Discovering Alambres in Milwaukee

Beef or pork? Tripa? What about lengua? I can’t live without at least trying every chorizo presented to me. And with any decent Mexican restaurant even pollo should be on the table for discussion—hinting at the biggest problem within the greatest, highest-varietal world cuisine: What do you order when you want everything?

Anyone with the maybe embarrassing experience of eating out with me at a proper Mexican spot has probably witnessed, with some gastrointestinal wonder, or maybe a guffaw, a personal solution to the conundrum. It is what I’ve long deemed the “entree-plus” method. What you do is order, say, a torta dinner, but then, politely holding your finger up to indicate to the waitress you are not yet done with your wish list, also ask for a couple of tacos. For the side.

Maybe get the shrimp diablo, and team it with a simple desebrada number. Try the bistec ranchero, but with a sidecar of cecina. Possibilities become endless, but within, the basic premise is simple: to run the meat gamut, as much as possible, exponentially increase your lipid-and-sauce variations, skip the fear of missing out, make lunch a cultural deep dive—in the process achieving your Epicurean best self, spinning life into a fete of curiosity, not restraint, and turning the table into one of those fashionably messy, rustic Bon Appetit cover photo shoots.

But what if the answer to the ubiquitous meat question, with all the options, all the exotic-sounding proteins, is, more simply—in that annoying social media vernacular vain—“Yes, please!”

Enter the Mexico City specialty known as the Alambre. Spanish for “wire,” the word is indeed rooted in a meat combo cooked on a skewer. But it is a shish kabob in spirit only. In the real world it exists as a single plate amalgamation, a meat party, that is actually more like a sizzling late-night drunk skillet of all the most satisfying things found in the furthest crevices of the fridge.

Among the multitude varietals, the basic offering mixes steak, chopped bacon, bell peppers, onions, melty cheese. Chorizo is a common contributor as well. Ham can sometimes be considered a healthy alternative—which tells you much about the nature of the dish. Avocado is also a usual suspect. But remember, as it tells itself every morning when looking in the mirror, that is good fat. A blank slate for Fieri-level exploration when sided by tortillas and some salsa, the alambre is a vessel of a DIY taco tour through a good Mexican grocery store.

My introduction came on 25th Street and Greenfield Avenue, where the sadly-shuttered El Canaveral once specialized in the plate. It is a meal that still exists like something out of Proust, the memory triggering hunger daydreams of winter nights spent hunkered over a posse of a meat pile, a craggy, cheesy sponge for their quintet of creamy salsas, each building on the last in hue, heat and intensity. What was truly unique, in those Canaveral salad days, was I only felt the need to order one thing. One word, even, levied to the waitress, enough to hold all the Mexican meal promise one might reasonably ask for. I often bemoan the loss, wistfully ponder the empty husk of the handsome and cozy corner barroom, consider the death of all that smoking meat waft potential. But in loving pursuit of those bite memories, I set out to chronicle what remains, to capture at least a loose roadmap of Milwaukee’s best single-steaming-plate Mexican marriage of foodstuffs.