Memories In Gustation-Hot Doug's (Chicago, IL)

Resplendence

The end of 2013 and beginning of 2014 was marked by some extreme financial stress. The perfect storm of the holidays, car repairs and extreme energy bills that were prolonged by relentless polar vortex left my wife and I in a pretty steep hole. Tired of playing the part of pent up curmudgeons, we agreed that when our tax return came, we'd split what was left after catching up and do whatever the hell we wanted with our respective halves. My wife, being of practical mind and body, decided to revamp our decrepit living room. I on the other hand opted for an all out culinary splurge in the great city of Chicago.

We drove to Chicago in the still frigid middle of March and met up with our friends with whom we made plans to spend our first night in town with. The whole day was an absolute blast. Starting with lunch at Cafe Spiagga and ending with a 4 AM bar who's name has been vaporized from my memory. Now, i'm a quaint little man from Wisconsin and am not used to quite the level of ravaging that was doled out to me by the dank dive I remember walking in to but have no recollection of leaving. The next day, brain exploding and stomach in knots, we cautiously ate some brunch and prepared for what was next.

My wife and I wanted to have one night of romance amidst our cyclone of dining and drinking. We got a nice room in MileNorth hotel in downtown Chicago where we rested up, got dressed and took a cab to Taxim for dinner. Taxim, a romantic but not at all stuffy upscale Greek restaurant, is a bit of a hidden gem. Our initial plan was to go to Taxim, hit a few bars, get a fancy drink at The Violet Hour and wrap our evening up with tacos at Big Star.  What actually happened was a traumatic alchemy involving a combination of a whole roasted sea bass, a bottle of wine, too much ouzo and a body that hadn't fully detoxed from the 4 AM bar. By the time we were done with our meal at Taxim we were in such a state of psychosis that literally our only choice was to go to our hotel room and pass out.

This sets the scene for our meal at Hot Doug's. We woke up in about as bad a state as you can imagine, checked out of our room and grabbed our car. The delightful combo of uninhibited binging and Chicago's insane parking prices left our heads, stomachs and checking accounts in mutual anguish. Frankly, all I wanted to do was put on some music, remain silent and drive home. Suffice to say that "eating a bunch of hotdogs" doesn't exactly live in harmony with the rest of those thoughts, but with rumors that Hot Doug's would soon be announcing their impending closing, we absolutely had to make a stop.

Getting off the freeway and making our way to Hot Doug's felt like a fucking death march. It took almost 45 minutes to make it essentially a half a mile thanks to construction and the thickest and most hostile chunk of traffic I've ever been in. My cynicism started to make me angry with myself. "How could a hotdog place really be this special? Could this even possibly be worth it? What kind of sick human being likes hotdogs as much as I do?" My mind raced with thoughts self-hatred and vows of future temperance. Fortunately for me, my adoration for hotdogs won out,

Pulling up to Hot Doug's when we did must have been the result of some divine inspiration. The hotdog god's awarded us for our determination with a gift of an uncharacteristically short line. The famous line around the block synonymous with Hot Doug's was pruned to a line of maybe five other people. Being rookies to the establishment, my wife and I naively showed up with only credit card in hand. Owner Doug Sohn himself was manning the front and informed us it was cash only. Before we could turn around to leave he told us to order and eat and pay him back "whenever", which was astounding. Popularity aside I can't imagine the profit margins for hotdogs (especially ones as specialized as Hot Doug's) could be that huge; and having never met us before there was no implicit reason to trust that we'd make good on paying him back.

The dogs came out quickly and deliciously. As evidenced in the picture above, we went a little overboard. We ordered a mountain of fries, I had three hotdog's and my usually less voracious wife had two. We both had the indispensable Chicago dog, which I maintain is the greatest combination of flavors humanity has ever created. As far as the specialty dogs go my wife had the Bo Derek sausage made with andouille and given it's name on account of being "very, very hot".  I went with a gin and tonic dog which was blended with juniper berries (interesting tasting but not necessarily delicious) and a Paul Kelly, which I lament to say was better than any bratwurst I've had in Milwaukee.

This isn't about the food I ate though, it's about cutting through the predictable hype that surrounds kitschy food and finding out what was so special about the now-shuttered Hot Doug's. To be honest, it's difficult to pinpoint the amorphous emotion that Sohn's humble establishment brought out for me. Being as forthright as I can be, it wasn't the food. That's not talking shit, I did eat probably the best hotdog of my life within the confines of 3342 N. California; but the best hotdog of my life doesn't necessitate this level of analysis, at least not for me. I think what made Hot Doug's a memorable experience for me was the feeling I got that this restaurant pre-dated kitsch and absolutely owned that fact. It's hard to imagine that Doug Sohn envisioned the kind of fame he had coming his way when he first opened his restaurant, and it didn't seem to phase his ethic at all once it showed up on his doorstep. I only made it through his door once, but my experience filled all of my most optimistic expectations. Familiar but not boring, special but not complicated, accommodating but not in your face. Good food, done right. And like a great television show, Doug made sure to end his vision before it got stale. Hot Doug's closed it's doors on October 3rd, 2014. Sohn simply stated that "it was time to do something else".

It might seem a little silly to eulogize a restaurant, and it might seem arrogant to try and encapsulate what that restaurant meant in my solitary experience; but from what I gleaned from the hour or so I spent in that restaurant, that's exactly what Doug wanted. I enjoyed myself thoroughly, I had good service, and I had an actually memorable hotdog. Simple as that. That platitude I tacked on up there, "good food, done right", is a basic thought that's executed all too rarely. When it is, magic happens, and people wait in lines for hours to experience. Our impatient and entitled generation doesn't wait in lines for kitsch or irony, but it will wait for something special. I'm grateful I got to experience that specialness, even if it was just one time.

Best Of Ten-Pho-Round Two: Vietnamese Noodles

Last Friday I kicked off one of the craziest and most gluttonous weekends of my life with a giant eponymous bowl of pho from Mequon's own Vietnamese Noodles. Joining Lisa (my partner in the tour de pho we masochistically assigned ourselves to) and myself was my very hungry wife.

Astute

Tommy's Experience 

I arrived a little bit early to the eyesore that Vietnamese Noodles is unfortunately embedded in. I put zero blame on the restaurant for it's location mind you; if you are going to try and open up any sort of establishment in Mequon you'll likely be doing it in a strip mall. Even the Bartolotta supper club Joey Gerard's is crammed in to one of the many depressing brown strip malls you'll find in the 'quon. Making matters all the more irritating is the fact that some snotty sixteen year old gave me a dirty look for driving more than one mile per hour when entering the parking lot. Ugh, Mequon, you are truly determined to burrow an ulcer in to my stomach. But enough about that.

My wife and I arrived at the refreshingly not-at-all-cleverly named restaurant at around 2:30 PM. The place was totally dead, which wasn't shocking given the fact that it was well after lunchtime in a business district in a part of the state that's absolutely inundated with shitty, cutesy pseudo-chains like Noodles And Company and Cosi. One thing that made me a little concerned that the deadness was not only confined to hours that aren't typically busy was the fact that the menu had some whole pages covered up with ominous tape, signifying that there are a lot of items permanently off the menu. Most concerning to me was the restaurants elimination of bahn mi. Hopefully the kitchen is simply trying to reduce and re-focus on other menu items, but frankly speaking, part of me sees "menu reduction" and hears "death rattle".

Vietnamese Noodles menu looks a little hookah bar/Ed Hardy to me for some reason

Another issue was the fact that our service was pretty slow. This would be fine if there was a rush going on, but we were literally the only three people in the entire restaurant. When our server did interact with us he did so with a thick tone of ambivalence in his voice. I wouldn't go as far as to say the service was "rude" per se, just a bit on the nonchalant side of things for my taste. That being said this place was not in any way trying to be fancy or super accommodating or anything besides a place to sit down and get a basic ass bowl of noodles and then leave. This aesthetic is actually pretty refreshing when you put it in the middle of a bunch of businesses trying to zealously cram whole wheat tortillas or frozen yogurt down your throat.

We ordered our food, drinks, and a side of egg rolls, all which came out pretty quickly. Being the sophisticated dandy you have all come to know me as, I went with tea. Lisa once again ordered beer, this time because they were out of coffee, seemingly permanently(???). My wife also ordered beer. Almost everything came out at the exact same time but a couple of minutes ahead of the pho were the egg rolls. Spare the now shuttered Port China (rest in peace), I've never had an impressive egg roll experience. Vietnamese Noodles was no exception. Little bland tubes of crunch with some processed orange sweet sauce over the top of them.

Shortly after I had eaten a couple boring crunch tubes, my triumphantly huge bowl of pho emerged from the kitchen and was plunked down on my table. By way of some astonishing mental lapse I had ordered "the big bowl". Pho is never not served in giant portions so when our monotone server asked if I wanted the larger portion I said yes without batting an eye. Whatever.

The pho was good beyond expectation but that isn't to suggest it was mind blowing. What I am saying is that a restaurant in a strip mall in the dullest city on the planet shouldn't lend much to expectation, so when anything even mildly decent pops up it's always a bit of a surprise. Still, the pho did actually taste good. Under the weight of the litany of meat options the menu presented I ordered the unimaginative "sliced medium rare beef noodle soup".  Whenever I'm experiencing paralysis by choice I almost always choke and pick the most basic thing. The broth was good, the garnishes were plentiful, the noodles were the same exact noodles I've had in every bowl of pho ever, but the meat kind of sucked.  First off, there was just not very much of it, not even by pho standards. Secondly, I'm just going to assume from this experience that no matter which way you order your meat, it's going to come out extremely well done.

The verdict: All in all I'd say I enjoyed it. Nothing was excellent but I wasn't repulsed or alienated by anything either. If you can tolerate ambivalent service and want maybe the only decent thing to eat in the 262 area code that's under $10.00, swing by Vietnamese Noodles. Really I should say "swing by while you still can", as I got the distinct feeling that the restaurant was in it's final stages.

Was it better than Hue?: Pound for pound I'd say Vietnamese Noodles is the better of the two restaurants. The food felt more authentic, the prices were far more reasonable and for some sick reason I almost want to count the perfunctory nature of the staff as a plus. The entire experience coasted linearly in a comforting modesty. The fact that there is something decent and affordable to eat for lunch in Mequon also stands on it's own as an accomplishment.

The "big bowl"

Lisa's Experience

I met up with Tom and Steph for a late lunch last Friday at Mequon’s aptly named Vietnamese Noodles. Because of my inability to efficiently complete everyday tedious tasks (homework? errands?), poor spatial/map skills, and the unbelievably slow drivers that populate 43 north, I was twenty minutes late and rolled in starving and somewhat frantic. Luckily, we were literally the only customers in the place, so my lateness didn’t appear to be inconveniencing anyone except my friends, and well, they’re probably used to it.

Vietnamese Noodles is small and unassuming, nestled into a perfectly average suburban strip mall between stores so unremarkable I’ve already forgotten what they are. The menu was huge, in that sprawling, numerical, vaguely-overwhelming-in-its-breadth kind of way. Knowing ahead of time that you’re going to get pho of some kind certainly narrows it down, but they did have an appealing variety to choose from, ranging from traditional steak/flank to vegetarian to every kind of meat ever all in one bowl.

I opted for a rare steak and tendon bowl, better known as #11. After spending most of my last pho lunch with Tom jealously staring at his coffee/condensed milk, I wanted one for myself (also possibly a smoothie, because there’s no such thing as too many beverages, right?). Disappointingly, the (bored but polite) server informed me that there were no drinks other than water and tea (and maybe soda? I don’t remember because I was too busy sulking, apparently). The unexpected unorderable beverages sort of fit with my vague feeling that Vietnamese Noodles is maybe not a restaurant that is doing well, or is not managed well, or something like that, from how empty it was to the handwritten notes pointing out menu items that are no longer available, including all of the banh mi, which was a bummer.

:(

However, the arrival of the pho more than made up for any residual smoothie/coffee/banh mi angst--- huge steaming bowls (Tom’s was more like a trough, actually), heaping plate of basil/lime/jalapeño, and the broth, oh man, the broth. It was much more flavorful than Hue’s, more savory and with greater depths of meaty flavor. It was still light though, both in color and fattiness, which I like. I couldn’t resist adding a little Sriracha, chili paste, and hoisin, but it really wouldn’t be necessary since the broth is so tasty. My only complaint was that there really wasn’t that much meat in mine, like seriously only a few tiny pieces of tendon, which was kind of a disappointment, but at $8 for a large bowl I really can’t bring myself to be that bothered by it. In fact, it was so good that I bought another serving to go, ostensibly for my boyfriend, but wound up eating most of it myself the next day. Cool, I know.

Verdict: Undeniably more delicious than Hue. Ambience is meh, and it’s hard to say what you’ll be able to order, but who cares when the pho is good?

Vietnamese Noodles is open seven days a week 
Mon-Sat 10 am to 9 pm
Sun-10 am to 7 pm
1380 W. Mequon Rd, Mequon, WI 53092

Family Dinner: Steakhouse

The Spread

My wife and I have a New Years Eve tradition of beginning our evening and ending our year at the charming and extremely old school Five O'Clock Steakhouse here in Milwaukee Wisconsin.  The first year we went, my wife and I were having a conversation where my last name came up.  The bartender heard my last name and turned on a dime. "Ciaccio, are you a... you are a Ciaccio!" Suffice to say, my dad's genetics run pretty strong. Almost as if he was transported back in time, the jovial bartender sized me up immediately recalled the young lobster killer under the employ of the steakhouse way back in the mid-eighties. That was my dad, and almost three decades later I was eating at the restaurant which probably hasn't changed a stitch since the days when my father cooked in it.

The charm was undeniable. I wanted to put it in a bubble and bring it home and walk in to it every time I felt like ravaging my body with red meat and stiff drinks.  This past Sunday we did the next best thing.  We opened up the month of March with a mock steakhouse.  I got home half-drunk from the Rockabilly Chili Contest (by way of designated driver because i'm responsible like that) and busted out a pretty damn good caesar salad while listening to generic big band music to put me in the mood. My wife picked out some big fat white anchovies on sale so we used those instead of the delicious but dubious looking filets traditionally used. What initially looked like an immersion blender resistant disaster ended up being a rich and appropriately indulgent dressing.

Joining my salad in the not-at-all-healthy arterial onslaught was a selection of other steakhouse classics. My sister quick pickled some asparagus, onions and beets. Asparagus and mushrooms (stuffed and sautéed) joined a bowl of bacon and brussels sprouts on the table to complete the vegetables who's nutritional value had been destroyed but who's taste had been substantially enhanced. There was also an uncharacteristic bowl of potato salad that actually rounded out the meal quite well, but categorizing potato salad as vegetable is as insane as categorizing pizza as a vegetable. These family dinners are usually exclusively a potluck affair but since it isn't fair to ask someone to be the guy who brings fifteen rib eyes, everyone brought their own steak.

After a few hours of typically debauched and immature conversation the night came to it's close. The smaller than usual crowd filed out and left me to my house. My sinuses were packed with chili and my brain was floating on cheap wine, so my once noble intention of doing the requisite two and a half hours of dishes that come with hosting any dinner party decided to wait for Monday morning. The one downside of the evening is, for whatever reason, my bedroom captured basically every single molecule of meat smoke that filled the ear when the steak was getting cooked so I basically felt like I was going to sleep inside one of those masculine scented Yankee Candles. This might sound like a good thing at first, but ask yourself if "cooked beef" is really a scent you would categorize as "soothing".  At least my dogs slept well.

Review-Happy Hour At Morel

I live in Milwaukee so extreme cold should never surprise me with it's awfulness, but last week truly challenged my grit. How fortuitous then that Chef Jonathan Manyo would welcome me to his warm and welcoming restaurant, Morel, to have a chat and try his new happy hour menu.

photos by Laurelyn Savannah - www.laurelynsavannahphotography.com

Joining me to help document the occasion was the very talented Laurelyn Taglienti of Laurelyn Savannah Photography.  We popped in around four o'clock, about an hour before service was set to begin.  I noticed something immediately; the very rarely seen happy and relaxed restaurant staff. I mean everyone has their good and bad days, but this was literally the entire scheduled staff of a restaurant laughing and joking and singing along to B-52's songs that were playing on Morel's speaker system. This might not seem like a huge deal, but like with any job, chemistry goes a long way in a kitchen. You want someone who loves their job making your food.

From left to right: Deviled beet pickled eggs, pheasant pistachio terrine, lamb poutine with Clock Shadow cheese curds. 

photos by Laurelyn Savannah - www.laurelynsavannahphotography.com

Despite the bustling activity of the restaurant and the deadline of service hot on his heels, Chef Manyo graciously sat down with me to talk a little bit about the incarnation of Morel and his plan going forward.  A former vegan, Manyo found a lot of his initial inspiration in rivaling the ambitiously bland flavors that health food in the late nineties associated itself with.  After working in a few vegan and vegetarian restaurants in San Francisco, a chef he was working under encouraged him to go out in to the world of French cuisine to learn technique. As he learned and fell in love with the art that is French cooking, his vision for food evolved. No longer satisfied with the limitations of cooking exclusively vegan cooking, Manyo bounced around Europe and the United States for a while before settling back in his hometown of Milwaukee to open up Morel.

Morel itself feels executed purposefully.  The omnipresent woodwork, the casual but still elegant vibe, the amount of things manifestly constructed specifically for Morel by the employees themselves; most impressively for me was the dividing wall made entirely out of pallets that had been used to ship things to the restaurant prior to opening. Even the bathrooms had an intentional and well-executed aesthetic, complete with sinks looked like they were carved out of salvaged driftwood. A restaurant's ambiance speaks volumes for the quality of their food.  Few and far between have been the times where I've walked in to a dingy, decrepit restaurant and been served anything the opposite of those adjectives. That sentiment is doubly true for a restaurant owned by it's chef.

photos by Laurelyn Savannah - www.laurelynsavannahphotography.com

We came in to try out the new happy hour menu, which came out in rapid succession. We didn't ask for anything specific, but were suddenly awash in a tantalizing array of Morel style bar food classics. I was happy to see that everything was a version of something familiar, wheels only being improved upon and not reinvented. Chicken wings, burgers and poutine are dishes that can oftentimes accurately be assumed are easy ways to achieve deliciousness without putting in a ton of effort or money. The challenge is making something that familiar and ubiquitous (to the point of being wrongly stigmatized as cheap or trashy) stand out, and that is where Morel shined for me. A chicken wing with hours of care put in to it is an entirely different beast than chicken wings thawed and thrown in to some factory made mix and flavor enhancing toxins then murdered in a deep fryer and doused in some sauce, also made in a factory and also containing toxins. Things that might seem like minor differences, smoking the wings and making sriracha in-house, actually make a tremendous difference; a difference that makes taking a trip to Morel worth it.

From left to right: Honey sriracha smoked chicken wings, the Morel burger, the ham biscuit with honey butter and fermented honey

photos by Laurelyn Savannah - www.laurelynsavannahphotography.com

The burger and wings were both great, but I want to quickly give a strong endorsement to two other standouts.  First, the pheasant terrine. I especially like this dish because it doesn't exactly scream "happy hour" food.  The texture of a terrine isn't something most American diners would typically associate with the crunchy, chewy, saucy experiences one usually associates with gorging themselves bar side.  That being said, pheasant and pistachio chopped together in all of their delicate glory and spread on a bread still hits an indulgent note that goes wonderfully with the cozy, homelike setting Morel puts forth.  

The other dish, and holy shit is this one just the tops, is the ham biscuit with honey butter and fermented honey. Before we got a chance to taste this little morsel from heaven Chef Manyo informed us that people have gotten it as both an appetizer and a dessert in the same meal.  I was skeptical as to how something could be both that versatile and that delicious, as to be ordered twice on both ends of a dinner. Truth be told I'm skeptical of ham in general and more oftentimes than not find it to be a totally lame and uninspired protein... but then I tasted it.  I really do try to avoid superlative-laden culinary freak outs on this blog, I swear to god, but this was just so damn good. The bite itself was ethereally light, which was then completely contrasted by intensity of the married flavor of honey and ham.  Seriously go and get this and tell me you don't love it. I dare you.

photos by Laurelyn Savannah - www.laurelynsavannahphotography.com

It didn't hurt that we were emerging from one of the more bitter days of the year, but if I had to describe Morel in a word, it would be "warm".  The jubilance of the staff, Chef Manyo's welcoming and unpretentious disposition, the enthusiasm and care put in to the food, just kind of all of it. And look, I'm not going to call the food I had revolutionary. First off, this wasn't even Morel's standard menu; but secondly and more importantly, "revolutionary" doesn't seem at all like something Manyo is striving for. Good food, thoughtful food, and food that simply feels like a good experience.  I could prattle on with a bunch of platitudes about how a fine dining restaurant gave me food, but that's boring and if I haven't made my case yet then you probably don't know how to read. What I can say is that the experience was good enough that, boldly and without the permission of my wife, I made reservations for this weekend to dine there again.  I recommend that you do the same sometime, I bet you'll enjoy it.

Morel's happy hour hours Tuesday through Friday 5pm to 6:30pm.

Best of Ten-Pho-Round One: Hue

Last week Friday on one of the most frigid days of the year the haggard husks of myself and my friend Lisa sauntered in to Bayview's popular Vietnamese restaurant Hue in search of some pho.

Hue's Bowl of Beef Pho

I was on four hours of sleep after quite an aggressive shift the night before.  Lisa, having just gotten off of her overnight shift, was on zero. You may notice that none of the pictures on this post will feature either Lisa or myself.  Our egos aren't quite deluded enough to think that we need to do this Best Of Ten project with a degree of anonymity to keep it from being corrupted. We do however have just enough pride to not want willfully appear to be deranged sociopaths on the internet; and our circumstances yielded just that look. Between the exhaustion and the glacial conditions Milwaukee was experiencing, we were in dire need of some edible solace. Mercifully, the good people at Hue let us in.

Note: Our two experiences were written separately with no knowledge of what the other was going to say. Anything oddly similar should be chalked up to coincidence

Tommy's Experience

The restaurant itself was a little more chilled out than I expected given that it was lunchtime on a cold Friday afternoon.  Maybe ten other diners were in attendance during the hour or so we were eating, which is totally fine given Hue's cozy vibe. We had picked Hue because we felt it made a good baseline to draw from moving forward. There isn't something overtly "authentic" feeling about Hue, but it doesn't stray too far from it's roots that it treads in to novelty territory. Also, the restaurant's popularity will give previous diners who are reading this a good comparative grasp moving forward.

Anyhow we were greeted, seated and given waters pretty much immediately.  We were sat at a two-top parallel to the bar. This is cool except for the fact that they had a TV with ESPN on and I had Skip Bayless's hideous face scowling for most of my lunch; but this isn't Hue's fault so whatever. The service was appropriately casual and efficient, nothing too over-the-top and not in any way incompetent or lazy.  While Lisa and I looked over the menu, pretending we might be getting something other than dueling bowls of beef pho, the server took our drink order.  Fresh off of a shift, Lisa ordered the Hue lager.  The Hue beer is made in Vietnam and has no connection to the restaurant outside of it's name.  I ordered a Vietnamese coffee, which I had never had before.  The coffee was rich and delicious and came with a side of sweetened condensed milk that you dabbled in to the coffee with a spoon. The coffee was good beyond expectation, so defying my anxiety and common sense I pounded a couple of these back over the course of my meal.

Then came the focal piece of our lunch, a giant bowl of beef pho. The pho itself was the pleasantly basic combination of beef, noodles and an herbaceous broth. I'm pretty sure the noodles aren't made in-house (because that would be insane) so let's focus on the dynamics of the other two components. The brisket and steak were cooked well done but maintained a degree of tenderness. I'm not familiar enough with the traditions of pho to know whether or not that the beef is traditionally prepared that way, but it worked well enough for the occasion. If I were attempting to make pho at home I would probably use raw beef and let the broth cook it, but that's just me.  Then there was the broth. I don't like aggressive criticism of someone else's cooking, but the broth is just not for me.  Something about Hue's broth just reminds me of a very mild beef flavored tea.  I think it speaks for itself that we were both murdering our bowls with sriracha and hoison sauce.

Another tiny gripe I have about my experience was the totally meager portion of accouterments given to tweak our pho with. In my limited experience with pho, I've gotten pretty heaping portions of different things to season or add texture to customize my pho experience.  Between the two of us we got two twigs of thai basil, about half of a jalapeño cut in to coins and probably no more than twenty sprouts.  This want to seem like a kvetch about silly and minor things, but part of pho's appeal is the gargantuan portion it comes in, and a dinky little garnish plate just doesn't fit with that. This really isn't a huge deal for me, it just feels like a weird little cost management thing that gets under my skin.

The Verdict: Not bad but not especially memorable.  I would totally go to Hue and eat pho again but not because i'm in the mood for some exponentially thoughtful or memorable meal. Picking up a friend from the airport who you haven't seen in a while and want to catch up? Take them to Hue. Do you have an older relative who wants to try something new without traveling too far from their comfort zone? Hue it up. It certainly doesn't boggle the mind, but it's a decent $20.00 lunch.

Lisa's Experience
(In which Lisa valiantly attempts to avoid making infinite pho puns so Tom doesn’t kill her.)
Hello, dear readers. This is Lisa, Tom’s partner in gluttony and the pursuit of food obsession. Tom and I finally got our acts together and met up for some pho last week, and now that my work week is over I actually have time/mental energy to immerse myself in the resultant indulgent pho musings. Let me set the scene: it’s Friday morning, and it’s cold. Like numb fingers, I-can’t-bear-to-peel-myself-out-of-my-flannel-sheets cold, even by the truly depraved standards of the average Wisconsinite (although to be fair, I did see a husky white guy wearing shorts, which I suppose means it’s still within the realm of normal Midwestern frigidity). 

As Tom mentioned in his previous post, I’m a nurse, which pretty reliably translates to “I have a weird schedule” (among other things, i.e. I have a slightly deranged sense of humor, am almost impossible to gross out, etc), and I’m no exception. I work ten-hour night shifts for seven days in a row, then have off for a week. So, on the freezing morning in question I was 40 hours deep into my work week, had left work three hours before, and had allowed myself a 45 minute nap before meeting Tom. What I’m trying to say is that I was exhausted, freezing, and mildly delirious. In my experience, that’s the perfect time to eat pho. Granted, given that I am in the throes of a fairly overwhelming pho obsession (really holding back a pun here), I tend to be of the opinion that any time is the perfect time to eat pho. Do other people wake up thinking about pho, and how they can work it into their schedule that day? So far, I’ve found that isn’t typically the case, so this project is pretty much a dream come true (thanks for feeding my addiction, Tom).

Anyway, back to our frigid morning. Tom agreed to my request that we start at Hue, so together we hurtled through the increasingly forceful snow toward Bayview. Hue was the natural starting place for me, since at a mere ½ mile’s distance from my apartment, it’s currently my go-to pho place. It also, while not the first place I tried pho, was definitely where my obsession defiantly declared itself to me one hungover afternoon, and has continued to declare itself on each of my near weekly strolls for takeout. Tom and I arrived at about noon and were seated by the friendly server who always seems to be working and probably thinks I have a problem. We both got the basic beef pho, and I, feeling slightly deranged and emboldened by going out to eat when I should have been sleeping, also got a beer, while Tom stuck to Vietnamese coffee and its condensed milk decadence. 

The place was pretty deserted, given the cold and the fact that it was a weekday and most of the normally-scheduled world was probably working and not traipsing around eating Vietnamese noodles. We sat at our little table and sipped our respective beverages, while the Talking Heads or something else sort of blandly agreeable played quietly in the background. Blandly agreeable is actually a fairly accurate description of Hue’s ambience overall: a little too bright, modern but not offensively so, and clientele that as far as I can tell is pretty consistently 100% white. Now, as an extremely white Midwestern girl myself, I don’t feel that I have the right to gauge the “authenticity” of a Vietnamese noodle joint, but if I had to hazard a guess I would say this place is pretty Americanized. There aren’t “icky” things like tripe or tendon or weirdly gelatinous little buns or things you can’t even identify while looking at a picture menu or, you know, Vietnamese people. There are crab Rangoon and the Talking Heads and a girl with face tattoos. To put it another way, if you want the sort of dingy-hole-in-the-wall-but-authentic-hidden-treasure feel, this is not your place.

The food came after only a few minutes, and all conversation effectively stopped and was predictably replaced with slurping, chopstick clinking, etc. The broth at Hue is lighter in color and sweeter than many places, with a strong anise and cinnamon flavor and just enough fat to it to make it sort of shimmer, while not being at all thick or heavy. I think that the broth could stand to have a more assertive feel to it, more spice or meat flavor or something, but I just compensated by adding all the available fixings (basil, sprouts, jalapeño, lime, white onion I demanded the server bring me because I need it to be as stinky as possible) along with serious amounts of sriracha and hoisin sauce. Without any of that, I think the broth would be too sweet and mild for me, but with everything added it was a pleasant combination of heat and sweetness. 

The steak and brisket were tender and plentiful (although I’d love to see them served a little more rare, I’ve yet to encounter that in Milwaukee), there were appropriate proportions of noodle to broth to meat, and even after talking shit to Tom about how I was so hungry I was going to eat my entire giant bowl, I still had enough to take home another meal’s worth. The price of $11 seemed a bit steep for pho, but given the huge servings, clean atmosphere, and the prices of the surrounding restaurants, it didn’t seem appalling or anything to me. 

Verdict: a good basic pho, I would probably come back here even if it wasn’t an 8 minute walk from my apartment.

Tommy and Lisa's Best of Ten-Pho

It Begins!

This blog hasn't had much of a focus in the way of actual criticism; and up until now I haven't had really anything resembling a restaurant review, spare the cloying panegyrics I wrote out to give unabashed praise to a couple of places I ate.  I believe that the lesser meals should be documented as well.  This isn't to say that this project is about purposefully seeking out "lesser" meals, because it's not.  It is about trying different variations of essentially the same dish and discussing them whether or not the meal itself is an absolute home run.

My partner in this project is my good friend Lisa Elliot. Lisa is actually the one who should be given credit for the Best Of Ten jumping off at all, as she approached me with the idea to try and eat every bowl of pho Milwaukee has to offer and then review it.  After a bit of discussing and tweaking we decided that instead of delving in to a near-infinite ocean of pho, let's apply the same logic to several different types of food around the city, ten at a time, then rank them.  Lisa agreed to the plan on the basis that at the very least start with pho. Given that we are in the midst of the shittiest and grossest part of winter,  I had absolutely zero objection to that plan.

Lisa and I have two very different attitudes when it comes to pho.  I'll be honest, all the mania surrounding a hot bowl of noodles has always felt a little forced to me.  Don't get me wrong, I understand the appeal of the kind of comfort it brings.  Chicken noodle soup, pho, ramen.. whatever else, all of these things have provided me great joy. This is especially true during the long months when city of Milwaukee takes on the barren hellscape of Winter, which is at it's worst just before spring meekly peeks it's head and slowly-but-surely thaws us out.  What I have always failed to grasp is the feeling that these foods are somehow beauty and complexity epitomized and transfigured in to a bowl of holy excellence. I'm not saying people are wrong for feeling how they feel, but I've just never been moved close to tears by these kinds of pho. Recently one of my very best friends told me that he would rather have a big bowl of ramen than pizza almost 100% of the time. Hearing that made me violently angry.

One thing specific to pho really aggravates me.  The ruthless onslaught of puns that the word provokes really gets under my skin. Obviously I know I'm poking the bear to reveal such a silly pet peeve, but I can tell you right now that if you're tempted to tell me to "pho-ck off" or "go pho-ck myself" that you're number 30,000 in line. It's one thing for a bunch jerks to pick the low hanging fruit that is the sound that the monosyllabic soup makes, but restaurants are actually jumping on this idiotic bandwagon too.  If you name your restaurant "What The Pho" or "Absolutely Pho-bulous" or *shudder* "Pho-Shizzle" you're basically screaming at me that your food sucks and that you don't take it seriously; it also honestly feels disrespectful to me.

That all being said, I truly do enjoy pho. I may not swoon over it, but knowing what I know about it's components, it should always be objectively desirable. With that in mind, and in the interest of fairness, I'm going to attempt to enter in to this with a sense of amnesia. Everything I know about pho is gone and the stigma has been erased.

My far less cynical counterpart is a much different person than me when it comes to many things, including opinions surrounding pho. Lisa doesn't work in restaurants at all, meaning her gluttony is 100% naturally occurring and is in no way spurred by her career. Lisa works as a nurse in an ICU unit in Milwaukee, meaning that everything I have to say that sounds like a complaint (especially when it comes to my job) should pretty much be disregarded with extreme prejudice. On top of that, she's a fanatic (pun deflected) when it comes to pho. I would go as far as to say that Lisa's enthusiasm toward the dish borders on delirium.

We hope that our combined perspectives will reduce in to something resembling a healthy perspective towards pho.  I will archive our meals on this page and update it continuously as our journey in to the world of Milwaukeean pho develops.  Join us!

Hipsters: Gastronomy's Make Believe Pincushion

The culinary world is undeniably and inextricably associated with competition.  From farm to table, cook to writer, kitchen to keyboard it seems like every element of dining has to have some heir of megalomania attached to it.   This isn't always a bad thing, of course.  Assuming it's escorted through the proper channels, rigid competition plus self-inflation can equal excellence; however as with any industry, you don't have to dig too deep to find the service industry's stupid.  It's easy to pick apart undeserved egos and call out backbiting harbingers of gossip that pepper the world of gastronomy, but, that is not unique to gastronomy alone.  I want to talk about something symptomatic of deluded and painfully basic, non-dimensional thinking. This thing is truly alarming, given it' permeation in an arena built on creativity and culture.  That thing... is hipsters.

I know, I know, I know... I just said that I wanted to write about something unique, and that the word "hipster" is about as ubiquitous as the word "chef" when discussing food, but that's exactly my point. That very ubiquity has disintegrated whatever a "hipster" is in to complete ambiguity; and yet, as if it means anything, that stupid word keeps popping up.  "Hipster" has become nothing but an amalgamate of what people consider quirky and different.  Fact: I had to re-write that sentence like fifteen times because I couldn't find a satisfying enough description for a label as vague and general as what I'm talking about.  Essentially think of anything younger than 60 (I mean, Bourdain is a hipster, right?) then give them literally any amount of intellect and/or individuality and there you have it, your hipster.
So why does this bug me so much?  Why do I find it harmful?  That's a good question, and if one wanted to simplify, they could probably deduce that my generally irritable nature is at the heart of this entry.  Beyond that and more specifically though is that my sour mood is easily provoked by boring and unnecessary hatefulness; and let's face it, the word hipster doesn't conjure anything particularly positive in your mind.   If you closed your eyes and were told to imagine a hipster, you would probably imagine a person reduced to a mascot used to represent everything you think is wrong with young people these days.  That's because "hipster" has become the official brand for pretentiousness and pseudo-intellectualism.  The complication is that everything and everyone that is not painfully normal is effectively a hipster, and therefore a pretentious pseudo-intellectual.

Hipster making the most pretentious pizza of all time.

This insipid/insidious thought process annoys me to my core when it pertains to restaurants.  Reading Yelp reviews can become a practice in masochism if you dare venture in to anything that's been independently opened in the past decade.  Seriously, no matter what city you're in, type the "H" word in to the search bar and watch the paranoid accusations fly.  Milwaukee alone has TWENTY TWO pages worth of results and few-and-far-between are the entries where "hipster" affiliated with anything positive.  The shit of it is, is that these accusations are often being hurled at restaurants my friends work at, eat at, and even own.  Those "pretentious bearded hipsters" are quite often parents who don't care about anything besides giving you food or getting you drunk.

It seems like nothing is safe from the branding iron of the insecure and out-of-touch.  Ramen, sushi, pizza and hot dogs are all served in places in Milwaukee that I've seen described as alienating in their hipness. If you think that slice of pizza you're eating is going to somehow taste worse because some punk rock kid made it for you, it isn't because that kid's fault, it's because you're either insecure, an idiot or both.

This probably sounds as insecure and accusatory as the people I'm bashing, but it's difficult to broach this subject in a non-hostile manner when I'm marginalized right off the bat based on glasses or a t-shirt or whatever.  This isn't a blanket defense of every young person who has an offbeat aesthetic.  Some people are pretentious assholes, some of them own crappy restaurants who make lousy food and have horrible service.  What this is a defense of is someone's right to be different without having that difference be the sole identifier for who they are.  That thinking stunts progress and discourages true innovation.  This is also a proclamation that doling out extremely general judgements on anyone by applying blanket titles to them is a really lame way to go through life. If you can't criticize in a specific and constructive way, you should probably consider whether or not you are capable of that criticism in the first place.

I should mention that I realize I'm not actually marginalized. I revel like a fat hog in the most privileged sector of society probably on the planet.  Besides, factually speaking, as a heavily domesticated 29 year old Wisconsinite/unabashed Taylor Swift fan with very little discretionary income I've dipped far out of the orbit of anything anyone could consider hip.

Oh and one last thing. You know that painfully hip couple up there? That's my mom and dad, holding my brother who is now 33 years old.  If the body of water that is hipsterdom is three decades deep, whatever "hip" is probably needs to be redefined.