With the kids happily tucked in with a pepperoni pizza and a movie on TV, Jim decided to take me out to try one of Mo’s other restaurants. This time, we decide to head to the steak place. We call and make a reservation for 5 o’clock. It’s Friday night, Jim is home early from work, and we want to spend the evening with the girls, so an early dinner is going to work for us.
We get dressed to go, and we’re early, but Jim has to pick some stuff up from his locker at the gym and we drop a suit off at the cleaners and browse the mall. Milwaukee is so clean and un-crowded, you hardly know you’re in a city. It’s a nice walk around for a little bit and then we head to the restaurant.
It seems the 5 o’clock reservation is hardly needed – we are the ONLY ones in the restaurant. We are promptly seated at a table by the window overlooking the street, and we settle in for a nice meal. I am looking forward to sampling some of the steak, and feeling a little cautious about it. My last steak experience was during our cruise, and I got a little sick from it. That steak was a little buttery, so I’ll be more careful of the preparation when I order this time.
We spot an appetizer that immediately gets our attention. Why? Because it is an appetizer that costs $77. Yep – not a typo – seventy-seven dollars for an appetizer. We ask the waiter what it is, and really, this appetizer is a whole meal for both of us. We ended up ordering it – and it is glorious! It’s called the Mark Suter Seafood Platter, and it features good sized crabcakes, sitting in a red pepper sauce; grilled shrimp on the half shell – a selection of large shrimp, half of the shell removed, and grilled to perfection; and lobster tail that is so sweet and so tender, I could have eaten it all. They serve the lobster with drawn butter, and a nice hoisin sauce to dip the shrimp into.
The bread looks and smells wonderful, and it is served with both regular butter and the flavored butter of the day – strawberry. I gotta tell you, that smelled nearly as good as the fresh, warm bread! Jim says it’s tasty, and I am going to try to find a recipe to make it at home.
Jim orders a cup of the soup of the day, which is a roasted tomato swiss soup, and I order a cup of the lobster bisque. I am not a fan of tomato soup, but this soup has a great flavor that I could have enjoyed a whole cup of. The lobster bisque is about the creamiest, sweetest version of this soup I have ever eaten. Sometimes when you get it, the soup has a little texture to it – not a “grit” necessarily, but a bit of texture. Mo’s lobster bisque is smooth like butter – creamy and delicious. I almost ordered a bowl, because soup is something I can eat a good bit of, but thank goodness I ordered the cup. I’m sure there was some kind of heavy cream or something in there making it so smooth. There were bits of chopped lobster in the bottom of the bowl, but honestly, they were just a bonus. The soup was great before I ever got to the lobster bits.
For dinner, we are going to share the Kobe beef filet mignon, cooked medium rare. We order a side of white cheddar mashed potatoes to go with it. The steak is tender, cooked to perfection, and delicately seasoned. You may choose from a red wine sauce, a hollandaise or a bearnaise sauce to accompany your steak, but we chose to let the beef stand on it’s own. The one disappointment of the night was the side of potatoes we chose. It was a good sized portion – although for $6, it should be – and definitely more than enough for two of us to share – more like a side dish for 3 or 4. But they were pretty much just mashed potatoes. The white cheddar flavor was so subtle, you barely noticed it.
We had no room for dessert, but since we booked a reservation as a special occasion (19 years since we first met), they brought us a complimentary dessert. I didn’t get to eat any of it, but it was a scrumptious looking chocolate bread pudding with fresh whipped cream, and the plate was drizzled with chocolate in a lattice pattern. Jim enjoyed it a lot, and there was but a wee bite left to take back to the kids, so we left it.
Overall, the attention to detail, the service, and the atmosphere would have brought us back for another try even if the meal itself had been mediocre. But having had such a fabulous meal, this could become one of our favorite Milwaukee restaurants.