The best takeout I had all week, Vol. 1
Sure, cooking at home was fun. At first.
When the lockdown came, making dinner from the random odds and ends stashed in the pantry and freezer was like fitting together a puzzle: Hmm, some dried pasta, a tin of anchovies, olive oil, some breadcrumbs in the freezer ground up in the past year ... OK! Dinner solved. One down, a zillion to go.
Then long workdays took the fun out of even thinking about making dinner, a heat wave took the luster out of baking, and the dishes ... Oh, my God, THE DISHES. Never ending.
So I’m getting a lot more takeout these days. Why not just review restaurants again, you ask? After all, you’re a dining critic, right?
Right, but no, I won’t be writing fullon reviews, complete with stars, for a while. What would be the point, exactly? To pretend life is normal when it’s not? To award stars based on ... what? Doing the best a restaurant can with a brand-new, socially distanced business model? Certainly, it’s not to tell a restaurant it ought to do better when it’s being heroic simply by opening, potentially in harm’s way so that we diners can be spared the cooking and cleanup at home.
I can’t be the only one looking for a break from cooking and uncomfortable with dining inside a restaurant at this point, thinking about where to get something delicious for takeout, maybe something new-to-me.
Especially now that summer is here, and impromptu picnics are possible, the time is right for takeout. And at least car picnics are more comfortable than they were in March.
So I’ll let you in on the pick of what I picked up, the best takeout I had all week. (This is the first installment; the pandemic will dictate how long it goes on.) Maybe it will help you solve your dinner — or lunch, or breakfast — dilemma while I solve mine.
Donut Monster
I went for the doughnuts but detoured to the breakfast-sandwich
portion of the menu, and I’m incredibly glad I did.
Two doughnuts lured me to owner Jackie Lee Woods’ shop in Whitefish Bay. Woods, who’s cooked at Michelin-starred and fine-dining restaurants in California and Milwaukee, had a new entry to the lineup, a glazed-and-raised doughnut filled with orange curd and topped with candied orange called the Mandarin Dream. And there was a second I, ahem, pined to taste, the Spruce Springsteen, a raised doughnut filled with lemon curd that’s infused with spruce tips (filled doughnuts are $3.25). It was good timing on my part — the first weekend for the Mandarin Dream, the last for Spruce Springsteen.
Both were excellent — bright flavors, generous fillings. They were a not-too-sweet dessert we enjoyed later, after a couple of terrific breakfast sandwiches served on the shop’s own English muffins.
Those sandwiches! The ham-and-egg Benedictish ($9) has the brilliant addition of bearnaise mayo. Ripe avocado plus Pine River cheddar spread made an egg sandwich ($8) flat-out delicious. It’s tempting to make those sandwiches a habit.
5169 N. Elkhart Ave., Whitefish Bay. Hours: 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday to Sunday. Ordering is by way of drivethrough, sort of; park curbside, and an employee will take your order at the car. Payment cash or credit card. The weekly menu is posted on Instagram.
The Diplomat
The Diplomat’s comeback from lockdown started July 1 with takeout. The “a la car” menu, chef Dane Baldwin says on the restaurant’s website, is made up of items “that we believe travel well and allow us to be ourselves.”
Confirmed. The pared-down opening menu focuses on salads and sandwiches, along with some main dishes and desserts, including the restaurant’s much loved burger and peanut butter pie. I was sorely tempted by beet and Cuban sandwiches, but our celebratory mood led us to the lobster roll ($20) and beef pot pie ($15).
Chunks of lobster, coated in celery-root mayo, were loaded with lettuce and celery into a buttery New England-style toasted bun, a summertime sandwich if ever there was one. The stellar pot pie — short rib prepared with red wine and carrots, celery and onion in a buttery crust, which was burnished golden brown — reads as homey and comforting, but also special enough for the celebratory kind of night we were in the mood for.
815 E. Brady St. Hours: 4 to 8 p.m. Wednesday to Saturday. Menu online at thediplomatmke.com. Order online through Toast or by phone, (414) 800-5816.
Hot Knife
Theresa Schuenke has made one of my favorite sandwiches of summer.
The sandwich was exactingly thought out, ideal for a sweltering evening: a cool shrimp roll ($10) with lemongrass aioli and fresh mint (such amiable companions for seafood), plus sprightly pickled vegetables and the genius element, crispy-crunchy ginger breadcrumbs, strewn over the top.
Her Hot Knife pop-up restaurant is set up Thursdays through Sundays (as long as weather allows) outside Burnhearts bar in Bay View, where the patio is open to bar patrons.
Schuenke changes the menu weekly (posting it on social media on Wednesdays), so I can only hope that shrimp roll will come around again so you can try it, too. But based on that sandwich and the snack of smoked whitefish dip with pickled ramps and crostini ($5) I had, I’d be happy to drop in any week to see what’s cooking at Hot Knife.
Outside Burnhearts, 2599 S. Logan Ave. Hours: 5 to 9 p.m. Thursday to Saturday, brunchy plates 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday. Order in advance with a card through cashdrop.biz or at the stand with cash.
Mekong Cafe
I’d meant only to get one of my favorite dishes at the Lao, Thai and Vietnamese restaurant Mekong Cafe, but then I lost all impulse control.
The heat had drained me of any desire to cook, and I desperately wanted pud krapao ($10), an ideal dish of ground chicken (or whatever meat you like) with sliced long beans and holy basil over rice, plus a fried egg on top, crispy at the edges. It’s incredibly delicious. But there were new specials at Mekong’s online order form to look over, too, and I saw dishes I hadn’t come across at Mekong Cafe before, or anywhere else in the city.
How was I supposed to resist kai ping, a Lao snack that requires the cook to chip a hole at the pointy ends of uncooked eggs, draining the contents into a bowl and seasoning it, then pouring it back into the cleaned shells and baking them at low heat for six hours? I couldn’t help but think of how much work it would be to make those eggs, so I ordered them out of gratitude (six for $7).
And then I saw the special of khao tom moo ($7), sticky rice filled with pork and mung bean, and the whole cylinder wrapped in banana leaves, tied and steamed. Having no ambition to cook that hot night, I had nothing but admiration for the cook who went to all that trouble. So I got that, too.
They were tasty snacks to share, and it was a joy to try something new in a year when rewarding new experiences have been in precious short supply.
5930 W. North Ave. Hours: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday to Monday. Order online at sites.google.com/ site/mekong1cafe/home, or call (414) 257-2228. Curbside pickup along North 60th Street. If entering the restaurant to pick up, a mask is required.
Carol Deptolla has been reviewing restaurants in Milwaukee and Wisconsin since 2008. Like all Journal Sentinel reporters, she buys all meals, accepts no gifts and is independent of all establishments she covers, working only for our readers.
Contact her at carol.deptolla@jrn.com or (414) 2242841, or through the Journal Sentinel Food & Home page on Facebook. Follow her on Twitter at @mkediner.