hawaiian market/cafe that I like to go to when I stop at Ultra Fidelis (click here to see my entry on Ono Kine Grindz) and the aromas from the grill emanating from the little place has always been excruciatingly enticing.  They told me they have great burgers at Cosmos Cafe, so they called an order in for us for me to go pick up and bring back.   

The owners, Theo and Helen Tselentis, got their start in the business by running the Friday night fish fry's at a local Greek Orthodox Church.  People told them all the time that the fish was so good that they needed to open their own place.  Finally in 2009, the couple opened Cosmos Cafe specializing in Greek food, burgers, and kept the tradition of their own Friday night fish fries.  Initially, they had breakfast on weekends, but they discontinued it after awhile after sales began to decline.  However, people kept asking about their breakfasts and the Tselentis' decided to start up serving weekend breakfasts again a couple years ago.

Cosmos Cafe is technically located in Wauwatosa along North Ave. (see map)  It's set back from the street with a parking lot out front and shares the building with a tax service company.  About 15 minutes after we placed the order by phone, I walked up the street from the store to get our lunch.  

The dining area isn't all that large and all orders are placed at the front counter.  The menu is located on a board above the counter.  In addition to Greek specialties (gyros, Mediterranean salad, saganaki), they also feature sandwiches such as a Jamaican jerk chicken sandwich, a shrimp po' boy pita, and a beef tenderloin sandwich.  They also have platters with your choice of chicken or gyro meat along with rice, chopped tomatoes, black olives, feta cheese and pepperoncini with pita bread.  

Behind the counter was Tina, a family member with an outgoing personality and a great sense of humor.  She knew the guys from Ultra Fidelis well and when I told her I was there to pick up the order she said, "Oh, they have YOU doing their work for them!"  When I explained that I was picking up the tab for lunch, she said, "Well, of course!  That figures..."  Theo Tselentis was finishing up our burgers and a couple orders of Cosmos Cafe's Greek fries - French fries topped with Greek herbs, lemon juice and feta cheese.  

Now, I was just going to have water to drink with my burger, but the guys at the store told me to pick up a couple bottles of Dang root beer at Cosmos Cafe.  (They also sell regular beer there, too.)   I wasn't familiar with Dang and one of the guys told me that it was made locally in Milwaukee and was the best root beer they've ever had.  To me, that was saying a lot because I've always liked the root beer from the Sprecher Brewery in Milwaukee.  When I told them that I didn't drink pop any longer, one of the guys said, "I don't either.  But the only time I do drink pop is when I have a Dang root beer."  

Butterscotch was his favorite.  "Butterscotch," I asked incredulously.  "I love butterscotch!"  

He was talking it up so much that I damned near got one for myself.  I haven't had a pop in over five years, but I came very close that day.  In addition to the butterscotch root beer, Dang (as in "Dang, that's good root beer!") also features a regular root beer, a red creme soda and an Italian cherry soda that mimics the taste of maraschino cherries.  For the fun-haters, there's also a diet regular and a diet butterscotch root beer from Dang. 

Getting the burgers and the fries back to the store, the smell of the flat grilled burger was making my stomach do jumping-jacks.  Opening the styrofoam container, I found a 1/2 pound hand-pattied burger with the melted cheese still bubbling on the top.  Fresh onions (Greek restaurants always have the freshest raw white onions), dill pickles, tomato slices and lettuce came with the burger.  The taste was, well, outstanding.  It was one of those burgers where you first bite into it and go, "Mmmmm...."  The bun was soft and airy, the cheese just dripped off the top of the burger and coagulated with the juices from the beef in the bottom of the container.  When asked how I liked it, I said, "This burger is unbelievable."  Even though it was less than five minutes after it was taken off the grill, I couldn't help but think how much better it would taste if you bit into it seconds after it was served in the cafe.  

The fries were plentiful in the container, topped with the feta cheese, the herbs and lemon juice.  They, too, were excellent fries.  The potato taste inside the crunchy shell came through fine and mixed favorably with the cheese, herbs and lemon juice.  I ended up eating more of the fries than I originally thought I would.  They were very good.  

There are a number of very good burger joints in the greater Milwaukee area.  I think that you have to put Cosmos Cafe in the mix when you discuss the best burgers in Milwaukee.  The burger was simply outstanding and the Greek fries were very good on their own.  This is a family business - the kind I like to support when I can.  However, the next time I get a burger at Cosmos Cafe I'm going to eat it there.  I can almost imagine how good that will given how good it was with take out.     

Francesca Vitale's - Muscatine, IA

Wheeling and dealing on a new car with a number of dealerships recently, I ended up buying a car from a place in Muscatine.  We've had to go to Muscatine a couple three times over the period of buying the car and we decided to try some of the restaurants in town while we were there.  One that we noticed and wanted to try was Francesca Vitale's on 2nd St. in downtown Muscatine.  (see map)

The Vitale family is sort of the royalty of Italian food in Muscatine.  Reno Vitale settled in Muscatine with his family in the early 80's and opened Salvatore Vitale's - now simply known as Salvatore's - in 1985.  (Click here to see an entry on Salvatore's.)  Reno's sons, Salvatore - known to the locals as Sam - and Claudio helped him out in the restaurant along with his daughter, Antonia.  Antonia eventually married Giovanni (John) Sgro and they now run Antonella's in downtown Davenport.  (Click here to see an entry on Antonella's.)  

Somewhere along the way, Sam and Claudio Vitale had differences and they went their separate ways in recent years.  Claudio continues to run the day-to-day operations at Salvatore's with patriarch Reno - fast approaching 80 years of age - checking in every day, while Sam and his wife, Francesca, (pictured right) opened their own Italian restaurant down the street from Salvatore's in th spring of 2012.  Sam and Francesca are also co-owners with Michelle Roos in Piazza Bella, a catering/reception facility in Muscatine, and also own The Sicilian, a small pizza and sub shop in Muscatine.  

We got into Francesca Vitale's around 7:30 one evening.  (Francesca Vitale's doesn't have a web site, but they do have a Facebook page.  Click on the link to go there.)  The place is reminiscent of Salvatore's up the street with large wooden booths and four-seater tables in the center of the dining area.  A small bar area was in the rear of the place with a roaring natural gas fireplace giving the dining area a homey feel.

We were greeted by our server for the evening, Jake, who dropped off a couple menus for us.  He told us of a couple specials for the evening and took our drink order.  I got a cold beer while Cindy went for a glass of the house chianti.  

The menu at Francesca Vitale's is a mixture of Italian entrees, steaks, seafood and pizza.  We were there for the pizza that evening, although some of the pasta dishes sounded pretty good.  (Cindy was especially intrigued when she saw the Pasta al Salmone - sauteed salmon with bow tie pasta covered with a vodka cream sauce.)  But we ended up ordering a medium (12") sausage, pepperoni and mushroom pizza.

But before we had the pizza, Cindy determined that she needed to have a salad.  The Brenda White salad caught her eye.  It's a large salad that was first concocted by a former worker at Salvatore's consisting of iceberg lettuce, chopped tomatoes, chopped green peppers,  mushroom slices, chopped onions, sliced black olives, pepperoni slices, parmesan cheese, fresh shredded mozzarella, with a choice of salad dressing.  Cindy wanted to share the salad and Jake was nice enough to provide two separate bowls for us.  Both of us got the delicious garlic dressing that the Vitale family has been serving in their respective restaurants for years. 

The greens were very fresh, loads of shredded mozzarella topped the greens with the chopped and sliced veggies.  The mushrooms were especially fresh and the pepperoni slices had a good spicy and salty taste.  Of course, the garlic dressing was the key to the whole salad.  If you like garlic, you'd love the salad dressing at Francesca Vitale's (or at Salvatore's or at Antonella's).  I can guarantee that after you eat the garlic dressing, no vampires will be within a quarter mile of you.  

Jake brought the pizza out after we finished up the salads.  The hand-tossed crust was thin, but not cracker thin.  It had some consistency and held up well with the toppings.  The sausage was the chunk sausage that I like so well on a pizza, and there were generous amounts of the same pepperoni that was on the Brenda White salad, and the same thing with the chopped fresh mushrooms.  Cindy doesn't care much for mushrooms, but even she said that the mushrooms on the pizza were very good.  The sweet tomato pizza sauce and the mozzarella were both fresh and delicious.  The pizza easily passed my "Does it taste good with a beer?" test.  

We finished up the pizza and Jake began to entice us with dessert.  Cindy asked if their tiramisu was made in-house and he conceded that it was not.  "But our cannoli's are," he countered.  Against our better judgement we ordered up a cannoli to give it a try.  And it was excellent - and OH! so rich!  The sugar and vanilla infused ricotta cheese filling was excellent as was the flaky pastry shell surrounding the filling.  Drizzled chocolate syrup topped the cannoli.   But it was so damn rich.  Given a good sized salad, a 12" pizza with three toppings, and finishing off the meal with a cannoli, it was a lot of food.  But it was all so very good.

I don't know if you can go wrong with the pizza at either Salvatore's, Antonella's and Francesca Vitale's.  However, we felt the pizza at Francesca Vitale's may have been the best of the three.  It was an outstanding pizza and simply delicious.  I would be remiss in commenting on Jake's service which was also very good.  He and another server were the only ones on duty that evening and they were a tad overwhelmed at times.  But his friendly and playful demeanor camouflaged any stress he may have been under.  Our experience at Francesca Vitale's - the food, the ambiance and the service - was all wonderful.  I would have no problem driving the 35 minutes from our house for another pizza at some point.  

Update - My wife and I were in Muscatine toward the end of 2016 and we went by Francesca Vitale's and found that it was closed.  There is a new place in Muscatine called Sal Vitale's Pizza that - I believe - is the off-shoot of Francesca Vitale's.  

Larry's Great Western Meats - Las Vegas (Steaks for 18 People)

When we were in Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show, our company rented a 9 bedroom - 9 bath villa on the northwest side of Las Vegas for our team to stay in.  It had a large kitchen and a gas grill on the patio so it was natural for us to make a couple of our meals there, especially with the fact that most of us are big meat eaters.  We were going to entertain members of the Focal and Naim Audio staffs one evening - a total of 18 people would be having dinner at our house.  My colleague Ian and I had been looking on line to find a butcher shop that would be a step above a Costco or a local supermarket chain.  Not far from where we would be staying, we found a meat shop that had high marks from online reviews - Larry's Great Western Meats.  

Larry's Great Western Meats has been in business since before 2000 supplying meat to not only the public, but also to a number of restaurants around the greater Las Vegas area.  The Larry behind the name of the business is Larry Hughes.  Well, I should say it was Larry Hughes as he sold his business to Elie Khoury in 2014.  Khoury worked at Larry's Great Western Meats for a number of years before buying the business last year.  

I had appointments first thing on the first day of the show and Ian did not.  He ended up going to Larry's and picking out eighteen 12 to 14 ounce USDA Choice New York strip steaks for our Wednesday night soiree at the house.  When I opened the packages, I found these marvelous steaks all uniformly cut to about an inch and a half in thickness.  They rivaled anything that I could find at a butcher shop back in the Midwest.

I was designated as the grill master for the evening as my reputation (and many pictures that I've sent to my colleagues over the years) of knowing my way around a Weber grill.  However, this was a gas grill that I would be working with - something that I haven't cooked meat on in, well, probably 20 years.  In about five minutes, I had to learn where the hot spots and cool spots were on the grill because I was going to have to cook 12 at a time on the first shift and then the remaining steaks as we served the first round.  

I like to marinate my steaks in a combination of Lea and Perrins Worcestershire sauce, garlic powder and cracked black pepper.  For good measure, I asked my colleague Todd to bring some of the "real" Montreal steak seasoning with him to Las Vegas.  And he came through in spades - he brought a couple jars of the original Schwartz's Steak and Beef spice from the famous Schwartz's Deli in Montreal.  (Click here to see my entry on Schwartz's Deli.)  I sprinkled a generous amount of the Schwartz's spice on top of the steaks and let them all sit for about an hour, warming up to room temperature and letting the Worcestershire sauce break down the spices into the meat.  

Our guests began to show up around 7:30 p.m. and it was time to get the fire going.  With the help of my colleague Francois, we got the grill fired up and started to get the grill grates hot.  I made the blanket announcement to the group that I was going to make the steaks medium rare to keep a uniformity.  Even our European guests from France and the U.K. - who generally like their steaks rare - all said that was fine.  

The first set of steaks went on the back burner to sear in the juices.  I was sort of tight-assed as I seared the first batch of steaks, hoping that they wouldn't get overcooked.   Grilling for four or five people - I got that down.  Grilling for 18, not so much.  

After searing the first set of steaks, I put the second five onto the back burner after transferring the seven that had been seared to the cooler front side of the grill.  Things were going smoothly and the steaks seemed to be cooking all right.  I thought to myself, "Hmmm...  I might just pull this off!"

Before and while this was going on with the grilling, some of my colleagues were helping out with the sides and salads in the kitchen.  It was truly a team effort.  My colleague Matt was making bacon for real bacon bits for the salad and then he sliced and sauteed up mushrooms for the steaks, and Ian was making the baked potatoes and heating up the garlic bread.  

Francois chopped up the bacon, onions and cherry tomatoes and mixed it all with chopped lettuce for the salad.  Well, he had to make the salad twice - one of our Canadian colleagues was reaching for a margarita glass in a cupboard above the counter and he accidentally knocked over another glass that shattered on the counter top.  Unfortunately, shards of the glass went into the salad that Francois had just finished making and had set aside for later on.  Fortunately, though, we had enough greens, veggies and cheddar cheese to make another large bowl of salad, but he used up all the chopped bacon for the first salad.  It wasn't the end of the world.  

When the steaks were finished, we served our guests first.  I was really worried that the steaks weren't cooked enough or cooked too much.  But the Europeans - who all love American beef - were very happy with the way that I cooked the steaks.  I would possibly categorize them as "rare-plus", a little more red than a medium-rare pink.  But no one bitched about how they were cooked.  

The look on my colleague Todd's face above right says it all.  He was extremely happy with the taste of the steaks.  He said, "I want to know how you could get 18 steaks to come out all cooked exactly the same."  

I was the last one to eat steak - and I certainly didn't mind.  The steak was tender and very flavorful.  The Worcestershire sauce and spice marinade was a hit with everyone.  I think Ian was a little skeptical, but from the taste of the steaks he was a quick convert.  After our guests left, we revelled in the realization that we pulled off a meal like that.  The beer and wine tasted pretty good that evening.  

We had reservations for 8 people on Thursday night at The Steakhouse at Circus Circus, one of our favorite places to get a steak in Vegas.  (Click here to see the entry on The Steakhouse.)  As we were winding down with after dinner drinks after our guests had left, Ian said, "You know, we ought to just bag the dinner plans for tomorrow night and cook more steaks out here."

I said, "I don't have anything going on in the morning.  Why don't you and I go over to Larry's and get some filets for tomorrow night?"  The rest of the guys were in full agreement that another steak night - even two nights in a row - would be perfect.  

Larry's Great Western Meats is on Valley View Dr., just north of Alta Dr. and about a half mile north of W. Charleston Blvd.  (see map)  From the outside, there's not much to the place.  It looks like a small bunker with a dock for trucks off to the side.  But going inside, it was this wondrous mix of meat, sauces, spices, utensils, wood chips for smoking - anything you'd need to make a great steak on the grill.  

The meat case was chock full of beef in all forms, pork, chicken, and sausage as well as Southwestern and Hispanic specialties.  We were greeted by Elie Khoury, the owner, after we walked in.  Ian had called ahead and asked them to cut up ten 14 to 16 ounce beef tenderloin filets.  Elie was the one who talked to Ian on the phone and he told Ian that it wouldn't be any problem to cut them up when we got there.  They weren't that busy that early in the morning even with all the commercial business they do for restaurants around the Las Vegas area.  

Larry's had a large selection of steak and barbecue sauces, spices and rubs, even high-end cutlery from Victorinox, the people who make Swiss Army knives.  The cooler featured pre-packaged meats and cheese along with juices and jars of pickles.  

As I was standing there, I looked down at one of the shelves and I saw something that stunned me.  They had Country Bob's steak sauce at Larry's!   I exclaimed, "Holy shit!  They have Country Bob's here!"  Now, Country Bob's is my favorite steak sauce - when I use steak sauce.  (Click here to see the entry on Country Bob's.)  Now, I thought Country Bob's was basically a Midwestern product and I didn't expect to see any in Las Vegas, of all places.  However, Elie Khoury told me that they were the only place in Vegas that sold the stuff.  I said, "I have NEVER seen this stuff outside of the Midwest!"

Elie said, "Isn't it great?  I fell in love with it and called them up and they ship me a couple cases each month."  In addition to about three dozen bottles on the shelf, he had a small crate full of Country Bob's next to the meat counter.  Ian inquired if we should get some, but I declined.  If the beef tenderloins were as good as the strip steaks we had the night before, I wouldn't dare putting any steak sauce on them.  

When we had gone on our grocery store trip a few days before, one of the things that I was looking for was Atomic Horseradish - the best horseradish that I've ever tasted.  (Click here to see the entry on Atomic Horseradish.)  We went to two grocery stores and they didn't even have fresh ground horseradish, let alone Atomic Horseradish.  But as I was standing there marveling at the sauces and marinades Larry's had on the shelf, I quickly turned to Elie and said, "Hey, do you have Atomic Horseradish?"  

He said, "Yeah, I think we have some left.  I got some in about 10 days ago.  There should be some in the cooler."  

He came out from behind the meat counter and walked toward the refrigerated cooler.  He found three 6 ounce jars of the Atomic brand horseradish on a shelf.  Ian smiled and said, "Well, there you go!  Gotta have some!"  Atomic Horseradish with my beef tenderloin filet - I knew I would be in heaven that evening.  

We got ten filets that were easily two and a half to three inches thick.  When the guy who was cutting them up asked us if we wanted them bacon-wrapped, we immediately said, "Yes!"  They were so thick that he was able to wrap two pieces of bacon - placed side by side - around the side of the filets.  This was going to be a fun meal. 

Initially, there were only going to be 8 of us as my boss and my colleague John had separate dinners to attend that night with manufacturers.   We figured that two of our rep colleagues from Canada were going to come back out so we went ahead and got ten steaks.  But the two guys from Canada couldn't come back that evening, and at the last moment my boss begged out of his dinner.  He claimed that he was tired, but we think he heard so much about how great the steaks were the night before and he didn't want to miss out on a night of beef and wine at the rental house.    

Ian and Todd hovered over me taking mental notes as I did the Worcestershire sauce and spice marinade as I did the night before.  I was less worried about cooking the steaks this particular evening as we weren't entertaining anyone, plus the fact that I had pulled off cooking 18 steaks the night before.  The experience was less stressful all the way around.   

We started to cook earlier in the evening than the night before as we weren't waiting for all the guests to show up.  My colleagues were ready to eat around 7:30 that evening.  Many pitched in once again - we had some extra potatoes left over from the night before and Ian made sort of a cheese-topped twice baked potato in the oven.  Francois made a salad again.  Matt did the sauteed mushrooms again.  I had picked up a couple loaves of garlic bread earlier in the day from the store.  

Because the steaks were varying thicknesses, some of the steaks turned out rare to medium-rare.  I had my eye on one particular steak all night long and being that I was the grill chef I got to pick out the one I wanted.  It was cooked rare and full of flavor.  With a healthy dollop of Atomic Horseradish - FRESH Atomic Horseradish that just cleared my nostrils and took my breath away on the first taste - this was as good a meal as what I probably would have gotten at The Steakhouse had we gone there instead that evening.  

I got a lot of very nice complements on my grilling skills during and after our two evenings of cooking at home, but the real star of the two events was Larry's Great Western Meats.  When you have cuts of meat that were as good and consistent as what we got at Larry's, it's easy to make them taste good from a grilling point of view.  And it saved us a lot of money in the process.  It was $180 bucks for the ten tenderloin filets - it would have been $55 bucks a pop for a similar steak at The Steakhouse.  And for the eighteen New York strips that we got for the night before, it was $202 bucks.  That's a little over $11 bucks a steak - about a quarter (or more) of the price of what we'd pay in a good Las Vegas steakhouse.  After the dinners, most of us pitched in for clean-up and everything went very smooth.  And everyone was happy - no long waits for a table or service, we could open a new bottle of wine when we wanted more, it was a leisurely and laid-back evening both nights.  We're going to do the house rental thing again for the 2016 CES next year.  The only thing I ask is that the house is close enough to Larry's Great Western Meats so we can do a couple of steak nights again.   

Chicago q - Chicago

I was traveling with one of my European manufacturers over a three day period not long ago and we were in Chicago seeing one of my dealers.  The dealer has a condo in the upscale Gold Coast neighborhood of Chicago where he has some displays and will put up clients when they come to town.  We met at the condo one evening and ended up going down the street to a barbecue place that he talked highly about - Chicago q.   

Chicago q calls themselves an "urban barbecue restaurant" and is owned by chef/partner Lee Ann Whippen and developer Fred Latsko.  Both are somewhat famous in both of their fields - Whippen has been featured on The Learning Channel's BBQ Pitmasters and on the Food Network's Throwdown with Bobby Flay.  Latsko is a major developer of prime real estate in the downtown Chicago area.  

Lee Ann Whippen is sort of an anomaly in the barbecue business.  You don't see a lot of ladies running their own barbecue place.  But she got her start in the business as a hotel catering manager for 15 years before she started Wood Chick's BBQ Catering Company and Wood Chick's BBQ Competition Team based out of Chesapeake, VA in 2002.  Whippen and her team won a number of regional barbecue competitions in the Southeast and was the 2009 Grand Barbecue Champion in Virginia.  

Pictured right - Lee Ann Whippen

In 2010, Latsko offered Whippen an opportunity to move to Chicago to open Chicago q.  It meant that she had to eventually close her Wood Chick's restaurant in Chesapeake, but she still enters some national competitions from time to time.  Whippen won the Grand Champion honor at the Safeway National BBQ Battle in Washington, D.C. in June of 2012 and won second place overall at the 2013 World Food Championships held in Las Vegas.   

Chicago q is located just south of the corner of Dearborn and Division street in the heart of the Gold Coast's entertainment district.  (see map)  The place is far from being just a barbecue "joint".  As you enter the restaurant, you go into the bar area you find an upscale lounge with leather seats, contemporary lighting and a lot of dark wood furnishings.  

The dining room is a long narrow room with the kitchen in the back.  You can see the workers through a big serving window.  Lush leather seating for both booths and tables offer an upscale barbecue dining experience.  There's an upstairs dining area for private functions and receptions.  I took a peek up there before we left and it was very nice.  

There were four of us that evening - my dealer and a client of his, my manufacturer and myself.  We were seated in a large booth in the corner of the dining room and given menus.  After a short while, our server for the evening, Daisy, came over to greet us.  Right off the bat, my dealer said, "Hey, let's get a couple orders of the smoked chicken wings going."  

Chicago q also has a somewhat impressive beer menu as well as an even more impressive menu of bourbon, rye and Scotch whiskeys.  I ordered up a Capital Supper Club lager, one of my favorite beers and something I didn't expect to see on the menu.    

The chicken wings are dry-rubbed and cooked low and slow in Chicago q's smoker.  Now, I'm not usually big on smoked chicken wings, but these were absolutely delicious.  The chicken meat was most and tender, easily falling off the bone when pulled.  The rub spices had a definite spicy flavor to them, but nothing oppressive.  Along with the smoked chicken wings, we also got bowls of spicy bread & butter pickle slices that were excellent, and housemade potato chips that were lightly sprinkled with the housemade rub they use on their meats.  But compared to the smoked chicken wings and the spicy pickle slices, the potato chips were just all right.  

Three of us went with barbecue - I had the American Kobe beef sliced brisket with a half-rack of Chicago q's St. Louis style ribs.  It featured three long slices of the brisket and seven or eight meaty rib bones.  Some pickled red onions came on the side and I got a bowl of French fries on the side.  The brisket was fine - tender and moist - but it was missing something that I like in my brisket.  It didn't have much of a smoky taste and it was more like well done roast beef than brisket.  The ribs had a plentiful dusting of the rub spices from Chicago q and were also tender and moist.  The bones were rather small, though, and didn't yield a lot of meat.  But what pork I did get off the bones was very good.   

My dealer's client went with the q burger.  The classic American style burger features a huge beef patty char-grilled and topped with Swiss cheese, bacon and cole slaw and served on an onion bun.  Quite seriously, I almost got that when I was reading about it on the menu.  But I had to do the barbecue.  The beef patty was - quite probably - 3/4's of a pound and the client couldn't eat the whole thing.   He ended up taking what was left home for him.  "I can have the rest for breakfast," he said.  "I'm not about to let this go to waste."  

My manufacturer colleague got the smoked half-chicken.  I couldn't get a picture of it as he was clear on the other side of the rather long table in the booth, but the four large pieces covered his plate.  It looked similar in style to the smoked chicken wings in regard to the rub spices on it.  He, too, couldn't eat the whole thing but since we were traveling he didn't take any of the left overs with him.     

There were four sauces that were brought to the table.  Chicago q's original sauce is a sweet and tangy sauce that is pretty mild.  They had a spicy barbecue sauce that was a little more forward in taste and left a bit of a spicy aftertaste.  I tried a bit of the vinegar sauce on one of the rib bones, but didn't like it as much as the spicy barbecue sauce.  And Chicago q also has a mustard barbecue sauce that I didn't try because I really don't like mustard-based barbecue sauces.  

I have mixed feelings about upscale barbecue places.  Chicago q was very nice and the food was quite good.  But I sort of like the downhome feel of a good ol' barbecue joint a little bit better.  Barbecue is messy and I sort of got the feeling while eating at Chicago q that you couldn't get too messy with their barbecue.  Would I return if I had the chance?  In a heartbeat!  But I'd still feel more comfortable in a  casual and folksy barbecue joint.  

Between the Buns - South Bend, IN

I found myself in South Bend, IN a few weeks back staying near the campus of Notre Dame.  I was trying to figure out where to go for dinner and nothing was sounding good to me.  I went to the front desk to inquire with the young lady what options where in the area.  She gave me a sheet on some restaurants and I saw a place called Between the Buns that was a sports bar.  I wanted to watch some basketball that evening, so I decided to head over there for some basketball, beer and food.  

The Between the Buns in South Bend is located on S. Bend Ave. east of the Notre Dame campus.  (See map)  This was the second location of what were five total locations for Between the Buns at one point in Northern Indiana.  (There are three Between the Buns locations in the South Bend/Elkhart area.)  

The first Between the Buns was established in 1985 when the sports bar concept was still in its infancy.  Partners Tom Wilson, Sr. and Phil Schreiber opened the sports bar in Osceola, a suburb of South Bend and it was the first sports bar in the area.  It wasn't big compared to some sports bars today - it only seated 85 people.  Schreiber ran the day-to-day operations at Between the Buns.

In 2000, Tom Wilson's son, Tommy, joined the company and the group opened the South Bend location.  In 2006, Between the Buns merged with an Elkhart restaurant/ banquet facility The Matterhorn to open the Elkhart location of the sports bar.  The Matterhorn's ownership team of Bruce Tassell and Kurt Janowsky had been approached years earlier by Tom Wilson, Sr. (who was a business partner of Tassell's in the 70's) and Schreiber to put in a Between the Buns location in what was then The Matterhorn's under utilized dining area.  The group initially determined that the kitchen would be too small to have both Between the Buns and The Matterhorn sharing the facility.  But an expansion of the kitchen allowed for Between the Buns to take over the restaurant part of The Matterhorn while the other part of the building continued to hosts banquets and receptions.  (Between the Buns locations in Mishawaka and in Granger opened and closed over the past few years.)  

In 2012, Phil Schreiber gave up the management of day-to-day operations of Between the Buns and bought the Chicory Cafe in South Bend, a small New Orleans-style coffee shop.  Schreiber - who is a co-owner of the Chicory Cafe with his wife, Julie, and Jeff Morauski - is still a partner in Between the Buns with Tom and Tommy Wilson.  

The South Bend location of Between the Buns is located in a strip mall.  As I waked in, I noticed a sign where ESPN designated Between the Buns as one of the Top 8 sports bars in North America.  (I found out later on that it was designated by a voting process - I'm sure the bar got their patrons to "stuff" the ballot box.  But still, it had to be a pretty good marketing effort for the bar to pull it off.)

(Update - I got a very nice e-mail from Dave from Between the Buns thanking me for the honest review of the place and explaining the run-up to getting named as one of ESPN's Top 8 Sports Bars in North America.

"Just wanted to clue you in on the ESPN thing.  We were nominated with a description of our place, ESPN selected us as one of the Top 8, then after that, it became a voting thing amongst the top 8 finalists (of which we were one) for the #1 spot.  The contest started as "in the US", but then they changed it to "in North America" so that they could name a Canadian bar as #1.  They would not tell us, even after many requests, the ranking of the remaining 7.  The Canadian bar just happens to be in the same city as Canada's ESPN sister company.  But enough about rigging and conspiracies.")

So, there you go!

(And it was also at this point that I realized that all the pictures that I had taken during my visit to Between the Buns had mysteriously vanished from my computer.  I ended up lifting some pictures from Between the Buns' Facebook page.)  

There are two parts of Between the Buns - there's a dining room to the left as you come in, and a bar area with booths and tables to the right.  I was greeted by a young girl who asked me if I wanted to sit in the bar or in the dining room.  I opted for a booth in the bar area.

Between the Buns was similar to a number of sports bars I've been to in the past.  Both parts of the place had a number of flat screen televisions, sports memorabilia including jerseys and pictures, and a very lively atmosphere.  I was looking through the menu when my server for the evening, Holly, came over to greet me.  They had a pretty good beer menu at Between the Buns, but that evening they had a $2.00 special on Budweiser products.  I couldn't pass that up even though they had Kona, Bell's and 3 Floyd's products available.  

Most of the items on the menu are your typical sports bar fare - a number of appetizers, soups and salads, burgers, and sandwiches on the menu.  Many of the sandwiches and burgers were named for sports stars or sports teams.  

I wasn't really fired up for a burger, but I didn't really see anything on the sandwich menu that really tripped my trigger.  I looked through the burgers and while they had some interesting selections - The Angry Knight (named after former Indiana University head basketball coach Bob Knight) starts out with Cajun seasoning on the burger, topped with Ken's Boom-Boom Sauce, bacon, frizzled onions, jalapeno peppers and pepperjack cheese - I ended up just getting the Razorback burger that had bacon and Swiss cheese.  I asked Holly if I could get some sauteed mushrooms with the burger and she said it was no problem.  

She asked me what kind of bun that I wanted with the burger.  Holly said, "We have plain, whole wheat, onion..."  I stopped her there and told her onion was fine.  "....or pretzel."  I immediately changed my mind.  She sort of laughed and said, "See?  You jumped the gun!" 

For a side, I had a choice of steak fries, onion chips, baked beans, cole slaw and a couple three other sides.  For a $1.00 upcharge I could choose a 1/2 order of onion rings, steamed veggies, a bowl of chili or sweet potato fries.  I took the onion rings.  "Our onion rings are good," Holly said as she grabbed my menu from me.  

Now, I'm really upset that I lost the pictures of the burger and the onion rings that I had.  This burger is pulled from their Facebook page, but it is nowhere close to how good my burger looked - both in thickness and it presentation.  Between the Buns features a 6 ounce, fresh ground, hand-pattied chargrilled burger.  

And I had to take a step back when she brought the 1/2 basket of onion rings.  The rings were big, thick and heavily battered.  There were seven or eight of them in the basket and they were all huge.  I incredulously said to Holly, "This is a half order?"  She confirmed that it was.  I took one out of the basket, placed it on a plate and put a fork next to it to establish the size as I took a picture.  I'm upset that I lost the pictures.  Crap...

Holly was off getting me another $2.00 bottle of beer and I started to look around at the cheese and bacon on my burger.  I realized that they forgot to put sauteed mushrooms on my burger.  When she came back, I told her that I didn't have any mushrooms on my burger.  "Really," she asked with a hint of exasperation in her voice.  "I'll go get some for you."  A moment later, she reappeared with a small 4 ounce cup filled to the brim with sauteed mushrooms.  "I got you a few more just because they forgot," she told me.  Holly was doing a great job.  

The pretzel bun was sort of dry.  No, it was really dry.  And there was too much of it.  I was taking bites of the burger and having to pull pieces of the crown of the pretzel bun away from the burger.  It was not a good bun, probably one of the worst pretzel buns I've ever had.

The burger, on its own, was fine.  It was juicy and had a pretty good flavor to it for a chargrilled burger.  The Swiss cheese, bacon and mushroom were a splendid taste combination with the burger.  I ended up just taking the pretzel bun off the top and  finished up by eating it with a fork.  I thought through the meal that I wish I would have gone with the onion bun.  

The onion rings were very greasy.  They were fine - not the best I've had - but the onions inside the batter were sweet and tasty.  The batter was thick and greasy and had a somewhat oily taste.  They were good, but not great.  I could only eat three of the behemoth onion rings.  

While the burger patty was good, the overall taste of the burger at Between the Buns was dampened by the pretzel bun.  It was dry and not fresh at all.  The huge onion rings - a half order is enough for two people - were all right.  I couldn't beat the price on the beer special and Holly's service was impeccable.  They had a great selection of games to watch - if a game is on, Between the Buns has it.  My experience was fine, but nothing special.  It was a typical sports bar with typical sports bar food. 

(UPDATE - After over 30 years in business, Between the Buns closed their doors at the end of 2015.  It appears the same owners are going to be taking the restaurant in a different direction with a more upscale restaurant tentatively called Taphouse on the Edge. Reportedly the new restaurant will be featuring micro brews, craft cocktails, and a new menu featuring organic, locally grown ingredients, grass-fed beef and non-GMO (genetically modified organisms) food items on the menu.  Sounds like a place I may have to try at some point. Thanks to Dave formerly of Between the Buns for contacting me to let me know.)

Homemade Gumbo on a Snowy Day

We just had the sixth heaviest snowfall on record in the Quad Cities this past weekend.  The Davenport Municipal Airport - where the National Weather Service has their local office - recorded 13.3 inches of snow.  However, at the Quad City International Airport in Moline - the official weather reporting station for the Quad Cities - they had 14.4 inches of snow.  The first 8 inches (or so) of snow was a heavy, dense wet snow that coated trees and power lines across the region causing downed limbs and power outages, clogging snowblowers and making the initial clean-up a pain in the ass.  The remaining 5 to 6 inches was a light fluffy snow that was easy to move.  It just didn't want to seem to quit.

We knew that we were in store for a pretty big storm so I decided a couple three days in advance to make a big pot of homemade gumbo for both the snow storm and for the Super Bowl.   It's been quite a while since I've shared a recipe on Road Tips and I thought I'd do that today.

(For this pot of gumbo, I used both a 12 ounce package of andouille sausage links and a 12 ounce package of Linguiça sausage link - a Portuguese sausage that I got from Usinger's in Milwaukee that is smoky in flavor with a hint of garlic and paprika.  Honestly, I couldn't tell the difference between the Linguiça and the andouille.)

Prep time for the gumbo is about an hour, cooking time is about four hours.  But it's relatively easy to make.  

Ingredients

1 cup all-purpose flour (1/2 cup for dredging chicken; 1/2 cup for adding to vegetables)

4 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 lb. chicken breast tenders cut into 1/2" squares

3 teaspoons sea salt

2 tblsp. ground black pepper

1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped

1 medium red bell pepper, chopped

1 medium green bell pepper, chopped 

6 to 8 ribs of celery, chopped

6 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes

2 - 4 bay leaves

16 oz. fresh or frozen okra (if frozen, thaw beforehand)

1 - 28 oz can whole peeled tomatoes mashed with their juice

10 to 12 cups (80 to 96 ounces) of Swanson low-salt chicken broth (or Watkins chicken soup base mix) 

24 ounces (1 1/2 lbs.) andouille sausage links, cut into 1/4" to 1/2" pieces.  (As I said, I also used Linguiça sausage in this batch.  Don't use ground andouille sausage.)

4 tblsp - gumbo file powder

1/4 cup cider vinegar

5 or 6 green onions (white and green parts), chopped

1 tsp. cayenne pepper powder (optional)

1 cup slow cooking rice 

Cooking procedures

Cook the andoullie (and/or Linguiça) sausage until brown in skillet.  Drain drippings from sausage and place drained sausage in a bowl.

Pour 1/2 cup of flour, along with 2 tblsp of ground black pepper, 1 tsp of sea salt and 1 tsp cayenne pepper powder (optional) into a 1 gallon zip lock baggie.  Cut chicken strips into 1" X 1" pieces.   Put chicken cuts into the baggie with flour mixture and shake up coating each piece with the flour mixture.  Set baggie with chicken aside.

Heat a large (6 quart) pot over medium high heat and add 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil.  When oil is warm cook the chicken in the pot until brown on both sides, stirring occasionally for about 6 to 8 minutes. Reserve the chicken in a bowl on the side.

Add 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil to the same pot and heat to medium.   Add onions, bell peppers, celery, garlic and red pepper flakes.  Cook on medium heat until all vegetables are soft and aromatic - about 10 to 12 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Sprinkle the vegetables with 1/2 cup of flour, mix and continue to cook for a couple minutes, stirring occasionally.  

Add the mashed whole peeled tomatoes (and their juice), the chicken broth and the okra.  Add the bay leaves.  Bring this to a boil, and then add the reserved chicken and sausage, adding any drippings from the sausage pan.  Add gumbo file powder and 2 tsp of sea salt.

Bring gumbo back to a full boil, stirring occasionally until it reaches the boiling point again.  Reduce the heat to low and let simmer with the lid on the pot for 3 to 4 hours, stirring occasionally.  

30 minutes before serving, add the rice and cider vinegar stirring every five minutes until the rice is fully cooked.  The gumbo is pretty much ready to go.

Add Shrimp, if you like -

We like shrimp in our gumbo, too.  But since there's always so much gumbo left over I usually put some in the freezer for eating at a later date.  I never cook shrimp with the gumbo as I don't want to re-freeze the shrimp.  

We stopped into Schnucks in Bettendorf on Saturday afternoon and they had a seafood display right as you walked in the door.  They had two pound bags of frozen Argentinian shrimp - good sized ones, at that, on sale for $13.98.  Even if we weren't going to have shrimp anytime soon, we couldn't pass that up.  

While the gumbo was cooking, I grabbed about 8 shrimp out of the freezer and put them in a bowl to thaw for an hour or so.  They were so big that I didn't think that I would have to use any more than that.  

While the gumbo is finishing, boil the shrimp being careful not to overcook the shrimp.  Drain, peel and de-vein (if needed) the shrimp.  

Place the gumbo in a bowl, place shrimp on top and sprinkle chopped green onions over the gumbo and shrimp.  (I forgot to put the chopped onions on the gumbo until after this picture was taken.  And I guess I could have used more shrimp.  I mean, who can say "no" to more shrimp?)  I like to zip my gumbo up with copious amounts of Tabasco sauce.  We had some garlic bread with the meal along with some beer and it was a great meal for a snowy Super Bowl evening.  

We had a lot of gumbo left over - the amount we made will get us about 8 healthy servings above and beyond what we had that evening.  It keeps in the refrigerator for about a week, but will freeze (once again, without the shrimp) for up to three months.   And it doesn't matter if it's a snowy night or a warm spring afternoon - to me, gumbo is good any time. 

Brews Brothers (Mr. Brew's Taphouse) - Middleton, WI

Up in Madison, WI recently, I had a late afternoon meeting that ran into the early evening.  At the end of the session I told the guys that I was going out to grab a brew or two and something to eat.  A couple of the guys had to beg off due to family obligations, but one of the guys said that he'd go out with me.  He said that he'd heard about a newish place out in Verona, just west of Madison, called Brews Brothers.  One of the other guys said, "Hey, there's one up in Middleton.  It's been open for awhile."  Since I was staying in Middleton that evening, I said that we could go back there for something to eat and drink.  

The reason I have Mr. Brews Taphouse in the parenthesis in the title of this entry is that by the time you read this they may have changed the name of their places in the Madison area.  The first Brews Brothers opened near Wausau, WI in March of 2013.  Steve Day and Gary Hanson are the partners in the establishments which focuses on burgers, local breweries, and a sports bar theme.  The Middleton location opened in December of 2013 and the Verona location opened in the Spring of 2014.  I understand a fourth Brews Brothers - most likely a Mr. Brew's Taphouse - will open soon if it hasn't already in Waunakee, just north of Madison with a Madison location on State Street slated to open soon, as well, with even more beer taps than the one in Middleton.  

The Middleton Brews Brothers is located in a strip mall along Junction Road just south of Old Sauk Road just west of the Madison beltway.  (see map)  There's plenty of parking but there's other business there that take up a lot of the parking spots.  I was lucky to find a spot with a car leaving as I pulled up near Brews Brothers.  My guest that evening, driving his own car, wasn't as lucky.  He had to circle the lot a few times before he got a parking spot toward the back of the lot.  

Brews Brothers isn't that large, it's a narrow space with entrances on both the west and east side of the building.  Lighted beer signs and a number of flat screen televisions helped give a the place a somewhat eerie glow.  (Below left - Note the insufferable jackass giving me the finger as I took the picture.)  

Brews Brothers has nearly 50 craft beers on tap - many from micro-breweries from  Wisconsin and other parts of the Midwest - with a handful of beers available in bottles.  Looking through the beer menu, I saw that they had the Kona Big Wave Golden Ale on tap.  When our server for the evening, Darby, came over to greet me after I sat down (my guest was still trying to find a parking spot) I immediately ordered a pint of the Big Wave.  She came back a couple moments later and said, "I'm sorry, but we're out of the Kona Big Wave.  We have another Kona beer on tap."  It was the Longboard Lager.  I told her that I'd take that instead.

About the same time that my guest finally got into the place, Darby came back to the table to let me know that the keg for the Kona Longboard had just blown.  OK - a place with nearly four dozen beers on tap is now two for two on beers it is out of.  I ended up getting a Capital Wisconsin Amber that is brewed less than a couple miles away at the Capital Brewery.  My guest got a Warped Speed Scotch Ale from the Lake Louie Brewing Co. located in Arena, WI about 30 miles northwest of Madison.

The menu at the Middleton Brews Brothers/Mr. Brew's is definitely slanted toward burgers.   They feature a dozen burgers (including a turkey burger) as well as a pulled pork sandwich and a grilled chicken sandwich.  For a sports bar they are unusually lacking on appetizers - there are only two on the menu.  The burgers are ground 5 ounce patties (pre-cooked) that the restaurant gets from Knoche's, a long time Madison area butcher shop, and then served on a bakery-fresh bun.  Pickles, onions (raw or grilled), tomato and lettuce are also available with each burger.  

Some of the interesting burgers on the menu include a bacon, mac & cheese burger with a beef patty topped with, well, bacon, mac & cheese and finished off with a sprinkle of cayenne pepper.  The Rajun' Cajun features a burger with pepperjack cheese and a housemade Cajun lime sauce.  Or for the truly adventurous, you can get the Rajun' Cajun with habanero jack cheese and jalapenos.  And the Kentucky Bourbon Classic is topped with cheddar cheese, grilled onions, bacon, French-fried onions and a housemade Kentucky Bourbon sauce.  

I ended up getting the mushroom/Swiss cheese burger and asked Darby if I could get bacon with it.  (There was an 89 cent upcharge for bacon on the burger - which is cheap compared to other places who will charge $1.50 to $2 bucks.)  Interestingly, it said in the menu that the burger was also topped in gravy.  Hmmm...  OK.  Fries came with the burger and I had my choice of seasonings - Cajun', sea salt and cracked black pepper, parmesan cheese with garlic, barbecue sauce, cheddar cheese sauce or ranch dressing.  I got them with the sea salt and cracked black pepper.  

My guest got the California burger that is topped with a slice of pepperjack cheese, an avacado spread and a roasted red bell pepper sauce.  He got the parmesan cheese and garlic seasoning for his fries.  

The burgers came out and my burger was loaded with Swiss cheese and fresh sauteed mushrooms with a couple slices of thick cut bacon.  But there was no gravy on the burger.  It wasn't a deal buster, but I would have liked to have tried the taste of gravy on the burger - especially if they advertise it as having gravy on it.  The fries were sort of thin cut and, quite honestly, I didn't see much cracked black pepper on them - if any.  But the burger was good and juicy.  The bun was fresh and airy.  It was a good burger, plain and simple.  

My guest's burger had a large dollop of the avocado spread (not guacamole) with a smaller dollop of the roasted red pepper spread on top.  He said that the overall taste was very good.  It looked like there was a lot of taste sensations going on with his burger.  

So, Brews Brothers/Mr. Brews Taphouse is basically all about beers and burgers.  I would give them a nod to the number of microbrews they have, but knock a points off for not having two of the first beers that I ordered.  And they do have some interesting and eclectic burgers on the menu, but they did forget the gravy like I was supposed to get on my burger.  I know they're looking to expand the concept through franchising so there's a chance you'll see a lot more of the Mr. Brews Taphouse locations in the future. (Picture courtesy Host.Madison.com)  

The Butler Inn - Milwaukee, WI

My regular hotel that I had been staying at in Milwaukee for over the past 10 years had quit being a Hilton property, so I've been trying new Hilton family hotels in the area to see if one comes up to my liking.  I was staying at a Hampton Inn on the northwest side of Milwaukee late last year and was not familiar with many of the restaurants in the area.  I went to the front desk and asked one of the guys where the good restaurants were in the area.  He told me of a family restaurant next door, but I said that I wanted to go to a place that served beer.  Then he told me of a sports bar/gentleman's club that was across the road.  I nixed that suggestion and then one of the other desk clerks came out from the office and said, "If you're looking for good food and some beer, you need to go to The Butler Inn."  Asked what they served and he said, "Everything - pizza, burgers, fish, steaks.  My wife and I go there all the time."  He told me that it was less than a five minute drive from the hotel.  I decided to set out to find The Butler Inn.

The Butler Inn is actually in a small town called Butler, but it's more known to the locals as being in the Timmerman West neighborhood of Milwaukee.  In the early 1900's, the railyard in Butler was the largest north/south track facility in the area.  The building where The Butler Inn stands today used to be a hotel for railroad employees who would be passing through the railyard. 

When the golden age of railroads began to die in the 60's, The Butler Inn was turned into a bar/restaurant.  A devastating fire in 1980 rendered the building a total loss, but the owners at the time - the Marks family - rebuilt the building using the foundation footings of the original building.  

The Marks family sold The Butler Inn in 1988 to pub owner David Tomter.  Tomter had run his namesake bar in Milwaukee's west side since 1974 (he closed Tomter's Inn in 1994) and after purchasing The Butler Inn he remodeled the interior, came up with an expanded menu for food and drinks, and added an outdoor beer garden.  

It was a pretty cold night when I pulled into the parking lot of The Butler Inn around 7:30 p.m. after a short drive from my hotel  (see map)  The beer garden was definitely not open that evening.   Entering The Butler Inn, you come into bar area with a three-sided rectangular bar.  Sort of an eerie red glow envelopes the bar area from a number of beer signs that are hung on the wall.  Looking at the fixtures, some of the decorations and the furniture in the place, I'm guessing the place hasn't been updated since Dave Tomter refurbished the place 25 years ago.  It was far from dated or tired, however.

There's a dining area that's next to the bar area divided by a half-wall with wooden pillars.  The Butler Inn had sort of a cross between a supper club and pub feeling to it.  A banquet/reception/party room is located on the upper floor of the place. 

I ended up sitting at the bar and my bartender/server, a nice lady by the name of Jill came over to greet me and handed me a menu.  She asked what I would like to drink and I noticed that they had Alaskan Amber on tap.  Jill poured me a pint of beer in a frosted glass which I thoroughly enjoyed while I looked through the menu.

The menu at The Butler Inn is very extensive.  I was a little leery of that because of my adage that a restaurant that has a large menu probably does everything just all right, but nothing really well.  The problem I was having was that there was almost too much to choose from on the menu at The Butler Inn. 

The guy back at the hotel wasn't kidding - they had a lot of stuff to choose from.  They have a dozen and a half appetizers on the menu, as well as over a dozen soups and salads (and any combination within) to choose from.   Additionally, they have a slew of sandwiches, burgers, chicken sandwiches and brats on the menu.  Seafood, steaks, ribs, rotisserie and broasted chicken, and pasta dishes populated the menu.  Friday nights, The Butler Inn features a fish fry that they're locally famous for.  They also had a pizza menu that featured housemade thin-crust pizzas in sizes from an 8" personal size pizza up to 32" party pizza that can feed 15 to 20 people.  

I was in a quandary as what to get for dinner that evening.  When Jill came back to get my food order I was still up in the air.  I asked what they were famous for at The Butler Inn and she said, "Well, we do sell a lot of reubens."  I had a reuben earlier in the day.  "If you like burgers, ours are big and juicy," she said.  I was getting burnt out on burgers.  I said that I was just in a food funk from being on the road so much and I didn't quite know what I wanted.  She gave me a few more minutes so I could decide what to get.  I thought I'd give their pizza a try.  I got a small (10") sausage, pepperoni and mushroom.  

The pizza looked hand-tossed, but I guessed they probably had a machine to get the crust so thin.  The pizza was cut into party squares and was topped with a plethora of mushrooms, chunk sausage and pepperoni.  There was a bit of charred caramelization on the perimeter of the pizza.  

The sauce they use was sweet and tangy, the mozzarella cheese was thick and stringy.  The pepperoni slices were a bit spicy and salty allowing the pizza to taste good with the Alaskan Amber.  The sausage chunks were good sized and had a bit of a fennel taste to it.  This was a very good pizza.

I was able to finish the pizza with no problem.  As I finished and contemplated getting another beer to savor the pizza, the other bartender - his name was Dave and I'm guessing he was the owner - came over to check on me.  He asked how the pizza was and I told him it was damned good.  "We started to do pizza about nine years ago," he told me as he poured another beer for me.  "It's one of our more popular items on the menu."  

The next day, I told one of my dealers that was calling on that I had gone to The Butler Inn the previous evening.  "We don't live far from there," he was telling me.  "My wife and I go there all the time."  When I told him of my fear of a menu that had too many things on it, he said, "Actually, they do everything very well.  Not excellent, but very well."  And that was my feeling with the pizza I had at the Butler Inn.  It was a very good pizza - not the best I've had - but it would easily hold its own against other pizza places I've eaten at in Milwaukee.  And Milwaukee has a lot of good pizza places.  I don't know if I cared for the Hampton Inn I stayed in all that well, but I'll probably try other places to stay on the far west side of town.  And I'm sure I'll find myself at The Butler Inn again at some point.