Scholarship table
Across the street from the Schroeder Hotel, today it is the downtown Hilton, there was the original Frenchies, it was next door to a strip joint. With the smell of the stock yards and breweries Milwaukee had an industrial heart which has mostly been exported. Not a political statement, just a little history. Those were the days, we even had electric busses down by Schusters where the busses turn the corner around. Understand if you don't understand a little Polish-English translation.
speaking of wild bores.... Where exactly did you eat in Milwaukee besides Real Chili?
Exactly!
I was in Downtown Indy a few years ago and it felt like every single restaurant was a chain. Went hunting for a local joint and there was nothing (other than bars). Had brunch at a nice spot in the Broad Ripple neighborhood that weekend, but I got the feeling that neighborhood would get old after about 3 weeks.
I was in Downtown Indy a few years ago and it felt like every single restaurant was a chain. Went hunting for a local joint and there was nothing (other than bars).
You didn't look hard enough, Harry & Izzy's, St. Elmo's, ANYTHING in Fountain Square, ANYTHING on Mass Ave, the City Market and Capital Grill. Took me about 15 seconds to think of that list, doesn't even cover the restaurants in the Broad Ripple area or other areas of Indy.http://www.visitindy.com/indianapolis-indys-top-25-local-restaurants.Hoosiers get a bad rap, sometimes rightfully so, but there are local and fresh choices. Problem is, the chains can dominate any metropolitan area (Hard Rock, Rock Bottom, Dick's, etc).
Wow, I'm very concerned for Benny. Being able to mimic Myron Medcalf's writing so closely implies an oncoming case of dementia.
LOL!!! Thanks for nitpicking Benny!!!! So, should we define what's a chain? Is a chain 100+ restaurants across the US. Is a restaurant with less than 20 locations unique enough to have a local flare? Are we railing against microwave heater restaurants vs those that have an actual chef on staff? Two sister restaurants with different menu's unique enough? We should probably rule out all Italian and Mexican restaurants across the US as unique since they all serve similar food....
Also, this entire thread assumes that all chain restaurants are crap. Is that necessarily the case? I know a lot of them are, but I have had a nice meal at many "chains". After all, if a restaurant is so good that it is jammed all the time, doesn't it often make sense to open up another location?
Yes, and no, when I did a lot of travel I would, for convenience, eat at the hotel or a chain like Outback, Macaroni Grill, or even a salad at Burger-King. When I roamed around the third ward in MKE I found nothing but bars selling food. No table cloths, lots of noise, the usual Midwest sports bars.
Karl Rachies, where I also had dinner with my parents in 1965, and the Pfister. Some place on a park within walking distance of the hotel and we walked around the third ward and found nothing of interest.The dinner at the reunion banquet at the new union was very good for banquet style dinning. Breakfast at the Pfister is outstanding.
So let me get this straight. You came back to Milwaukee for a Marquette 50th reunion for a couple days, in the "new" union that is 30 years old. You walked around one specific neighborhood, couldn't find anything to your liking, and that was enough to convince you that Milwaukee doesn't have any good restaurants?
Yes, and getting back to my criteria for a "good restaurant"; table cloths, waiters or waitresses with clean uniforms, an on premise chef, fresh ingredients, no boilable bags, no microwaves, unwrapped butter, hot bread, fresh flowers, quiet room, etc.. Therefore, no corporate dinning qualifies for as a good restaurant. And BTW the union is new, nice and typical of the architecture for it's time, but new nonetheless. In Vegas I found Gallagher's steak house, same as NYC, now that is a steak house. Dry aged beef is something you can't find in New Jersey or Milwaukee for that matter. Back in the 1960's we had world class restaurants in Milwaukee. The follow-on generations have no idea what qualifies as a good restaurant.A baked potato without aluminum foil, a Caesar salad made from scratch with a fresh egg, coffee in a saucer with a doily, I know, I'm just a bore....sorry.
Milwaukee has dry-aged beef steakhouses. Carnevour, Mason Street Grill....Again, you should probably spend more than one weekend in town every 50 years before you bash the restaurant scene.
Yes, and getting back to my criteria for a "good restaurant"; table cloths, waiters or waitresses with clean uniforms, an on premise chef, fresh ingredients, no boilable bags, no microwaves, unwrapped butter, hot bread, fresh flowers, quiet room, etc.. Therefore, no corporate dinning qualifies as a good restaurant. And BTW the union is new, nice and typical of the architecture for it's time, but new nonetheless. In Vegas I found Gallagher's steak house, same as NYC, now that is a steak house. Dry aged beef is something you can't find in New Jersey or Milwaukee for that matter. Back in the 1960's we had world class restaurants in Milwaukee. The follow-on generations have no idea what qualifies as a good restaurant.A baked potato without aluminum foil, a Caesar salad made from scratch with a fresh egg, coffee in a saucer with a doily, I know, I'm just a bore....sorry. The best restaurants in America, NYC, Nantucket, Las Vegas, and Washington D.C., Boston as honorable mention. Second Division: Atlanta, Dallas, Wichita, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Milwaukee.Third Division: St. Louis, Pittsburgh, New Orleans
There's New York and Chicago, and then there's everyone else.Milwaukee dining is no better or worse than any other decent sized city in America.