Dining Out

I don’t know how to do the Electric Slide. But I like the Shopping Cart. It’s a move that doesn’t require any physical coordination. You push an imaginary shopping cart, lifting items off the make-believe shelves and dropping them in the cart. Even I can do that. But alas, the shiny dance floor this evening at Victor’sis empty, and that part of the room is dark. It’s not even 8 o’clock yet. At the bar, several customers have parked their behinds on stools facing the flat-screen TVs. Our waitress parks her cigarette in an ashtray behind the bar and scoots…

A communal scene plays out on the old wooden church pews, which function as a banquette. There’s a middle-aged man, dining alone with his newspaper. Next to him, a couple whispering over their bowtie pasta and red wine. And another seat over, a family of four chats noisily over their plates of pasta Bolognese. Riverwest’s new centro cafehas close quarters, which suits the owners and the laid-back neighborhood. “There’s something about being crowded together. People end up talking to the diners at the next table,” says Peg Karpfinger, a landscape architect who opened the charming 40-seat Italian bistro with husband…

Jason Schultz works in a space a few feet wide and maybe 10 feet long. The bottles and glasses and beer taps around him are his tools. Christie’sis bigger than its oval ring-shaped bar, but there’s a gravitational pull to the bar’s central command post. It’s a comfort zone for people. Named after Schultz’s grandmother, Martha Christie, the unassuming South Side building has been in the family since 1954 – the year Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio tied the knot – and the family seems just as eager to keep things going for another half-century. Schultz took over the family…

A woman clad in bicycling gear pedals slowly down the sidewalk. Across the street, the papered windows of a storefront announce, in handwritten letters, plans to sell Sloppy Joes and fountain drinks. The boarded-up windows of another nearby storefront wait their turn for new life. I sit in a plush lounge chair watching the world outsideGenerations at 5 Points. This building has reinvented itself several times over, as many others have in Waukesha’s historic downtown, whose revival some say is happening right now. Generations, a tapas restaurant, was at various times a tea room, pizzeria and bakery. The business name…

Forgive me for saying this, but my burger – cheese, bacon, fried onions and mushrooms literally falling out of the bun – is stacked. Top-heavy, you might say. Leaving little to the imagination. All admirable qualities in a burger. During the summer of 2009, because of a hit to the economy, some of us haven’t been eating out as much. Or rather, concern for our wallets has changed the way we’re eating out. Kobe steaks and foie gras are perhaps not as cool now as, say, the reliable old hamburger. Earlier this summer, the popular Menomonee Valley restaurant Sobelmans Pub…

I’m feeling the Texas ’cue vibe. Cowboy boots decorate the mantel on top of the fireplace. Rope is used as a baseboard in the dining room. Our table is “branded” with an “S” for the name of this joint, and it’s a mouthful: Silver Spur Texas Smokehouse BBQ. Once upon a time… well, a few years ago, the Spur was doing its thing at 199th and Greenfield. If you were within a mile of that building, your nose would know. A 2008 fire destroyed the location, but not the determination of the owners, who took advantage of the Elm Grove…

The mussel has left the safety of its brother mollusks in a deep, white bowl rich with stewed kale, cured sausage, white beans and a crisp toast to absorb all that luscious broth. It meets the tines of my fork. And then its maker. Ahhh. Placed on a solid table made of reclaimed elm, this dish speaks of solid cuisine. Of substance. But with enough flourishes that it “makes this gray time feel a little less gray,” quoting Thomas Schultz, executive chef of the new restaurant Smyth (rhymes with myth). He’s referring to these not-exactly-fruitful economic times, and not expressly…

What would Pavlov have said about my mouth salivating before I’ve even entered Paciugo Italian Gelateria? Once inside, the process is fairly predictable. The gelatos, nesting in stainless-steel bins, are first consumed by the eye. If an eye could accomplish this, the bin would be licked clean. The hilly mounds of gelato are on the left side of the glass-sided case; the frothy tufts of sorbet are on the right. Plastic sampling spoons are in a cup on top of the case. “One lady asked to try 16 different flavors today,” moans the worker-girl who wears several shades of gelato…

A bartender, sleeves rolled up to expose some intricate tattoos, is pouring red wine. He’s partially blocked by, well, heads – heads tipping back in laughter, eager patrons sporting long bushy locks, streaked side-swept bangs or gleaming cue balls. I’m standing just inside the door to Ginger, about to secure a two-top next to the front windows. It’s Saturday night, and a packed house. That is undoubtedly what Julia LaLoggia was hoping for when she closed her organic-leaning, Fifth Ward restaurant Barossa in 2007 (the locale that brought chef Jan Kelly local fame), then reopened the spot last fall as…

Le Rêve is a voyeur’s delight. Closest to the railing on the balcony dining room, there’s a two-top table with the best view of the ground floor of this cafe-patisserie, whose Euro appeal buoys a quiet, commercial side street in Wauwatosa. Between bites of salade niçoise, I watch a server slowly mount the wooden steps to the balcony. The tray of pastries, wine and coffee she hoists jiggles, but nothing spills. On the ground floor, diners stand rapt in front of the glass pastry counter, pointing to a chocolate-glazed tart here, a macaroon cookie there. The cappuccino machine shrieks. Dishes…