When Bayshore Mall underwent a dramatic remodel and opened in 2006 as Bayshore Town Center, it added more than a dozen national chain restaurants, including the The Cheesecake Factory and Bravo! Cucina Italiana, but lacked a full-service eatery with local owners.
Now, local restaurateurs Marc and Marta Bianchini (owners of Osteria del Mondo, Indulge and Cubanitas) have opened Coa in the shuttered Cameron's Steakhouse -- 5750 N. Port Washington Rd. -- where simple "street food" is served in a sleek and stylish environment.
Coa's high-end interior -- floor to ceiling windows and even bathrooms with polished trough-style sinks -- is out of sync with its food concept and may jolt some first-time diners. But if you go to Coa expecting to eat vendor-style street food that is fun, simple and fresh cuisine (and not upscale, fancy, sexy food) you won't be disappointed.
I visited Coa for luch with a child (part of their menu reads, "Coa loves kids, and kids love Coa"), and again for dinner with an adult companion during the week, and both were very positive experiences.
Youngsters can choose from tacos, quesadillas or chicken fingers for $5, including a drink and fries or rice. Kids also dine free Monday through Thursday, from 3 until 6 p.m.
Throw in a basket of Coa's complementary chips with red and green salsa and Coa is a no-brainer for shopping parents, especially since this is one of the few restaurants I've visited where the server directly addressed my minor companion when taking our food orders and politely treated him like a regular diner.
Appetizers at Coa excelled. Queso fundido ($5) was creamy and sinfully rich with just a hint of heat from tiny pieces of diced poblanos, giving the cheese a warm and earthy flavor when tucked into hot corn tortillas. A pork tamale ($5) wrapped in a banana leaf had a lovely corn masa and shredded pork filling that rivaled what you'd find at El Rey.
A cold appetizer of tuna tartar ($9) was served carpaccio style and layered with a bright pineapple salsa that was just a bit too heavy handed. We removed about half of the salsa to expose a bit more of the gentle tuna flavors.
Coa offers a dozen options for tacos, served with your choice of white corn tortilla, flour tortilla, or lettuce wraps. We chose the corn tortillas and found favorites with the al pastor ($4), cubed, marinated pork paired with pineapple and a generous amount of fresh cilantro, veal ($4), with a tomato-chile sauce, and camerón ($5) shrimp with tomato, avocado, and chile-lime salsa. A pescado ($5) was slightly too heavy with a Dos Equis battered fish paired with slaw and mayonnaise.
A variety of nightly specials includes chicken enchilada mole ($12) on Wednesday evenings. The mole here was sweet and the chicken tender, but the accompanying Coa beans, thick with beer, bacon and chorizo, and the Coa rice with hints of saffron and tiny peas, was even better.
All the dishes we tried carried a gentle heat quotient except for the street vendor side of pickled vegetables. While I consider myself to have a pretty high tolerance for heat, I couldn't eat more than one of the carrots in this dish, and I dared not touch the jalapenos.
If you look past the incongruity of eating street food on china with cloth napkins, rather than wrapped in a piece of parchment paper while standing in a market or on a street corner, Coa makes an interesting new addition to Bayshore Town Center in Glendale. It is both a family-friendly dining spot and, with a good selection of margaritas, a date-night destination, with or without the shopping.
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.
