Photo Credit: Lauren Miller
On a Sunday night in Milwaukee’s Third Ward, the American-Chinese hot spot, DanDan, is booming with business. Brewers fans cheer in the bar, while a diverse mix of patrons shuffle into the dining room. Whether dim sum, dumplings, noodles or pancakes, DanDan has an extensive menu to choose from. Their mission: order something different; challenge your taste buds.
The sharable dim sum portion of the menu includes shrimp toast ($10) and egg rolls ($7). The toast is spread with shrimp paste, deep fried and served with delicious, spicy mustard. This is the kind of guilty pleasure food you’d seek out at a county fair. The egg rolls are also deep fried and stuffed with pork, cabbage, carrots, ginger and peanut butter. They are delightful on their own or doused in sweet and sour sauce. These Chinese staples are perfect for the epicurean and non-gastronaut alike.
The scallion pancakes ($10) are bland and more tortilla-like than their namesake but are the perfect vessel for their accompaniments: pickled mushrooms, spicy chili oil and sweet hoisin paste. As for the short rib and foie gras potstickers ($14), the unmistakable scent of foie gras hits our noses before the dumplings made it our mouths. The meat is stuffed into these beautifully crimped and crispy pillows, served with a side of black vinegar—a needed astringent to this incredibly rich and sapid dumpling.
Shmaltz fried rice ($12) and General Tso’s cauliflower ($14) complete our meal (“shmaltz” refers to the rendered chicken fat used for frying the rice). An almost stuffing-like entrée, the rice is tossed with nickel-sized pork sausage, crunchy edamame, egg and a generous amount of celery. General Tso may be known for his chicken, but cauliflower is the new sheriff in town. An excellent vegetarian option, nearly an entire head of cauliflower is fried then tossed in the familiar sauce made of soy, hoisin, rice wine, red chili, sugar and garlic. This entrée is great to split or take home and warm up as a tasty midnight snack. Don’t forget to pair it with the accompanied white rice; the combination helps to even out the sweetness and greasiness of this saucy dish.
Incredibly full, with a mammoth doggy bag on the table, we muster the strength to order their popular coffee dessert ($8) with velvety dark chocolate cremeux, coffee ice cream, condensed milk caramel and an espresso cracker. Buddha himself would’ve smiled down on this choice confection. This welcomed palate cleanser was the perfect way to end a filling and savory dinner.
For an American spin on classic cuisine, DanDan is the perfect restaurant to satisfy your needs.
