After our lunch at the Milwaukee Brat House, Nancy and I headed for our hotel way out on Middleton, west of town. We settled in and started thinking about dinner. There are lots of choices there, including the Craftsman Table andTap, which, from the map, looked like it was on or close to one of the lakes that dot Wisconsin. And it looked like it had a good range of offerings, and I knew Nancy needed a shift from the bratwurst lunch. Her diet is much different than mine.
Off we went. The Craftsman is a very nice place, with lots of outside seating that are the glory of Wisconsin summers. The sun was still shining, but it was tempered by the moderate temperature and a nice breeze, and we opted to sit outdoors.
Nancy ordered a salad with buckwheat and arugula, feta, and capers, all topped with grilled salmon.
Nancy’s salad was a hit. The salmon was cooked to order, and you can see that good crust. The arugula-feta combination worked, a nice marriage of peppery and tangy flavors, balanced by the texture of the buckwheat and the salt of the capers. There were a ton of capers on the dish. I’m a huge fan of capers, and finished off Nancys leftovers.
I had been tormented by my criticism of Milwaukee’s favorite brat. So I ordered one for dinner, to give bratwurst another try. The Craftsman version was served with cabbage cooked in brown butter and mustard seed, and it came on a nice roll.
The Craftsman brat was much, much better than the Brat House version. The brat itself was made by Meisfeld’s. The cabbage still had some texture and just a touch of bite after all that butter, and the mustard seeds were a genius move. They had less mustard flavor than brightness, and they added a lightness to the sandwich.
And the fries were quite good. They came, after I took the photo, with Louie Sauce, a pretty good sauce, creamy with a little pickle in there. I also dipped some of the fries in their good German mustard.
Nancy and I enjoyed the Craftsman Table and Tap. It’s a pleasant place with good service and good food. If you’re in the neighborhood, you owe it to yourself to stop by.
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That roll that the brat is on looks good. I have long preferred fresh rolls to be untoasted (same with bagels). But a recent cheesesteak I had on a lightly toasted roll was so good that I have a new-found open-mindedness to seeded rolls. (I still prefer fresh bagels to be untoasted though.)
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The bread does make a big difference – different breads for different sandwiches There’s generally an inverse relationship between the quality of the bread and the desirability of toasting.
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