With a bleary-eyed youngster on my arm and a little time to kill, I stopped at the Milwaukee Public Market recently and decided on a whim to hit the oyster bar.

The St. Paul Fish Company has a nice selection of fish to take home and cook -- I was thrilled to see skatewing, which I love, and I need to get back there to get some -- but it also has a nice zinc bar with a half-dozen or so stools to welcome oyster fans and other diners.

Seeing the sign for the fresh oysters, we bellied up to the bar and ordered one of each.

Although my son didn't want to try eating them (his grandmother deemed him smarter than me thanks to that), he was interested in checking out the shells and seeing the lobsters in the tank. The brightly colored Easter cookies at C. Adams Bakery across the aisle were much more to his tastes as were the bread samples from Piacentine's.

I had a beer and five oysters, he had his milk and a couple packages of oyster crackers and it felt like we were on vacation. Alas, we waited too long to try and find a restaurant and with long wait times, we ended up back home for dinner.