The Cheese State

The first trip I had to Milwaukee, in some time, wasn’t that eventful.   I went up to see Cage The Elephant.  I thought it was a good deal originally because they had a show and all you had to do to get in was buy an album.  I have been a pretty big fan of the band since seeing them a couple of years ago and by pretty big fan I mean I causally listen to their album every now and then.

The show was at the Exclusive Music Company, it was a record store.  Despite the fact that I paid for the preorder in order to get in, I didn’t get a chance to get the lithograph I was promised since they were on a first come first serve basis.  I’m guessing once they all ran out they just let everyone bum rush the place.  This was slightly irritating.  I guess I should have gotten in line a little earlier.

It didn’t matter much because I still got to see them preform a rather short but good four song set.  It was done acoustic and was their four best songs.  I enjoyed the show quite a bit, but the line to get my things autographed was far too long.  Not to mention the fact that I no longer had anything to get autographed. 

From there we walked around the corner to a little speakeasy.  The Standard Tavern is a bit off of the main drag and it was a cool little spot.  Their beer selection was pretty big, and that is something that is not uncommon to Milwaukee bars in general.  If there’s two things Wisconsinites know how to do well it is cheese and beer.  The bartender was pretty quick which is all that you can ask for in a place like this.

The one thing that could be a plus or minus depending on your mood could be the music.  It is an interesting mix of Jazz and oldies.  The musical range is from 1930’s to 1950’s.  Anything is worth listening to after you’ve tossed back a few drinks anyway.  One of the things I did like about the bar was that the sink was on the outside of the restroom.  That way if you saw someone come out of the bathroom, you could look disapprovingly if they did not wash their hands after.

The hotel we stayed at was the Doubletree MilwaukeeRiver.  It was only a couple miles away from where we were.   The room was pretty spacious and I had a good view of the river.  Honestly it wasn’t exactly much to brag about.

Epic cheese curds of amazingness

My second visit to Milwaukee went by way of Madison.  DMC and I drove to Madison in order to see Animal Collective.  I saw it as a feasible option because of their Chicago show being sold out (later it was moved to a larger venue and more tickets being released, but we were in too deep by this point).  Besides, I may not be much for road trips, but I do love road trips.

We stopped at The Old Fashioned to get dinner.  I couldn’t come to a place called The Old Fashioned and not try the Old Fashioned.  Some might describe Old Fashioned as an outdated disgusting grandpa drink.  I am still admittedly more of a Manhattan person, but I had to go for a change up.  You have to keep people on their toes you know.  The drink was well mixed and sweet but not too sweet.

For an appetizer we decided on the cheese curds.  It was kind of a no brainer since the y appeared on Food Network’s Best Thing I Ever Ate and that was one of the draws to get us into the place.  They came with a choice of sauces and thinking I would probably never be there again, I thought why not pay the extra 50 cents per sauce in order to try them all.

Old Fashioned at The Old Fashioned

The cheese curds were little fired pillows of heaven.  Nice and crisp.  The cheese inside was absolutely amazing and some of the best that I have tasted.  I thought that the sauces would be overkill and to be honest, the curds themselves kind of don’t even really need much else.  The sauces do accent things pretty well, and did make a nice place for me to dip the fries that came with my burger.

The sauces were:

-Ranch: Pretty much self-explanatory and one of the only ones I probably could have skipped, but then again, ranch is a perfect combo with cheese.

-Roasted Garlic: My hands down favorite, but admittedly I am a bit of a garlic fiend.

-Blue Tiger:  Which I didn’t know what to expect but it kind of tastes like a spicy blue cheese dressing

-One of them was pink, and I thought it was the best to be fair our server didn’t tell us which one was which.

Burger at The Old Fashioned

The burger was also a huge win.  You can’t argue with how great value it was to get a burger that was grass feed beef and locally raised pork all with that Wisconsin cheddar.  Looking at the menu I knew which burger to choose almost immediately and I knew it was going to be the one that will be affectionately remembered in my heart as the number thirty.  Everything you wanted was on this burger, perfect juicy beef, crisp thick bacon, fresh sharp cheddar, more of that wonderful garlic sauce, crispy fried onions and of course an over medium egg to top everything off.

Real burgers have that soft cooked egg.  There is no better feeling than to pick up your burger, take a big bite and have that yolk run down your hands coating the burger in its magical goodness.  It wasn’t long before I finished that burger and was nearly too full to walk.  We had about an hour left before the concert, so we opted for a couple more drinks.  The Old Fashioned has a beer list that truly does a Wisconsin establishment proud.

Animal Collective Live in Madison

Our next stop was to see Animal Collective.  DMC was really excited about the concert but I was slightly more ambivalent because I have never been a really big fan.  I did listen to their music a bit before the show but the only song that was really recognizable to me was “My Girls”.

Hindsight is 20/20 though.  After the fact I started listening to Centipede Hz and I kind of feel in love with the album.   There was something about the song Today's Supernatural that hearing it kind of shook me to the core.  It has that good bit of edginess and is sort of a celebration of randomness.

The show started quite late and in the meantime we got a drink.  I was so upset by the pricing because the drinks were outrageously priced even by Chicago standards.  $16 is an absurd price to pay for a rail long island, concert or not.  Especially at such a small venue in a college town with incredibly sticky floors.  So sticky that at one point during the performance DMC tried to jump which ended up in a miserable fail since his feet stuck to the floor.

An hour late we finally got our first opening act.  Deradoorian gave a very interesting performance, but after being up from being on my way to work since 4 am, her vibe was just far too mellow for me at the moment.  It wasn’t as though I didn’t find her music interesting at the time, I was just not in the mood for it.

The performance was a lot better than I expected it to be.  I truly underestimated how entertaining psychedelic rock can be.  It is rare that I walk away from a musical performance really impressed after being mostly unfamiliar with the artist, but they nailed it in this case.  To be honest, I really couldn’t hear well enough to make out most of the lyrics, but it was impressive none the less.  The stage setup was pretty crazy, with giant teeth that played videos on them.  It was one of those see to believe type of performances.

Duck Confit Poutine

We took a drive from Madison to Milwaukee in order to check in to the Hilton Milwaukee City Center.  We checked in pretty late around 1 am.  We opted for parking across the street in the lot vice the parking garage.  This saved $18, as 24 hours of parking in the lot was only four bucks.  I used my points in order to reserve the room.  I usually keep them for emergencies, but in this case it was too big of a difference in value between points and the actual price of the room that I elected to use some of my points.

The hotel is a little older, but is very nice on the interior.  It gives you a bit of that nostalgic feel, similar to that you feel when you walk into an iconic hotel like The Drake.  We were upgraded to the parlor suite, which had tons of space and a kind of weird setup.  It was a very large open room which is setup much like a studio apartment.  Nothing to divide the bedroom from the rest of the room.  That aside it was still a very nice room.

Very Tasty Cupcake

The next morning we had breakfast at Comet Café.  When it came time to wake up we elected to sleep in rather than get something to eat for free from the hotel.  This turned out to be an excellent decision as the food at Comet Café was pretty awesome.  I spent a bit looking at the menu before I finally decided.  It was a hard decision to make at first but after looking at the menu for a bit it was a no brainer.  I had to go with the duck confit poutine and a bowl of tomato soup.

There were so many things on the menu that I wanted to try, but when else could I be able to go for a poutine made with duck confit, Fontina cheese and beer gravy.  I must admit, I didn’t want to eat anything for hours after this extremely heavy breakfast but it was worth it.  I even took most of the soup home for lunch later.  The fries were amazingly crisp, and the duck was plentiful considering the low price point.  The beer gravy lends a slightly hoppiness as well.  It is the perfect way to enjoy French fries.

Cupcake Box From Comet Cafe

DMC ended up getting the fruit fetish and tofu scramble.  How you are a vegetarian and pass up on the opportunity for their vegan deep fried barbecue ribs is completely mindboggling to me.  Needless to say, this place has an abundance of options for vegan/vegetarian types.  Though we were stuffed we decided to take a couple of cupcakes to go and we opted for the apple caramel and chocolate vanilla.  I thought the apple caramel was better but I am a sucker for caramel so go figure.

Next up we made it to Lakefront Brewery just in time to go on the tour.  The tour was a blast.  Amazingly cheap and entertaining and is well worth it for what you get in beer alone.  You even get a coupon to use later on at surrounding restaurants.  Unfortunately, after the big breakfast and such we were much too full to take advantage of it.  Beer tour after a huge meal is not necessarily the best idea.

Inside Tour At Lakefront Brewery

On the tour for only six bucks you get four tokens, each good for a 6 ounce pour or you can trade two of them for a bottle of beer.  Even better you get a plastic cup that you can trade in at the end of your tour for a Lakefront Brewery pint glass.  I’m not going to go in depth as to what happens on the tour as it would ruin some of the very entertaining jokes.  The tour goes through the very interesting history of Lakefront Brewery as well as the history of beer.  I will admit that the brewery itself is much smaller than you might expect.