Ooops!

I just noticed that I didn't come back here to tell you where I am now writing -- if sporatically.

My last entry here, the one about Dream Dance, I intended to post on my new blog site at www.cookingondonmar.blogspot.com

Hope to see you there!

I am now...
Stirring the Pot

Dinner at Dream Dance

It’s not that we don’t eat out anymore. It’s just that when you get away from writing, it’s really difficult to start up again. “I don’t have time,” my brain says. Or, worse yet, “I can’t write.” But I’m going to give it a try, as we have eaten some special meals lately that deserve a review.

I’ll start with last night’s extravaganza of eating. Have I written about Dream Dance before? We’ve eaten there before, but this was the first time at the new digs, in the new addition to the Potowatomi Casino in The Valley. Their menu features Wisconsin foods like locally-made artisanal cheeses and locally-raised venison. Chef Jason Gorman has received many accolades, and this year he is one of the 2009 Wisconsin Cheese Chef Ambassadors. Dream Dance has a separate cheese menu offering trays of 15 artisanal Wisconsin cheeses – my kind of place! I was drooling to the waiter, Troy, while reading of the Dream Dance Vanilla Goat Cheese, and he brought us two generous slices with some French bread to try it. A charming man.

The food was delicious and plated with the care of works of art. After reading a review on the web, I had decided to try the Sprecher Root Beer Venison Rossini with Lakeside horseradish potatoes ($40). With thick slices of mushrooms in a wine sauce atop the generous venison steaks and truly delicious horseradish-flavored mashed potatoes, it was an entre to die for. I ordered a half -bottle of 2005 Duckhorn merlot ($31) that was perfect with this rich dinner. Dream Dance tries to offer wines at about the price you would buy them in a liquor store. I searched the web. The cheapest price I could find for a full bottle of this wine was $50 and it went up to $80. $31 for a half bottle in a restaurant is a bargain. The wine list at Dream Dance includes quite a selection of half-bottles, which worked well for me, as I was this evening’s only red wine drinker of the four of us dining. The others at our table enjoyed a couple of bottles of a German Reisling kabinett (I think about $28 each).

Our friend, Mrs. Doc ordered the Diver Scallop Cordon Bleu, which was plated beautifully with trumpet mushrooms, Wisconsin’s Nueske’s ham pieces and a sauce made from Roth Kase’s Gran Cru Gruyere cheese ($38). It was beautifully done, though Mrs. thought it was a bit too salty for her taste. She and I did push our share of our bill over the top a bit by ordering two Baby Romaine Salads, served with the most delicious parmesan-crusted bread stick “crouton.” The red romaine leaves were drizzled with truffle Caesar dressing and garnished with two tiny deviled quail eggs. How can they prepare this for $12?

Doc and My Man got into the Big Red Meat part of the menu. Doc ordered a 16-oz. Kobe Style Beef Ribeye Steak ($48), at the recommendation of one of our servers. Doc said it was delicious, if huge. Duh. That’s a pound of meat. Doc also had a side of red cabbage ($6) and split the order of The Ultimate Baked Potato for Two ($18) with My Man. We frugal Milwaukeean’s think that $18 is an exorbitant price for a potato, regardless of its size, but the tray of horseradish sour cream sauce and strips of Nueske’s bacon did make it seem almost worth it. My Man polished off an 8 oz Black Angus Filet ($30). He said it was grilled perfectly, but he thinks he has had better filets at, believe it or not, Bonefish Grill and Point Comfort Place! Neither of these restaurants should take up ink on the same page as Dream Dance.

We finished the evening with coffee and a couple of desserts. There was no winner between the Chocolate Creams - three chocolates, cake and orange sauce ($10), and the even richer Marbled Custards ($7) towered over by a trellis of burnt sugar threads.

Twice during our meal Chef Gorman sent out individual trays of delicacies. On the first ones were three tiny appetizers, the best of which, and one of the hits of the evening, was chopped salmon sashimi on a cracker topped with a bit of wasabi flavored roe. Mmmm, mmm.

Our service on this Tuesday evening was not quite up to par for a restaurant of this caliber. Troy and our other servers, Peter and Ryan, were all very charming and knowledgeable. But we waited a bit too long for some of our wines and for the coffee to arrive. And when the coffee did arrive with our dessert orders, some of the dirty dinner plates had not yet been cleared.

But would I go back? You bet!

Stirring the Pot

Later...

Hi again, faithful readers,

Just a note to tell you I still exist and may continue to blog, but if I do, I'll come up with a new address and purpose. I'm just not eating out daily anymore, so the restaurant review thing won't work. But I think I'd miss you all... And, besides, I have to post photos for you of my gorgeous kitchen after my daughters see it at Christmas.

Holidays are approaching. You're too busy to read chatter. I'll be back (with news of the latest adventures with The Man) after the new year to give you a new address for my blog. See you then!

Finally not
Kitchenless in Brookfield

Fleming's - Almost as Nice as My Kitchen

I’m cooking in MY MOST BEAUTIFUL KITCHEN! It is so beautiful that it makes me cry. It really does. I just sit in our sunroom and look at it and I can’t believe I live in such a beautiful place. I promise to post pictures of the finished product – as soon as my daughters have seen it. They are coming at Christmas and I can’t wait to see them when they see it. I don’t want to spoil that moment (for me) by showing them a picture ahead of time. So, please have patience...

I haven’t taken time off to write to you all. The first day I cooked — Tada!--- fried eggs! Yowza! Then lamb chops, then homemade beef barley soup. I have running water – right in the kitchen! And a garbage disposal! And outlets that don’t trip breakers when you turn on the microwave at the same time that the refrigerator turns on. Wow. It’s amazing what we take for granted.

And to celebrate the new kitchen, we finally had dinner at Fleming's. It was the Wednesday evening before Thanksgiving. It was snowing romantically. A perfect night for a long, quiet dinner for two. Fleming’s fit the bill. It is a fabulous spot – if you can ignore the ridiculously expensive part. But never mind.

Fleming's is famous for its service, and this is well-deserved fame. You might want to stop there sometime just to experience how well you COULD be treated every time you go out. Our waiter knew every dish on the menu. He could describe how it was made, what wine it would compliment it. He was not averse to talking a bit about himself in a very amiable way. He made our evening very special.

Then there’s the food. I decided to split a bottle of wine with The Man Who Only Drinks White Wine. We ordered a bottle of Cuvaison Chardonny - Napa Carneros 2005 ($60), which was, of course, very nice. It’s a heavier Chardonnay than some, with some oak to chew on. So I ordered my dinner to go with this wine choice. The Red Meat Man has his own ideas of what goes with what, that is: red meat goes with anything and so does white wine. Okay, then.

Everything at Fleming’s is ala carte. I’d heard that the portion sizes of the side dishes were prodigious, so we decided to each order three items and share. I ordered an appetizer of crab cakes ($15.50), Fleming’s Salad ($7.95), and Seared Scallops ($28.95). The Man ordered a bowl of Vegetable Beef Soup ($9.95), a 12 oz Filet Mignon ($36.96), and Fleming’s Potatoes ($8.50). Can you imagine such prices? In Milwaukee? Whew! It’ll be snowin’ in Miami before I see the inside of this place again.

But let me describe the food, just so I can re-live the experience. My crab cakes were very crabby, almost all chunks of fresh crab and very little filler. They were small, but The Man tasted them agreed they were good. High praise from him – for something that swims. His Vegetable Beef Soup was delicious. Almost as good as mine, we decided, though we both like the addition of the barley that I put in mine. The salad was very good, but how can any salad – pretty basic with greens, glazed walnuts and dried cranberries with a very light vinaigrette – be worth $8? My scallops were served with a puff pastry filled with summer squash and a lobster sauce. Now that was tasty – and worth the price if anything was. As for the filet mignon, it was Big Beef, cooked very much the way The Man ordered it (red, with a hot center). Fleming’s Potatoes were a treat. This was a large portion of augratin potatoes, thinly sliced and oozing with cheese. Lip-licking good. We shared that and still brought half of it home.

With my scallops, I ordered a glass of red wine (whose name I forgot to write down, even after all these months of reviewing for you all. I know it was a yummy pinot noir for $13), bringing our grand total bill to $190. May I say, "YIKES!" That is before subtracting the $75 gift certificate I’d purchased earlier at the Waukesha Land Conservancy’s auction to reduce The Wallet’s pain ever so slightly.

Actually, I have to give The Man credit. He didn’t complain once about this bill and thoroughly enjoyed the evening – many thanks to our exceptional service.

By the way, I did check out the ladies' bathroom. I only wish mine were so attractive – and it was just as clean as yours at your house. And that’s saying something, for Bluemound Road.

No longer
Kitchenless in Brookfield

Jake's -- off Bluemound

A restaurant that takes reservations on Friday nights is a FIND. Friday evening is Amateur Night, we’ve discovered. The amateurs – folks who don’t eat out every night of the week – are all out buzzing around from one restaurant to another, looking for a place to sit and eat – in that order. Even finding a place to sit while waiting to eat is a challenge. Jake’s takes reservations. They got our business on Friday night when we went out for a fish fry with my brother and his wife from Watertown.

The evening got off to a great start when the four of us arrived at Jakes at 6:30 on Friday and were seated immediately. We were in a small, back room with rough-sawn cedar walls decorated with signs from wine companies. We ordered old fashioneds to sip while we caught up on the family gossip and the trips we’ve taken and the ones we are about to take. My family is SO much fun. We love each other so much that about 50 of us actually own a big log cottage together in Central Wisconsin. We hang out there on summer weekends playing guitars, singing, sleeping some, eating lots, and even occasionally drinking together. I’ll bet you don’t even know the names of your third-cousins-twice-removed, let alone know which ones like Sprecher’s Black Bavarian and which ones prefer pinot noir.

Back at Jake’s, three of us ordered fish fries ($14.95), as we’d planned. But of course, you can guess who did not. Though The Man Who Is Picky About What Goes Into His Stomach will -- on occasion -- eat something that swims, if it is heavily battered and deep fried. But he isn’t about to eat anything as funky as walleye, which is the fish fry option at Jake’s. Cod, he said, is his fish of choice. "How about haddock, just for a change?" I asked. "No," he replied, "Just cod." Such a wild man I married.

I can tell you the walleye was delicious: lightly battered, deep fried and served with a very tasty tartar sauce (a little onion and maybe tarragon in it?). The fish came with our choice of two side dishes. I chose the vegetable of the day, brussel sprouts in a warm viniagrette, and a side salad with parmesan peppercorn dressing – one of my favorites. The Man decided not to have an entre and ordered a half Caesar salad, a bowl of French onion soup, and a twice-baked potato. The potato was delicious, as was the onion soup. The half Caesar salad was ridiculous – a small hunk (and I do mean "hunk") of romaine, some shaved parmesan and a chunk of crouton-like bread, with dressing. Not especially appetizing.

We skipped dessert at Jake’s, as I was serving dessert at our house. Not homemade of course. It was a styrofoam bowl (so elegant) of Gilles’ French Silk frozen custard served with a selection of chocolate bars from Lindt & Newman’s & Giardelli. My sister-in-law is known to be fond of chocolate. I thought ithis would be her kind of finish to an evening of good food.

I was also showing off my new kitchen, which is almost "the most beautiful kitchen in Brookfield." My major appliances were delivered on Friday. There are issues, however. The stove couldn’t be hooked up because the gas pipe was too high and in the way. The plumber has to fix that. The dishwasher is in its box, waiting for the plumber to unpack and install it. The refrigerator has a bigger problem. It doesn’t go back as far into the cabinets as it should. It looks like an afterthought; something that was replaced after the kitchen was built. Mike Wahlen from Cabinet Werks (bless his heart) said he wouldn’t put up with this, and we shouldn’t have to either. We also didn’t like the finish on the window and door frame moldings, so Cabinet Werks will also replace those. These ARE good folks to work with.

I’ll keep you up to date on the status of these final touches. And you will be the first to know if I indeed do have a sink by Monday evening! If so, what should I cook? Do you think The Man would consider fried eggs – dinner?

Now I’m Barely
Kitchenless in Brookfield

Perk & Pub

This eating out is not working for us anymore. Do you know how far east we were on Wednesday? The Perk & Pub, a bare bones, boring restaurant (if you can call it that) on about 130th and Bluemound Road in Elm Grove. It just isn’t worth driving even 10 minutes to eat uninteresting food at yet another uninteresting restaurant. I’ve counted. IF we get into our kitchen next Monday, as is the plan, that would be four more meals out. IF we continued on Bluemound Road until then, we would hit The Garden Something Restaurant at that motel that used to be the 40 Winks Motel, then Rocky Roccoco’s pizza, then yet another Mexican place across the road, and finally back to Flemings.

If we were going to get as far as Mo’s Irish Pub, I’d surely put up with these repetitive, mediocre meals until then. But we won’t – assuming Cabinetwerks’ schedule works out, and the plumber who is supposed to hook up the sink, dishwasher, and gas for the stove on Monday is not a hunter and won’t call in at the last minute when he realizes what week it is. I’ve noticed that the common subject of conversation of all craftsmen who have worked in my kitchen centers on the shooting of deer.

So... I think we will eat our few remaining restaurant meals at places we know we like, probably closer to home, and then maybe have one last fling at Flemings. I am debating saving that spot until we have grown somewhat tired of home cooking again and can appreciate such a fine restaurant. I’ve become such a witch about this eating out. Nothing pleases me, and The Man and I are getting testy with each other about our disagreements over food.

For instance, Monday night at The Perk and Pub. It’s in a nice looking shopping center, just down the road from all those annoying office buildings in Bishop’s Woods. (Only annoying to me I suppose, because I was one of the folks who fought against desecrating that lovely woods with those commercial buildings.) Anyway, you’d think this restaurant location might attract a pleasant place to eat. But no. The Perk & Pub sports a brown, painted, bare concrete floor, brown formica tables, a high acoustic tiled ceiling, and a bar in the room with the tables. It seems like one of those bars that also happens to serve some food. The menu is bar food – pizzas, a few sandwiches. But unlike most bars, you don’t place your order at the bar. Here a waitress serves you at your table. And yet, oddly, in one corner is a child’s play area, with games and toys for kiddies. Hmmm...

The Happy Man (red meat, cheap food, nothing "funky", like cilantro or Asiago cheese) had a Reuben sandwich with cole slaw. I couldn’t muster up enough appetite to even have a sandwich. I just had a Caesar salad – romaine lettuce (a good thing), bottled dressing (okay), many dry croutons (yuk), and no Parmesan to be seen (boring). I checked out the plumbing, betting it would be clean. Not. Actually, the turn-off is walking back to the bathroom where the mop and pail and boxes of stuff are stacked and stuffed in the hall. No broom closet, apparently. How charming.

As we drove home, I complained (a polite word for it) about the Perk & Pub, while The Man With Impecible Taste insisted it was just fine -- even called it "very nice.".

As I said, it is time to quit this nonsense. We will have some of my homemade pea soup from the freezer for dinner tonight, and will probably eat at our favorite Venice Club before the kitchen returns. I’m sure I’ll find something to blather to you about anyway, even if it isn’t on Bluemound Rd.

Grumpy, as well as
Kitchenless in Brookfield

Chipotle

Isn’t it amazing the number of chain restaurants there are? And how many of them are on Bluemound Road? Mr Picky Eater was not thrilled about eating at Chipotle, as he said he’d been to one of these joints before and didn’t like it. But then his daughter who eats out often, said it was one of her favorite places. So The Man agreed to give it another try.

At least we figured out what it is about Chipotle that The Man doesn’t like. It’s the tortillas. He doesn’t care for those rigid, pre-cooked corn tortillas, but he also doesn’t like flour tortillas that are not fried to a slightly crisp texture. That’s how I cook them at home (when I have a kitchen, a stove, a frying pan, olive oil and a dishwasher at my disposal). At Chipotle, they put the flour tortillas in a sort of steam heater, so they are warm, but floppy. The Man thinks his wife-of-German-descent knows better how to cook tortillas than the people-of-Mexican-descent who prepared his meal at Chipotle.

Inside his raw, floppy tortilla, The Man had a pork and bean burrito and I ordered the tacos (both $5.75). My taco order included three small tacos in which I tried three different meats. The pork was best. The beef was way too hot (spicy) for my whimpy taste buds, and the chicken was dry and boring. I also had them slather on some fresh tomato salsa, some of that tasteless, white Mexican cheese (queso), sour cream and lettuce. In his burrito, The Picky Man ordered pork, beans, cheese, and the hot salsa (after the server assured him that, heaven forbid, the hot salsa didn’t have any funky cilantro in it). He had a large Diet Pepsi for $1.50; I had a Spotted Cow beer for $3.50 – because, of course, they had no caffeine-free diet soda. If it weren’t for the raw tortilla, The Man said he’d have enjoyed his meal.

I want to send you a picture of my stunning kitchen, but I’m waiting for the painter to finish his magic and for the appliances to fill in some rather obvious holes in the cabinetry. Tune in next week for views of the finished product!

Kitchenless in Brookfield