Let’s face it: I don’t know much about the west side of town. I know so little about it that when my husband’s coworkers suggested we get a bite to eat at Narrow Bridge Brewhouse after the Brews, Bistros, and Bonfires event at the Botanical Garden, I had no damn clue what they were talking about. The bar was proverbially around the corner from us, so there was no reason to say no. I had boundaries to push, so I pushed them. We arrived as the sun finally set and darkness descended on Green Bay, and we found a busy outdoor bar.
Open garage doors revealed the secondary bar to the outdoor seating area, and we began our night there. The main building looked busy from where we stood-- Fish fry patrons finished their meals and live music played loud enough you could hear it through the windows. It made for the perfect stop for another beer and maybe a burger to cap off a fun evening with some new friends, or at least new to me anyhow.
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One of the first restaurants in the Green Bay area that my husband and I visited after we moved in was Umi Sushi in Bellevue. At the time, we thought it conveniently located-- but nothing to write home about. I spent those first few weeks avoiding any writing on local restaurants to try to get my bearings with the area. My mother was in town this weekend. She accompanied us on our first trip to Umi, and we thought it only appropriate to bring her again for our first post-COVID visit.
Umi Sushi had their indoor dining closed for much of the pandemic, reopening dine in on May 1st of this year. This is part of the reason we hadn’t been back in a long time to give them another shot. We really only want sushi if we’re sitting down inside the restaurant. Ordering for takeout isn’t something appealing to my husband and I when it comes to sushi. You’ve seen pictures on our instagram of snacks my husband and I have picked up from Plia’s Kitchen’s food stand at the Saturday Morning Farmer’s Market already. We stop almost every single week for stuffed chicken wings and crab rangoons, and yet we never stopped in to their brick and mortar location. Their indoor dining has been closed for the entire pandemic up until the end of June, so we have done takeout with them at least once in that time. I waited to give them a formal review because I really wanted to see their interior and experience it for myself the best way I could. Plia’s is in a small storefront on Webster Avenue, and when you see it, it makes sense that they wanted to limit indoor dining until they felt comfortable with where Brown County stood in the pandemic. There is not much room for tables, and the table spacing required in early CDC guidelines for indoor dining would have limited the space to maybe two tables. We got comfortable by the wall after ordering at the counter.
Farmer’s Market Vendor Highlights return this week with a newcomer to the Green Bay Saturday Morning Farmer’s Market, Shiitake Creek Mushroom Company. As some of my readers know, I get a lot of my mushrooms now through our friends at Produce with Purpose at Revoluton Market-- but sometimes I forget to set up my build a box delivery or I don’t get to the west side. So, I’ve got to stock up at the market. Shiitake Creek is another option on the strip in the morning for mushroom eaters out there. Just take a look at that variety. Until that morning, I had never seen a pink oyster mushroom with my own eyes. I knew they existed, but other growers that I’ve purchased from in the past never had them when I was able to make a pit stop at their booths. It was those pink oysters that made me stop that morning when I normally keep moving on past the first few booths from Walnut Street. Every single visit since the first one I described above has introduced me to a new variety of cultivated mushroom, and here I thought I was serious in my mushroom game. Not like these great people. They've since become a weekly stop for me to learn about new mushrooms and varieties of the more common ones we see in most stores and stands. They’re a good source of chanterelles while the summer season is on as well. You can also visit them at their farm Aurora, WI if you feel like making the drive out of town during the week. They offer so much on site that it may be worth it for the day trip for foodies like myself and my readers. You can purchase a guided wild mushroom foray on their website to take you out into the woods surrounding the farm to do your own hunting with professionals, and they keep a shop open as well. They’re working very hard to open Northern Wisconsin’s eyes to the glorious world of mushrooms, and I’m so thankful for their addition to the Saturday Morning Farmer’s Market this year. You guys keep cooking interesting! During the pandemic lockdown, the Depot was one of those locations that we tried for takeout. They filled the space left behind by Titletown Brewery when they moved into the new building across the street, and at the time, we enjoyed what we ate. We all know, however, that food suffers in transit, so with company in town we decided it was time to go see them in person. We looked forward to seeing the old building in its renovated condition. The Depot, filled to the gills with patrons, still managed to get us seated at the door during a busy Friday evening on the Fox. We checked in with multiple restaurants in the area and found the wait time to be more than an hour. However, the Depot had our backs. We were hungry. We weren’t in the mood for waiting. We were sat immediately, and we sat with our beverages for a time while the waitress busied herself with her other tables. A hazy sunset came down over Green Bay one Thursday evening while my husband and I went out for dinner with a friend on his way out of the area very soon. It was our last chance to spend some time with this guy that has been a great friend to my husband when we came to Northeast Wisconsin. We decided on Graystone Ale House over in East De Pere, not far from where my husband and I now live. We’ve driven past it several times and always wondered. We ended that curiosity. Their outdoor dining, while next to the country highway out of Bellevue, is comfortably seated and perfect for a drink or two with friends. Two firepits burned through the evening. It was the last evening of restaurant week, so on a better day I would have indulged myself in the offering. It was a bad day for my stomach, so I ate simply. My husband and our guest were a little more adventurous. A Green Bay Restaurant Week 2021 Review Restaurant Week falling during the week of my birthday is perhaps the greatest gift I could have ever received. Delayed during COVID, my husband and I enjoyed ourselves last September at Hagemeister Park to a gorgeous, three course meal for our anniversary. The city likes to gift us with tasty treats on important occasions, and so my husband and I made reservations at Taverne in the Sky during restaurant week to taste deliciousness and enjoy the sight of Titletown from on high. We have never been here before. During our many visits to the west side, we have looked at the Lodge Kohler resort with jealousy. The building is beautiful. It looks like a place for good meals and good times, even while sipping a beer at its next door neighbor, Hinterland Brewery. We arrived for a delicious birthday dinner early Saturday evening to take in a night overlooking Titletown. My husband and I entered 4th of July Weekend looking for some new experiences in town, and where better to start than with the brand new Million’s Crab in Ashwaubenon that opened just a few weeks ago. We’ve always loved a giant pot full of boiled shellfish, and we awaited the opening of Million’s Crab for a long time after the facebook page was created. It was a conscious choice to give them a few weeks to get their feet under them before we stopped in for a visit. A cursory google search confirms that this is a small Midwestern chain specializing in various seafoods, including what my husband and I showed up searching for: crab legs. Ashwaubenon is one of its first locations in the Upper Midwest. Their charted expansion on their website shows many more opening in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area ‘soon’. The Ashwaubenon location was in the works for some time as far as I can tell. I’ve had the facebook page for this location on watch since mid-2020, and it finally opened in June 2021. Their logo work is top notch. I’m in love with the little crab and his giant sunglasses. He’s on everything: the bibs, the wet wipes, the table paper, the to-go bags. Someone worked hard on that little guy. It’s a delightful marketing decision, and I’m an adult. The little cartoon guy will get me every time. The brightest spot during my pandemic related furlough was the quiet Saturday morning Farmers Market. Weaving my way through the aisles of stalls according to the path set up by the market’s planners to keep COVID exposure to its minimum, I came to know many wonderful growers and producers for their delicious products. There were no prepared food vendors allowed, however, so I missed out on what now appears to be a crucial part of the market: the food stalls in the Washington street parking lots beside the river.
We sampled Boba Tea from Pink Guava during opening weekend, and this weekend, the curious appetites of both my husband and I brought us to Plia’s Kitchen and their stall at the farmer’s market this year. We received several recommendations for Plia’s over the course of the year. We just never made it to their brick and mortar location on Webster before we stepped up to the menu at the market. It’s not exactly a breakfast menu, if I’m being honest. We arrived at the market around 8 am, and while there were some more breakfasty options available, little crab rangoons, Hmong Egg Rolls, and something they called a stuffed chicken wing were all appetizing enough to my husband and I that we put aside morning protocols to have a taste of something new instead. The actual seating in the food vendor area is limited, so be prepared to take a short walk to the river front to hunt down a bench or two if you’ve got friends along. We did. We sat down with my mother-in-law next to the nearby dock in a shady little patch behind one of the nearby apartment complexes. There, my husband opened up our styrofoam clam shell to reveal its contents. I knew by the smell it’d be good, and the view confirmed that for me. A too hot Saturday rose in Green Bay this weekend, and I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t want to boil alive at the Saturday Morning Farmer’s Market. I chose instead to get local meat and produce through our friends Produce with Purpose out at the Revolution Market. This also afforded us the opportunity to visit Short Order Sandwiches and Deli during their pop up in the Revolution Market’s final stall. They announced their arrival into space a few weeks ago to start drumming up business. I eyed their menu closely in anticipation of at least one visit before their pop up ended, and it just happened to be this first weekend that I got myself into the Revolution Market with time and appetite enough to pick up lunch. Even going across town can be a large amount of effort for me on a bad health day. I was delighted to find out that this pop up is a sort of market study by the chef to go into his own business at some point. The hustle it takes to maintain a full time job and pursue this kind of passion is commendable. I certainly wouldn’t have it in me. This is part of why I took my order very seriously after a short conversation with the chef. |
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