2019. The prologue to 2020’s change, maybe. God—or Kali or whomever you wish to charge with these sorts of responsibilities—willing. The end of the beginning of the end of discord, the endless fire, the storms and dread, the corruption of soul we’ve all learned to live with over the past few years that feel like a lifetime.
In Milwaukee, 2019 was the year we were awarded the Democratic National Convention and tried to grapple with how we would handle hosting it. It was the year, as if we were Austin, Texas, as if we were Portland, Ore., as if we were ourselves a plucky place of progressivism and forward-thinking, our very own food truck park opened. And, at the same time, it was the year it became impossible to log onto any social media without being inundated by hems and haws and shouting-at-cloud mewls that the city suddenly had legal electric scooters on the street. It was the year Syrian civil war refugees opened a Mitchell Street gem of kefta and baba ghanoush and good nature at the most destination-worthy restaurant in town. It was also the year a racially charged acid attack occurred against a Latino man entering a South Side taqueria. It was the year Sherman Phoenix rose, literally, out of the ashes of the 2016 Sherman Park riots. An opening that barely preceded Milwaukee becoming the first city to name racism a public health crisis.
For me, calorically, it was also a calendar stretch of one step forward and one back. It was a time of too many fancy burgers in-between swearing off fancy burgers. It was the time of swearing off meat entirely, tempering that to limiting meat, trying to go “Impossible” meat, then realizing my daughter had never been to Sobelman’s. A frigid Monday, empty dining room, impossibly cheery waitress and a jalapeño and three cheese-smashed, double-patty burgers was all it took to fall back off the wagon. Or is it on the wagon? Either way, it was also the summer that felt like I spent half of, at least, inside a car with intermittently functioning AC, contemplating which tiny to-go plastic container of bright green or dark red or burnt orange sauce to douse on yet another pastor taco. I ate at every taco truck in the city in ’19—at least, I tried, or got close, maybe. Out of curiosity. Out of assignment. Out of moral obligation, as some kind of personal corrector to the current tenor of division, of strife, of unease. And as a reminder of comfort, of the spicy, dangerous, gaseous whiff of hope.
Here are some of the other ways I’ll remember ’19.
13. Italian Beef
Rosati’s Pizza 145 W. Oklahoma Ave. 414-489-7191
I grew up in the regionally specific sandwich heaven of Buffalo, N.Y. There, a “beef on weck” order from near any corner bar or grocer or butcher will yield a horseradish-spiked roast beef stack piled within a crusty German baker concoction known as a kimmelweck—a roll topped with caraway seeds and coarse salt grains the likes of which you might use on your sidewalk in February. Whether it’s a little bit drippy or dry, it will likely singe sinuses and finish with unnecessary and addictively enjoyable sodium-ness.
Here, Chicago’s Italian beef is another simple but under-served regional sandwich delicacy. Offering even an apt representation of the au jus dripping bombs that can be found on every other corner in our big city neighbor to the south would be itself somehow singular. Rosati’s is a Chicago chain that serves just such a purpose.
Of course, aesthetically or on paper, there’s not much list-worthy about a soaked Italian hoagie roll barely holding its earthy contents, leaking greasy debris all over wax paper like it was an old Saab whose main attribute was character. But then, you get closer: It’s a living sandwich form of a closeup on an Arby’s commercial, with infinite folds of beef wedged like an over-full linen closet, so bursting with folded towels you’re afraid to open the door. The thin rug of plasticky, half-melted mozz is optional. The glossy, shimmering hot giardiniera should be mandatory, with its bright, peppy, pickled punch.
But this is still a package of lizard brain enjoyment, of Ditka-esque machismo, with an essence and soul that is all two-fisted, garlicky pig-out. It’s the perfect brown meal when you’ve had too many, when it’s too cold, when football is on, when it is followed by a slice of either thin or deep dish—both also apt Chicago representations here. Enjoy life and don’t be ashamed. You can love an Italian beef and still, later, after you swallow, sing along to “the Bears still suck.”
Boo Boo’s Sandwich Shop
12. Sloppy Johnny
Boo Boo’s Sandwich Shop 405 S. Second St. 414-885-1532
A $6 price tag and a name that harkens cafeteria appetites and Adam Sandler jams doesn’t really inspire notions of much other than a nostalgic budget lunch.
But then, you see one on the table in front of you, alongside the inspired rotating roster of obscure hot sauce bottles, ideally next to a steaming bowl of creamy onion-cheddar soup. The sandwich, which derives from a New York City bodega specialty known as a chopped cheese, comes in a fresh-baked, beautiful baguette—crusty outside, pillowy inside—which houses barely visible meat, all the scraps seductively tucked under blankety rivulets of piping white cheddar and pickled peppers and rumors of mushrooms. While I used to come to this address for whiz-spattered ribeye, the Johnny is a bit perplexing in its polish. It is fat guy food all cleaned up, as button-down and put-together a presentation of chopped beef indulgence as might exist in town.
Giving the flat-topped package a second to cool off is the only challenge—along with the lack of alcohol to wash it down or assuage said wait. But there seems to be no other shortcomings to the lunch, or anything about the quirky, aggressively friendly spot that replaced and immediately made us all forget the Walker’s Point Philly Way. The sister biz of next-door Soup Brothers, Boo Boo’s shows the Milwaukee “soup Nazis” comfort food, flavor, rigor and a peculiar touch that extends neatly to the realm of sandwiches.
11. Carbonara
Zarletti 741 N. Milwaukee St. 414-225-0000
It’s hard to balance summer in Milwaukee. There’s an at-once need to make up for six months of living in a place where it hurts your lungs to breath natural air with an overwhelming roster of stuff to do. One solution might be doing something of calendar noteworthiness with a level of relaxed removal. For me, I’ve found an annual tradition of attending Bastille Days’ nighttime 5K. Yet, instead of stretching and putting on too-short shorts, I park myself at a table on Milwaukee Street, sip a Negroni, spoon roasted lamb and peperonata onto charry bread, and I await a big, hearty pasta while watching the more ambitious sweatily charge toward a finish line and away from their true appetites.
Zarletti’s sidewalk café on a summer night can feel very European, very sophisticated, well-heeled. But the carbonara is at its core quite basic. Yes, it is the embodiment of those aspects of Roman food anyone recently back from the Old Country will annoy listeners with: simplicity and freshness. Egg, Pecorino Romano, garlic, onion. Here, too, there is a vomitorium-like abundance of sautéed pancetta. It is a reminder of how that perfect deep bowl of al dente pasta can somehow hit all the comfort points of all the different life epochs: childhood mac n’ cheesiness, first apartment spaghetti nights, that trip to Italy. And now, in the night’s growing darkness and fanfare, it’s a special new tradition to feel apart from the race and part of a different one—finishing every last salty morsel of piggy meat before my stomach says to stop.
10. Tacos de carbon, desebrada, chorizo, pescado
El Tsunami 2222 S. 13th St. 414-255-7791
I’m not entirely sure the silky, sour, creamy, Serrano-based, light green, emulsified salsa found about so many South Side taquerias is homemade—such is the ubiquity. At this point in our relationship, I’ve gone too far to ask. So, I will continue to happily, ignorantly scoop and spurt it over every possible meatstuff served between National and the Airport, from 35th to the Lake.
Of these, the fare at El Tsunami holds a special sort of siren song sway, pulling me past La Canoa, away from my beloved Chicken Palace. In fact, of the two locations of El Tsunami, this is the one without alcohol. And the fact it is still somehow preferred should be all the endorsement necessary. The petite counter-focused diner always feels like a happier, spicier Edward Hopper vision, especially with snow falling and cozy smoke plumes billowing about from the flattop that seems to be always full of approaching meat.
In taco form, an order of carbon yields smoky, charcoal-forward, tiny-diced and juice-spurting nodules. The desebrada is a chocolaty, shredded, deep-stewed beef with the depth and earthiness of the kind of thing grandma might cook when it’s cold out, when she hasn’t seen you in a while, when she got up real early, even by her standards, to start cooking. The chorizo balances salty, greasy, satisfying pork bombast with foodie subtlety—what is that? Cinnamon? The pescado makes fish fries seem benign, lacking abundantly in tortillas and salsa.
There are other routes—the diablo sauce, a color only seen in dangerously fast and tiny sports cars, is a special coat for any fish dish. But it is the tacos, cilantro-y and satisfying, that remain the supreme vessel for green salsa dousing. Either way, I’m leaving with some to go: at least a few containers of verde, just enough to carry a little El Tsunami with me back home, enough to pull me through the too many non-taqueria meals of life.
9. Any pizza
San Giorgio Pizzeria Napoletana 838 N. Old World Third St. 414-276-2876
Maybe it’s because I’m not a car guy and get no thrill from “peeking under the hood,” and I’m not enough of a cook to have much interest in “seeing how the sausage is made,” but I’ve never cared a great deal about the concept of “open kitchen.” They wear aprons, can handle industrial-grade pans, are comfortable working close to a flame—I get it.
But then, I found myself for the first time at San Giorgio’s “pizza bar,” contemplating how beautiful a concept, how perfect a term, when I heard one pizzaiolo, upset about peel placement or arugula quantity or something or another say to the other, “I’ll kill you.” Huh, I thought. They really care.
While few inside the scene seem to put any stock in the VPN certification (the official delegation delineating true Neapolitan style pizza, regulating everything from oven type, to temp, to how much your dough balls must weigh—yes, it’s a bit ridiculous, and yes, it’s a cost), all aspects of the pizza pedigree of San Giorgio show just such immense, aggressive, sure pursuit of craft. In the “Sopranos” sense of the word, all ingredients, all dishes, seem to be worthy of respect.
Try the Quattro Formaggi, a delightfully oily meld of mozzarella, provola, fontina and gorgonzola. Or the San Giorgio, bright with arugula and fennel, salty with crispy pancetta, topped, almost unnecessarily, somehow cohesively, with a sunny side egg. Pay plenty of appropriate focus on anything featuring San Marzano tomato carnage. As a gravy, it goes well with anything from basil to spicy soppressata. As Instagrammable goopage, it is bright and popping, with no need of a filter, reminiscent of all things you picture of Italy in your mind.
It all still ties back to the beating heart. And by that, I mean the 900-degree Stefano Ferrara oven, hand-crafted, of course, in Italy. It is a muscular, room-dominating hulk, a ravishing blue-tiled beauty, fire-kissing, turning doughtiness halfway to toast, letting the Maillard Effect do its enzyme action work, warming, blackening, making a messy marriage of tomato and cheese. Airy corpuscles form around the crust edge, yielding heartening bites of carb char. It is quick cooking, piping-hot delivery for all satisfaction points. What pizza was for us as children, pizza can be for us again, here, downtown on a classy wine-soaked date night or pre-Giannis show.
On subsequent visits, I’ve found myself, while pulling away the first slice, lifting the edge and checking the undercarriage to admire the cooking and note the sweet char. Each pizza pattern is unique from the last, like the spots on a Jaguar. So, maybe I am into looking under the hood, after all.
8. Burger
Foxfire 4177 S. Howell Ave.
The last thing anyone needs from the internet is another burger list. Or even a list with burgers on them, ranked, in some kind of personal application of rules and regulations that strives toward objectivity, scientific method, a justification of juiciness pontificating.
Yet, in 2019, arriving on a listicle is the only validation. And the burger at Foxfire, served on Thursdays out of the back of Hawthorne Coffee, deserves to make listicles that aren’t even covering burgers. So, while Palomino griddles the best sit-down, double-digit-dollar burger in town, and Kopp’s remains the heavyweight of gluttonous eat-in-your-car, American Graffiti old-school comfort and mouthfeel joy, Foxfire strikes the perfect balance between craft and simple. The double-patty package is reasonably affordable, cooked basically to temp and coated with unfussy American cheese. But the availability is limited, enticingly so. It is topped with only pickle and onion, but the counter is suggestively stacked with esoteric hot sauces. It is what to have for workday lunch, generally, in a coffee shop. But the meat crust and luscious give are worthy of foodie discourse and elevated terms like elevated. The duality in a microcosm: The fries here are reminiscent of the stringy, crispy spuds found at McDonald’s, but they can be topped with little-seen Aleppo pepper.
My grandfather used to say that it is impossible to declare a “best,” that such distinction has to be qualified. He lived in the innocent era before internet lists. And, unfortunately, before being able to try the burger at Foxfire.
7. Chicken 65 and Garlic Naan
Café India 2201 S. Kinnickinnic Ave. 414-501-5810
My wife often jokes that I only want to eat food in taco form. And they say all good jokes are based in truth. So, it came in handy that my natural instinct for bread-as-vessel kicked in when, irresponsibly, I ordered my Chicken 65 “extra hot” at the Bay View Café India. Within two fork bites it became clear something more than water was needed to extinguish my boiling taste buds. Garlic naan was handy; then, somehow inspired, I packaged all subsequent chicken bites within the cozy confines of the bendable bread. Thus, my version of Indian tacos was born. Built out of necessity, maintained out of deliciousness.
The Chicken 65 has long been my Indian deep-menu go-to. Huge-bite, deep-fried chunks of tender boneless chicken, bathing in fiery, oily, red-orange stew chocked with hunks of pepper and onion and curry leaf. With its shimmering finish and intense afterburn, it’s a dish that often feels like a turmeric-laced Southern Indian version of Nashville chicken.
Apparently, nobody really knows where the dish name came from—some claim the number just refers to the birth year. Others claim it refers to either the number of chile peppers or the number of pieces of chicken. It doesn’t matter, historians likely have just had too difficult a time stopping eating, slurping water or fanning the mouth. But now, at least, we all have documentation of the dawn of the Chicken 65 taco.
6. Chicken Shawarma, Kufta Kabob Sandwich
Pita Palace 789 W. Layton Ave. 414-988-8100
Sometimes, go-to dishes are made out of convenience, sometime laziness, maybe economics—every now and then, it just comes from plain exceptional, ceaseless taste, the kind you never tire of, week after week, appetite after appetite. When I became lucky enough to stumble into a house purchase a pita toss from this sprawling Layton Ave. chateau of Mediterranean comfort food, the “go-to” calculus began to spin endlessly, like a slowly turning vertical rotisserie.
From hummus to arayes to lentil soup, all of the counter service spot’s dishes ring true. But it’s the sandwich section that brings me back, never wears out, with cheap, voluminous meat torpedoes nestled inside tender, stretchy shrak bread. The chicken yields variable cubes and scraps of spitted meat, some crisp, some soft, velvety garlic sauce making the bundle swim. Or there is the kufta kabob, two skewers-worth of beefy, grainy-textured links, slicked with creamy tahini, the whole deal rife with mint, parsley, sumac, and the kind of otherworldliness that you watch Bourdain for a taste of. Kick either up with a side of the piercing, pungent Thai chile garlic sauce, a sauce with a confrontationally acidic spice profile, a flavor reminiscent of little else at all, just this side of a manageable amount of mother-in-law spleen.
It’s the kind of place you spot from the air on approaches back to General Mitchell, a giant red neon glow of “Welcome Home”; the kind of place your realtor might not mention, but you find it and know your property values will sustain, that it will also salve rote Mondays of yawns and kitchen ennui for years to come. It’s the kind of place you are endlessly happy to live nearby, for when you don’t know what to cook, or, really, even when you do.
Momo Mee
5. Xiao Long Bao Dumplings
Momo Mee 110 E. Greenfield Ave. 414-316-9003
“Eat with care,” the menu warns—an enticing challenge, like something you might find on a waiver from a restaurant you learned of from “Man vs. Food.” To me, it reminds of an internet-learning wormhole of food blogs and Youtube channels on where to find the Shanghai delicacy in a back-alley shop in Chicago’s Chinatown; and, more importantly, how to actually eat a dumpling filled with soup. As an experienced Xiao Long Bao taster—I had it twice—I can state the process is mostly so: Put a drop of soy sauce in your soup spoon, lift the dumpling from the top, place in the spoon, nibble a tiny hole in the top as a steam valve, slurp some broth out, and then, when the temp feels right, shoot it like an oyster. Then you sit back and feel self-satisfied, sated.
But as long as you don’t puncture and spurt, or, really, as long as you “eat with care,” you are bound to end up happy, letting umami zest and warm salty pork wedges in hand-crafted dough baste the tongue. The disparity of eating this, here, in the base level of a building seemingly still warm from the factory, hits with the arrival of the steaming bamboo basket. Or, really, with the Schezuan wontons or the Cantonese clay pots—anything you can order amidst the plasticizing Walker’s Point condo sprawl. As the neighborhood loses its soul, its character, one more hastily constructed Millennial molehill at a time, Momo Mee more than holds the line.
4. Alambre
La Flamita 20th St. and National Ave.
Certainly one of the buzziest events in town this winter would have to be a recent Ash Kitchen takeover, featuring James Beard-nominated Minnesota chef Jorge Guzman. The spot, an open-hearth concept from Dan Jacobs and Dan Van Rite, is the new restaurant of the Iron Horse Hotel. The event spotlighted Mexican street food. Yes, at one of the priciest hotels in town. Black beans were $6; rice, a cool $5. And while probably delicious, probably well-intentioned, it sounds a bit like paying Fiserv prices to see a really great high school team: gimmicky at best, condescending at worst, and to any that spend time contemplating what and how we eat, a bit puzzling. If you want taco truck fare, why don’t you go to an actual taco truck?
That very same Sunday night, anyone with the hankering could have taken a short cruise west, on National, and subjected their appetites to La Flamita’s weekly special of one-buck pastor tacos. Cut by a big man with a large knife, direct from the trompo—one of the few of the Lebanese-rooted vertical spits in town—greasy, salty, piggy turns of earthiness are spiked by pineapple hunks, upped by arbol salsa that pokes through each bite like it has something to prove. Or, even better, it being Sunday and a day of fun after all, you could have an alambre. Mix your pastor with asada and with chorizo and with goopy, melting queso, the whole thing congealing into a warm, grandmotherly embrace of a taco mix mash, everything punctuated by peppers and onions. Plopped on top is a steaming baked potato, because they want you to be happy and full.
It is the ideal meal for someone who can’t decide but also wants it all, who won’t settle. But you can also stay comfortably on the street, barely 12 bucks in the hole, with leftovers aplenty, alone in the car, beyond judging eyes or the formalities of waiters, to ponder life and appetite decisions and wonder how many more you have room for.
3. Tlayuda
La Costeña Café 5823 W. Burnham St. 414- 292-7190
If you have little kids, you probably go to the Domes 300 times or so per year, or so it seems; and because it’s there, you probably go to Honeydip Donuts across the street maybe just a few times less. Heading south then, passing La Costeña and its beckoning redness, the HGTV optics of an A-frame mini house-cum-taco truck is refreshing, promising in its cutesiness, alluring if only for the hope of something different.
And different it is. Start with a pastor, my personal barometer of a taqueria’s worth. So often, simple scraps of salted pink pork do the trick, but here it is decidedly less piggy, moister, deeper, somehow more seasoned and cheffy. Or try the asada, a 100-level taco order, but here redolent of butcher freshness, liberal salt, flattop love. Really you can tell from “hola,” by the friendliness, by the slowness, by the perfectly-quoted wait times from the counter man: Costena may well be the premier taco truck in town.
Then, working your way through the menu, you get here, to a Mexican pizza, a NYC-slice-consistency, corn-shelled ship of salty flavor. The tlayuda is basically begging for you to take a picture, posturing with the bright allure of the flag of our neighbors to the south, popping with the reds of tomato and chipotle salsa, the greens of lettuce, avocado, the whites of queso, svelte sour cream, it all kept grounded by a swab of refried beans, topped by a generous smattering of your carne of choice. Objectively, that choice should be chorizo, the grease-running ground sausage bits so rife with garlic, so equally charry and wet that it makes any other kind of meat cover seem a bit tepid, a bit too healthy.
And sometimes, this is how traditions are born, out of a need to get a little person out of the house, out of a desire to let them sleep off dreams of cacti and sausage fruit trees from Namibia in the backseat while dad sates creeping hunger and insoluble curiosity. Such is the joy of family, when you realize even proximity to Sobelman’s can be beat by this, a whole new world of car-meal, of pizza-esque joy, of something different. Long live the Domes.
2. Brisket Burger, Hot Chicken Sandwich, Pimento Cheese, Cheese Curds
Palomino 2491 S. Superior St. 414-747-1007
It’s hard to keep track: Where are we all now on Palomino? Are we still mad they raised prices? Disappointed that it’s less bar and more restaurant? Stuck in a provincial mode that makes us yearn for cheap frozen tots and Bingo? Are we upset that they took a look in the mirror, didn’t coast, made an effort and made their food much, much better? Or have we all just kind of forgotten it?
Maybe I shouldn’t question and just appreciate the fact I can walk in on a Friday night at 8 p.m., find whatever table I want or a spot at the bar and order any one or combo of my favorite things to eat in Milwaukee.
There’s no better way to ruin an appetite and a doctor’s wishes than starting a feast with the curds. The elongated, oblong bricks of a battered, sheeny shell, barely housing liquefying magma ooze, seem to get almost transported from the fryer to wherever I’m sitting. Such is the temperature, the still oil-shimmering, post-bath promise. Stretchy and rich, airy and crispy, endlessly goopy, it’s a snack only matched in Southern-leaning decadence by the pimento cheese. This is piquant-popped velvetiness, the dream of what grown-up grilled cheese can embody when plopped atop the accompanying charred toast.
It takes will, recklessness and irresponsibility to keep going at this point. The hot chicken thigh, barely saddled inside a buttery brioche, is helped by two things: greasy slicks of mayo and house hot sauce aid gullet passage; also, the heft is constructed so that, if you put it down, it might fall apart. One must push forth in delicious punishment. Then, there is the brisket burger. No other burger in town is so good at avoiding overtopping, overhyping, overpricing, a balance of kitchen art and pleasure. Like it is no big deal: fresh ground meat, American cheese, onion, pickle, silky mayo-like special sauce. Here is what it would feel like if you could sit down at a Bay View bar and eat a Kopp’s masterpiece sided by an IPA on a chill Friday night, where you can also remember your growth-spurt, 16-year-old appetite, even while pushing 40.
If there were ever a case to be made for it being OK to find a rut, to never stray or explore, to find your caloric heaven and never think about going anywhere else, Palomino would lead my argument.
1. Bahn Mi
Pho Hai Tuyet 204 W. Layton Ave.
There’s rarely a person that borrows my phone that doesn’t make the comment: “You have a Pho Hai Tuyet app?” It’s there, near the front, proudly prominent, a bit out of place near Lyft and Instagram because it’s a by-the-airport dive in a converted fast food shack with endless out-of-commission fish tanks and, for some reason, a stage. It is also known, has garnered a bit of a cult following for a fat guy sandwich of near-perfection. Or, it was, actually.
Pho Hai shuttered quietly, to the shock of those of us who thought the sandwich would always be there to serve big French baguette beds, crispy, succulent pork scraps, garlicky mayo, heaps of cilantro and crispy jalapeño punches.
To write about it hurts, like a eulogy, where you need to remember the bad and mix it with the strange to paint a picture. As it happens I have a friend who informed me that, once, while eating inside, he could hear something audibly scampering in the ceiling panels. Out of loyalty, out of sandwich love, I practiced willful ignorance. I have another friend, a writer sort, who sports a Pho Hai polo shirt in his author bio pic. It seems like some sort of hipster ironicism, unless you know how much he loves—loved—the sandwich. And really, what are we but not physical manifestations of our past meals and meal memories? A collection of those calories.
Even as we look ahead, to more eating, to big city, big event pedigree, to maybe ending the national embarrassment, to 2020, to a promise of new vision, as we yearn for responsibility and reason, to, well, to... who knows? Whatever happens, whatever is next, I will never delete my Pho Hai Tuyet app.
Interested in more dining roundups? See our Dining Lists page here.
