Here are some links to interesting stories, interviews, podcasts, and restaurant reviews that I found this week.
Bill Buford (of Heat fame) takes an in-depth look at why the Food Network sucks ass. (I cannot believe they cancelled Molto Mario!!!)
Peggy over at Last Night’s Salad Party has some words for Olive Garden
Dennis Getto reviews Siego’s Steakhouse in Sussex.
As a sidenote, I ate here about 6 months ago and I was very impressed. Benihanna’s in Milwaukee is one of the worst, most overpriced restaurants in the City (Getto gave it 2.5 stars, it deserved 1) and it really soured me on the whole teppanyaki restaurant thing. My parents ate at Seigo’s and loved it so we went with them. I found the food to be above average. The salmon was cooked to perfection and was slightly caramelized on the outside and moist on the inside with not a hint of fishy flavor that you find at many other restaurants. The soy sauce was all the fish needed to accent its flavor. The shrimp was very good as well as were the scallops and Filet Mignon.
The whole theatrics thing is really why people go here, so a review should take that into consideration and it shouldn’t weigh negatively on a review as it does in Getto’s review. You could tell Getto has contempt for this kind of restaurant before he entered the place, so he was biased from the get go. He had trouble with the chopsticks, so instead of asking for new ones, he pried them apart with his knife just so he could work that into his review. Getto is notorious for ordering things that he knows he won’t like or things that are labeled as something traditional but are prepared differently just to rip the restaurant. Last year he ordered boneless chicken wings from the Hotel Metro bar and then ripped them for being boneless. That’s like ordering a burger and ripping the restaurant because its not steak.
Also, two downtown restaurants closed their doors this October, Third Street Pier & Vivo Urban Grill. To be honest, I think that there are just too many choices downtown for all of these trendy joints to stay open. Though I would argue that the success rate in Milwaukee is probably far greater than picky places like Chicago and NYC. Third Street Pier, even though they had changed their menu to appeal to a more contemporary palate, still suffered from its association with the other Weissgerber places in Waukesha County (Gasthaus, Seven Seas, Golden Mast) even though it was under different ownership. Though I haven’t eaten there in a while, I’ll miss stopping in for a drink after basketball games downtown. Vivo was the hottest spot in town when it opened a few years back but like most trendy places, the fad dies as new places open up. It takes a truly special restaurant to stay open and remain popular. Vivo’s menu was Latin-ish and the food was really good, though if I am looking for Latin American influenced food, my first thought is almost always SolFire, which I consider to be one of the best places in the City. The location is great, so I assume something new will pop up within the next 6 months.
Eat Wisconsin 