If there is one thing I can definitively say about Aqua, 1011 N. Astor St., it is that it is unlike any other dining establishment in Milwaukee.
Décor in the Comfort Inn and Suites (formerly the Park East Hotel) restaurant is somewhere between a maharaja’s lair and the cartoon set of “The Little Mermaid,” with long flowing white and pastel draperies and colorful polka dots surrounding a water-filled glass bar. The dining area is a throwback to what could be a hip Carol Brady dining room surrounded, of course, in an aqua color scheme with white roller chairs.
Two recent visits to Aqua brought us there in a transitional phase while the menu was changing. Both dinners at Aqua started off pretty well with a shrimp martini ($12) with an Absolut Peppar-infused cocktail sauce and the Aqua crab cakes ($13).
Both appetizers were fresh and delicious, and the shrimp were plump and tender with just a hint of kick from the Peppar sauce. Coconut shrimp ($12) were lightly fried and came with a too-sweet pina colada dipping sauce, but were very good on their own. Our house salads, included with our entrees, were an innovative blend of candied pecans, cherry tomatoes, mixed greens and cucumbers and were also very fresh and quite good.
Entrées at the first visit were not as good, and even as the menu transitioned, we ran into the same problems: overcooked meats, excruciating waits and misrepresented risottos.
Our first visit yielded a 45-minute wait and Chilean sea bass ($24.95) which was supposed to be served over red pepper risotto with red and yellow pepper coulis (a thick sauce made from pureed and strained vegetables. Instead, it arrived dredged and fried in what appeared to be panko (Japanese-style bread crumbs) and precariously sitting on a poorly made and burned risotto cake that was too dry.
Risotto, a rice dish made with Arborio rice, is classically prepared by slowly toasting and then cooking the grains over a low heat and slowly adding a 1:3.5 ration of starchy rice to wine and stock until the liquids have been completely absorbed and melded into the Arborio grains.
Properly made, risotto is creamy and heavenly in flavor and texture, but there are few things worse than poorly made risotto, which leaves crunchy rice grains and in this case, a lingering, charred aftertaste. The cake and the fish were sitting atop what tasted like turned tomato paste, and was completely inedible, which was heart-rending, since Chilean sea bass is, without a doubt, one of nature’s most perfect fish.
Veal medallions ($29.95) were not medallions at all, but were large cuts of veal loin cooked far past medium temperature (medallions often do not require the diner to request a specific temperature, because they are usually automatically cooked to medium rare, so we did not find it too strange that our server did not request temperature upon ordering).
The veal loin was stuffed with morel mushrooms and wrapped in several pieces of fatty, undercooked bacon, swimming in a foie gras cream sauce. The lingering taste on this dish was greasy pork, and a few bites were all we could manage.
A visit with the new menu kept us still waiting for an hour for our entrees that were worth neither the wait nor the expense. Veal Oscar ($37) was flavorful with delectable chunks of crabmeat and veal tenderloin in creamy béarnaise sauce with asparagus.
The dish had the potential to be phenomenal, but it arrived cold and the veal was again overdone. Vegetarian ($22) was a beautiful presentation of eggplant parmesan, lentils and Asian slaw in rice paper, but this time the “risotto” was in fact a pilaf of sorts. We found it odd that a restaurant would name their pork shank after a bottled commercial product, but Sweet Baby Ray pork shank ($28) delivered a too-dry shank coated in the popular sauce.
To our servers’ credit, she noticed our still full plates on our first visit and first offered we try something else on the menu, and then credited the entrees to our bill, but the wait and imperfect entrées on our subsequent visit were enough for us to write Aqua off as an establishment where the cost does not equal the quality one expects when paying top dollar for foodstuffs.
The problem at Aqua is nothing new in the Milwaukee restaurant marketplace; they are doing a great job with the simple appetizers and salads, but when it comes to the entrees, the complexity of the menu design far exceeds the capabilities of the chef and kitchen staff.
Sometimes less is more, and a simpler menu with some of the innovative touches they exhibit in their salads and appetizers would be ideal for this establishment, which, if nothing else, features a quiet getaway for a cocktail on a weekday night -- we were the only diners in the large dining room on both of our visits.
Décor in the Comfort Inn and Suites (formerly the Park East Hotel) restaurant is somewhere between a maharaja’s lair and the cartoon set of “The Little Mermaid,” with long flowing white and pastel draperies and colorful polka dots surrounding a water-filled glass bar. The dining area is a throwback to what could be a hip Carol Brady dining room surrounded, of course, in an aqua color scheme with white roller chairs.
Two recent visits to Aqua brought us there in a transitional phase while the menu was changing. Both dinners at Aqua started off pretty well with a shrimp martini ($12) with an Absolut Peppar-infused cocktail sauce and the Aqua crab cakes ($13).
Both appetizers were fresh and delicious, and the shrimp were plump and tender with just a hint of kick from the Peppar sauce. Coconut shrimp ($12) were lightly fried and came with a too-sweet pina colada dipping sauce, but were very good on their own. Our house salads, included with our entrees, were an innovative blend of candied pecans, cherry tomatoes, mixed greens and cucumbers and were also very fresh and quite good.
Entrées at the first visit were not as good, and even as the menu transitioned, we ran into the same problems: overcooked meats, excruciating waits and misrepresented risottos.
Our first visit yielded a 45-minute wait and Chilean sea bass ($24.95) which was supposed to be served over red pepper risotto with red and yellow pepper coulis (a thick sauce made from pureed and strained vegetables. Instead, it arrived dredged and fried in what appeared to be panko (Japanese-style bread crumbs) and precariously sitting on a poorly made and burned risotto cake that was too dry.
Risotto, a rice dish made with Arborio rice, is classically prepared by slowly toasting and then cooking the grains over a low heat and slowly adding a 1:3.5 ration of starchy rice to wine and stock until the liquids have been completely absorbed and melded into the Arborio grains.
Properly made, risotto is creamy and heavenly in flavor and texture, but there are few things worse than poorly made risotto, which leaves crunchy rice grains and in this case, a lingering, charred aftertaste. The cake and the fish were sitting atop what tasted like turned tomato paste, and was completely inedible, which was heart-rending, since Chilean sea bass is, without a doubt, one of nature’s most perfect fish.
Veal medallions ($29.95) were not medallions at all, but were large cuts of veal loin cooked far past medium temperature (medallions often do not require the diner to request a specific temperature, because they are usually automatically cooked to medium rare, so we did not find it too strange that our server did not request temperature upon ordering).
The veal loin was stuffed with morel mushrooms and wrapped in several pieces of fatty, undercooked bacon, swimming in a foie gras cream sauce. The lingering taste on this dish was greasy pork, and a few bites were all we could manage.
A visit with the new menu kept us still waiting for an hour for our entrees that were worth neither the wait nor the expense. Veal Oscar ($37) was flavorful with delectable chunks of crabmeat and veal tenderloin in creamy béarnaise sauce with asparagus.
The dish had the potential to be phenomenal, but it arrived cold and the veal was again overdone. Vegetarian ($22) was a beautiful presentation of eggplant parmesan, lentils and Asian slaw in rice paper, but this time the “risotto” was in fact a pilaf of sorts. We found it odd that a restaurant would name their pork shank after a bottled commercial product, but Sweet Baby Ray pork shank ($28) delivered a too-dry shank coated in the popular sauce.
To our servers’ credit, she noticed our still full plates on our first visit and first offered we try something else on the menu, and then credited the entrees to our bill, but the wait and imperfect entrées on our subsequent visit were enough for us to write Aqua off as an establishment where the cost does not equal the quality one expects when paying top dollar for foodstuffs.
The problem at Aqua is nothing new in the Milwaukee restaurant marketplace; they are doing a great job with the simple appetizers and salads, but when it comes to the entrees, the complexity of the menu design far exceeds the capabilities of the chef and kitchen staff.
Sometimes less is more, and a simpler menu with some of the innovative touches they exhibit in their salads and appetizers would be ideal for this establishment, which, if nothing else, features a quiet getaway for a cocktail on a weekday night -- we were the only diners in the large dining room on both of our visits.
Amy L. Schubert is a 15-year veteran of the hospitality industry and has worked in every aspect of bar and restaurant operations. A graduate of Marquette University (B.A.-Writing Intensive English, 1997) and UW-Milwaukee (M.A.-Rhetoric, Composition, and Professional Writing, 2001), Amy still occasionally moonlights as a guest bartender and she mixes a mean martini.
The restaurant business seems to be in Amy’s blood, and she prides herself in researching and experimenting with culinary combinations and cooking techniques in her own kitchen as well as in friends’ restaurants. Both she and her husband, Scott, are avid cooks and “wine heads,” and love to entertain friends, family and neighbors as frequently as possible.
Amy and Scott live with their boys, Alex and Nick, in Bay View, where they are all very active in the community. Amy finds great pleasure in sharing her knowledge and passions for food and writing in her contributions to OnMilwaukee.com.
