Restaurant Review: The Wicked Hop

The Wicked Hop is in the Historic 3rd ward of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It's downtown on the corner of St. Paul and Broadway very close to the Milwaukee Public Market. We actually walked past it early in the day and I was fascinated by the sign and the great outdoor seating area. We met our other friends there just in time for Happy Hour or rather their Hoppy Hour and a good meal.

The staff was super friendly and the menu was reasonably priced. Plus everything was delicious. Their Hoppy Hour and specials drink menu was great and varies on a daily basis. And they have a long Happy Hour, Monday through Friday it goes from 11am to 7pm which is absolutely fantastic. While there I took advantage of their $5 margaritas and my friends really enjoyed the $3 Mexican beer.  Also, on Tuesdays they have $5 Bloody Marys (voted "Milwaukee's Best Bloody Mary" by Shepherd Express and On Milwaukee) and currently they have pints of Spotted Cow (I assume beer) for just $2.
In terms of food, their menu was a lot of fun. They had traditional burgers and wraps but also had some unique ingredients and dishes.  For example, I ordered the Bronzed Duck Quesadilla which had Maple Leaf Farms pulled duck breast, goat cheese, smoked mozzarella and fresh green chives stuffed in a 12 inch flour tortilla, grilled crispy. It was served with a beautiful cherry salsa and sour cream.  It was absolutely delicious and started my month long fascination with quesadillas. The duck was beautifully cooked and the quesadilla was crip with a great cheesiness on the inside. And the salsa... I really just wanted more of that delicious salsa. It was sweet and a little spicy which I augmented with a little hot sauce too. It was perfection.
Their appetizer listing included Bacon Jam Bruschetta which seemed really interesting but I didn't have the courage to try it right then. Toasted baguette with a "Tuscan bruschetta medley" served over fresh arugula and drizzled with a balsamic glaze. What made it unique was that it's served with a mason jar of house made bacon jam. The Cuban Missles also looked interesting, crispy wonton wrappers stuffed with smoked pulled pork, ham, baby swiss and bread & butter pickles served with avocado mustard lime aioli. Next time I get out there, I'm definitely going to have to try that one.
The sandwiches looked great as well and I got to try a bite of the BBQ Chicken Strip wrap (and my friend got fruit salad on the side instead of fries.

The chicken was cooked wonderfully and their original bbq sauce was quite delicious. I thought the Wailer also sounded quite good with caribbean jerk chicken and a champagne mango mint vinaigrette. Yeah, I want that. I was too full after my quesadilla to think of ordering something else, so I'll have to try it another time. Their entrees also looked great, if a little more costly. The Rue Bourbon Bayou Pasta definitely took my fancy. It's Creole-spiced chicken breast and andouille sausage sautéed with onions, peppers and celery served over cavatappi pasta in a Cajun crème. Mmmmm. My mouth watered just reading it. Sometimes I really wish that I had 3 stomaches.

All in all I really enjoyed this restaurant. The food was great and so was the helpful staff who were constantly on hand to refill our water glasses (we were super thirsty from wandering around all day) and to see if we needed anything else.  

4 Days of Food in Wisconsin and Chicago

Well, this post is long overdue...  I went to Wisconsin and Chicago at the end of June for a wedding. It was a fantastic weekend filled with friends, laughter, lots of entertainment and some absolutely fantastic food.

The various cheese curds found in Milwaukee Public Market

I had never been to Wisconsin or Illinois before so I was super excited to try some of the traditional delicacies of the area.  When I asked my niece, nephew and half brother what you eat in Wisconsin they all said that we needed to try cheese curds.  But specifically we needed to try good cheese curd, that squeaks when you chew. It sounded a little strange to me honestly, but I'm willing to try anything once.
I tried 4 different kinds of cheese curd over the course of 3 days.  The first night we got a bag of mozzarella and cheddar cheese curd from Walmart (I know, I know, classy...).  They were pretty darn good, but didn't quite squeak the way everyone said a really good cheese curd should. So we kept trying.
The next day, in Milwaukee proper, we went to the Milwaukee Public Market where I found amazing cheese curd in different flavors. Plus so much more.
I was fascinated by the Public Market because it reminded me of the food markets in Florence, right near San Lorenzo and also San Ambrosio. It was fantastic. The first floor had countless small vendors of different Midwest specialties. Everywhere I turned there was something different and interesting to try. There were coffee places, cheese vendors (sooo many cheese vendors!), wine vendors, sandwich shops, an olive oil vendor and plenty of seafood options (which I thought was a little funny considering Wisconsin is no where near the ocean but  they are on a lake.. so maybe they had a lot of freshwater options...).

Love the cows!

There were so many great things to see.  I loved the cheese formed into different shapes, like cows and footballs. I tried some different cheddars and mozzarellas and it was all delicious.  I really did like the cheese curds. They were surprisingly good.

Olive oil galore

I also really enjoyed the Olive oil place, but I'll do a whole separate post on that as well.  I wish we had been there even longer because there were so many things I would have like to try, but I guess they'll have to wait till next time.
After the market we wandered around Milwuakee and the music festival before we headed over to meet our friends at a fantastic restaurant near the public market.  It was caled the Wicked Hop and I liked it so much that I did a separate blog just for it!  If you're curious, read my Review here.
We were pretty stuffed from the Wicked Hop so dinner was more cheese curd on bread with some tomatoes (basically snacks that we'd gotten for the road trip).



The next day was the wedding. It was outdoors and bbq style. The food was delicious and fresh: I loved that they chose to grill for some homey goodness. They had all sorts of fresh vegetables like squash and asparagus and the meats were grilled to perfection as well.

But by far my favorite thing at the wedding were the cupcakes!  They were delicious in several different flavors.  There were red velvet (my absolute favorite), carrot cake, caramel apple and a regular vanilla cake. I tried all of them except for the carrot cake (by the time I wanted one, there were none left!). The cake was moist and delicious and the fillings were sweet but not generally overpowering. I loved the red velvet and the plain vanilla but the caramel apple was a little too sweet for me.  Next time I'm in Wisconsin I need to find out where they got them because they were quite delicious.

Me enjoying my red velvet!!

The next morning we went off to Chicago where we got to experience even more great food.  I can't wait to go back to try even more since we were there for just the one and a half meals.  Some of the big specialties in Chicago are Chicago style hotdogs and deep dish pizza. I didn't get to try a hot dog but I did get to try my first ever deep dish pizza.  I love pizza and I really enjoyed the deep dish.  From what my Chicago friend told me, there is even better deep dish pizza than what I ate. I got my deep dish at a slightly fast food-esque place down at the pier so it certainly wasn't 5 star quality. But I liked it a lot and I'll definitely try it again. I wish I had taken a picture (and I could have sworn that I had, but I can't find it). My pizza had jalapenos, cheese, bacon, peppers and spinach on it and I loved it!
Later on in the evening, we found a great little brewery while we were waiting for the train. We missed one by ten minutes and therefore had an hour to wait. We found the Haymarket Pub & Brewery which was a ten minute walk from the station.  It was a great spot with a lot of great drink options so wrote a Review about it.


So that was our Adventure in the mid-west.  There wasn't quite as much food as I would have liked but it was a fun trip with some new flavors.  I can't wait to get back to that region to try even more good stuff.