“What do you want to do for dinner?” John asked me from our hotel room in Glendale, a few miles from downtown Milwaukee.
He had his laptop open and he was scanning through sites like Urban Spoon.
“If you have a hankering for something, let’s go for it,” I posed. “Or, let’s go somewhere downtown or along the river. I think there’s been a lot of development along the river. Should be able to find something we’d like.”
John took note of several screen maps that showed high concentrations of eateries before putting his travel PC to sleep. He had a general idea of where the Third Ward was and another neighborhood close to the famous Allen Bradley clock tower that seemed worth checking out.
As we walked towards the car, I said, “Do we have to get back on the highway? Can’t we just take streets and boulevards? I like to see a city at ground level, not from a concrete clover leaf.”
He smiled. I think I discovered his preferred way to explore a new environment.
We drove down Port Washington, which turned into Martin Luther King, which turned into something else before we turned on Water Street and started scoping out the gallery district. We watched the landscape change from working class to seriously gritty to artsy to business back to young and funky again. We actually saw where people lived and met friends for drinks. We learned the name of the local convenience store chain.
“What do think of that place?” John pointed to a bar-restaurant with a crowded beer garden.
“I’m making a mental note of it,” I said. “We can come back to it later. Let’s keep going.”
We drove a little further then, when the neighborhood started getting too Old Milwaukee industrial, decided to turn around.
“Let’s just park the car and walk around,” John suggested.
I needed no convincing. We were in what the guide books referred to as the Historic Third Ward, which was overflowing with galleries, bars and eateries. We found a place to park (for free, no less) and started roaming the streets, looking into the windows of the restaurants we passed trying to get a feel for their crowd and cuisine, occasionally looking at the street numbers etched into the brick face of buildings we passed so we could find our way back to the car later.
“What about that place?” John pointed to what seemed to be a small storefront restaurant. It had a chichi, minimalist look, and I was nervous about spending a lot of money.
I decided to go in and ask to see a menu anyway. It was a beautiful, dark dining room, spare on decorations but somehow feeling very warm and welcoming. The dinner menu was pricey, but the hostess was quick to point out that they had a bar in the back where they served incredible appetizers. The restaurant was called Hinterland. Per my online dictionary, hinterland is “the remote or less developed parts of a country; back country.” It was the perfect name. We didn’t exactly travel the back roads to get there, but we could only have noticed the place by looking around at ground level.
We wandered to the back room where they had a projection TV playing the Cubs-Brewers game and floor to ceiling wooden racks filled with a great assortment of wines. The menu featured such unusual items as fish collar (we soon learned the most flavorful part of the fish) and beet salad with premium blue cheese. They billed themselves a gastropub. They fulfilled both parts of their name with very creative menu items any gastronome would plotz over and a great variety of their own micro brewed beers. At only $5 a flight, we couldn’t resist.
We made friends with the waiter cum bartender, Russ, who was more than professional while thoroughly chatting the patrons up. He introduced us to the chef and owner who, apparently, had won awards for his stellar kitchen skills.
Driving back to our hotel, happily satiated, we felt like we had just discovered a great secret; a place only locals and heavy duty foodies knew about. We probably would never have made the discovery if we were relying on a recommendation from our hotel clerk, or if we were in a hurry to get somewhere, or if we had to plan in advance where we were going. We would never have discovered Hinterland if we weren’t ready to commit to roving around – on the ground.
Discovering a wonderful restaurant by simply wandering the streets is no small thing.
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