Dinners, events to check out in January
Stir crazy yet? You can get out of the house and forget about winter for a while with these dinners and events:
Jan. 18 — Allgauer’s Bistro & Pub in the Park on the northwest side will pair five courses with New Glarus beers for a dinner at 6:30 p.m.
Chef James Nowak is planning a menu that includes various appetizers — Wisconsin cheeses and sausages, house potato chips in curry salt, seared tuna with spiced seaweed salad, smoked duck with goat cheese on sweet-potato chip and tandoori chicken skewers — with a variety of New Glarus specialty beers; foie gras-seared halibut with smoked parsnip puree, serrano braised greens and pomegranate-Meyer lemon gelee with Moon Man pale ale; and braised bone-in short rib with sweet potato agnolotti, porcini besciamella sauce and rapini, with Two Women lager.
The dinner is $50 a person; reserve seats by calling the restaurant at (414) 577-5000. Allgauer’s is in the Hilton Garden Inn Milwaukee Park Place, 11600 W. Park Place, off W. Good Hope Road at Highway 45.
Jan. 22 — Dinner and a little something to take home: The continuing Plate Collective, in which guests keep an artistmade ceramic cup after dining on courses by five of Milwaukee’s chefs, next meets at Amilinda, 315 E. Wisconsin Ave.
Chefs preparing the fivecourse will be Gregory León of Amilinda, Aaron Bickham of Bartolotta Restaurants, Jarvis Williams of SURG restaurants, Andrew Miller of Third Coast Provisions and Merriment Social, and Dan Jacobs of Dandan and EsterEv.
Artist Kate Riley, who’s married to Jacobs, will create the plates for the courses as well as the cup guests take home; the opening cocktail for the amusebouche will be served in the cup. For one of the courses, the couple will switch roles — Jacobs will make the pottery and Riley will prepare the food.
Dinner is $150, which includes wine pairings and the tip. Cocktail hour is at 6 p.m., dinner at 7. Buy tickets for the dinner at platecollective.net.
Jan. 26 — Diners can go on a progressive dinner in Wauwatosa’s Village business district, stopping in at four nearby restaurants that have European menus and seeing the reconstructed streetscape.
The Tour de Tosa will stop in at Le Rêve Patisserie & Cafe, Cafe Bavaria, Ristorante Bartolotta and the updated Cafe Hollander.
Guests check in at Cafe Bavaria, 7700 Harwood Ave., to get their “passport.” They then can stop in at the restaurants in any order between 6 and 9 p.m. to get two tasting plates and a drink pairing. Diners can park in the public lot in the 7700 block of Harwood Ave. and walk across the pedestrian bridge over the Menomonee River to reach the restaurants.
Cafe Hollander is at 7677 W. State St., Ristorante is at 7616 W. State St. and Le Rêve is at 7610 Harwood Ave.
The $80 reservation must be made by Jan. 23 at
Jan. 26-28 — Dandan, the modern Chinese-American restaurant that opened in the Third Ward in summer, will serve a special menu for Chinese new year in addition to its regular menu.
The four courses are pork and Chinese chive dumplings with spicy dipping sauce; bass steamed in banana leaf with garlic, ginger, black bean and spicy sesame oil; lion’s head meatballs with rice noodles and broth; and dessert bites — egg tart, mango pudding and walnut cookie.
The new year’s menu serves two; larger parties could order more than one or add dishes from the regular menu. The two-person menu is $60.
Jan. 29 — It’s the 11th annual Chili Bowl, serving samples of more than 60 kinds of chili from
area restaurants at Potawatomi Hotel & Casino’s event center.
Those with VIP tickets can enter at 11 a.m.; general admission is at noon, and the event runs until 5 p.m.
Tickets until Jan. 21 are $19 for general admission, $40 for VIP admission. (Admission at the door will be $22 and $45, if still available.)
The price of admission includes eight 3-ounce samples of chili and rolls; tickets can be bought online at mkechilibowl.com.
Jan. 29 — Twisted Willow in Port Washington is holding its second annual Burns Supper, honoring the Scottish poet with Scottish-inspired dishes and Scotch whiskey pairings.
The dinner, which opens with a whiskey toast, will have five courses: a shepherd’s pie with haggis; cock-a-leekie soup (chicken, leeks, barley and radish); seared scallop with bacon rasher, parsnip-carrot puree, currant reduction and baby greens; Scottish rabbit stew with root vegetables, bangers, red wine and skirlie potato cake; and Guinness chocolate cake with Bailey’s ice cream, oat crumble and single-malt Scotch caramel.
The 5:30 p.m. dinner is $55.95 without drink pairings, or $70.95 with. Reserve seats by calling the restaurant at (262) 2687600.
Twisted Willow is at 308 N. Franklin St. in Port Washington.
Jan. 31 — Five of Milwaukee’s new craft breweries will be featured in a dinner at the Wauwatosa sports bar ABV Social: Good City Brewing,Third Space Brewing,Black Husky Brewing,Raised Grain Brewing and Enlightened Brewing Co.
The brewers themselves or representatives are expected to attend the dinner and talk about their beers.
The menu: Thai chicken salad with Enlightened Cream City Brix, a cream ale; Maryland crab cake with mango habanero relish and Black Husky Dogfather mosaic pale ale; miso-glazed salmon, roasted bok choy and jasmine rice cake with Raised Grain Paradocs Red IIPA; barbecue beef ribs, corn bread and greens with Good City Rauch Märzen; and Mississippi mud pie, with Third Space Mocha Java porter.
Besides the beer that will be paired with each course, ABV Social will have other beers from the breweries available on tap.
The dinner, which starts at 7 p.m., will be $50. Tickets, including tax and tip for $63.66, are available through the ABV Social website.
ABV Social is at 11200 W. Burleigh St., in a freestanding building at the Mayfair Collection shopping center.