Milwaukee Restauranting: Meritage Review

Via http://meritage.us

We recently tried Meritage for the first time, a "new American" cuisine restaurant in the Washington Heights area of Milwaukee that has been open since 2007.  After I responded to the question of "What do you feel like tonight" with a careful response of "American fusion," the hubs did some research to find a lesser known restaurant of that type that we hadn't actually been to yet.

Meritage is led by Chef Jen Kelly (a less common female chef) who has held chef positions at several other Milwaukee restaurants after originating in California.  The Meritage menu focuses on local, but particularly seasonal ingredients.  The menu available was full of fall inspired dishes with kale, spinach, apples, pears, and cider.  Here is what we ordered:

 

Roasted Pear and Fennel Crostini: Buttermilk blue cheese, pears, fennel and shallots on crostini with red wine rosemary reduction.  Good flavor, but since crostini is so hard to eat in a clean manner anyways, I would have liked to have had the toppings sliced a bit smaller.

 

Fried Chicken and Waffles: Potato waffle with fried chicken, spicy coleslaw and red pepper jelly. In-cred-I-ble!  Best dish we had all night.  The flavor was incredible in the chicken, the waffle wasn't too sweet and the slaw really balanced the dish out.  I would totally go back and order three of these.

Fried Chicken and Waffles
Via yelp review

 

Toasted Farro Salad: Autumnal vegetables and toasted faro with maple syrup apple cider vinaigrette, walnuts and asiago cheese.  This was a very "fall feeling" dish, and a good vegetarian option with healthy ingredients, so it was not heavy at all.

 

Braised Pork Shoulder: Pork shoulder braised in apple cider and milk with sage rice and sautéed spinach (from the specials).  I thought the milk and cider sauce was delicious, but we would have liked it just slightly thicker.  The rice and spinach had good flavor, and the pork was very tender.

Click here to check out the Meritage menu.

 

Other restaurant thoughts:

Pro: Quality wine list and craft cocktail menu

Pro: Attentive service from the entire house staff

Con: Ambiance and décor were underwhelming, bland, and seemed less fancy than the food

The experience overall was very good, but the décor in the restaurant seemed unfocused and uneven compared to the food.  Luckily, I was too busy going nuts about the fried chicken and waffles to spend too much time noticing.

Across the street from the restaurant is a Valentine coffee shop (one of Milwaukee's best micro roasters) and a gelato shop that looks amazing as well if you are looking to round out your Washington Heights night out!

Bottom line? We would go back for the chicken and waffles, the cocktail menu and wine, and for all the other things on the menu that look great but we didn't get to try.

Fall in Wisconsin can teach us a hell of a lesson

Forget summer with all of the bugs and the sunburn.  The best part about Wisconsin is the fall.  And yes, the winters are often pretty unfortunate, but there would be no fall if the world wasn't preparing for winter so that makes it worth it.

There are so many great things about fall (ref: post about caramel apples), but as we were walking outside today for an unseasonably warm and perfect fall day, it occurred to me why I like the colorful trees so much.  The obvious reason why everyone likes the fall colors is it is beautiful to watch the green trees turn into an array of bright colors.  The even better part of that story, is that those are the trees' true colors.

The real story, is that the trees are stuck being green all of the time but during fall, their authentic true colors come out.  And we all love to see their real and unique color patterns.  What a nice lesson for our own loves taught in nature.  It is a poetic reminder about how much better we can be when we settle into our own true selves, being authentic and comfortable with our colors.

Until next year, when the trees all turn into conformist assholes wearing green next spring.  I'm just kidding - without the summer of green, the colors of fall would lose their allure.  Without dark, we wouldn't appreciate the light.

How leaves show their true colors - a science lesson

An apple a day keeps the doctor away. And invites diabetes.

It's here!  Caramel apple season is here!  This kicks off my incredibly ridiculous fall habit of eating, oh, say, one caramel apple a day.  There, I said it.  And it is on the internet so it must be true.

Here is the making of a quality caramel apple:

1. Green apples: Normally they are too sour, but this is a critical balance to the caramel.
2. Jimmies: You can get them covered in all sorts of toppings, but I tend to eat only one kind - caramel with jimmies.  I don't eat nuts, and some of the chocolate ones are too much.
3. Good caramel: I don't make them at home because it is messy, but please, don't get the kind with those sheets that fold over the apple.  That's gross.

Where do I get such a large quantity of caramel apples?  I will tell you, but do me a solid and don't buy them out before I get there.

1. Amy's Gourmet Apples: Based in Cedarburg, Wisconsin, these are the absolute best apples that exist.  If you live far away though, don't fret because you can buy them online.  I can't eat these every day because I would have to start donating plasma just to afford it.  But they are totally worth the money.
2. Pick 'n Save: A much more affordable option for a daily apple, but still quite delicious.  I once trolled around the produce department for 45 minutes waiting for the guy to start hand dipping the apples on a Sunday morning.  I am sure the loss prevention people had me pegged for a creeper.  At another Pick 'n Save near my work, I had to start diversifying my route after I interrogated the guy about what time and how often he makes the apples, and then he said, "Hey, you're the caramel apple lady!" a few weeks later after he had seen me clean them out of the jimmied apples for a few weeks straight.
3. Local orchards: Buyer beware, you have to ask questions regarding the type of apple they use, it is not usually green apples.  And, if you plan to buy in bulk like I do, test one before to buy many.

Now that you know my dirty little fall secret, you can join in too.  You also know what sort of currency I accept for bribes.  Whatever, I don't apologize for it at all.  I only do it for like, three months out of the year.