More Asian Food for Milwaukee

Milwaukee’s grown Hmong community is beginning to have an impact on Milwaukee’s dining scene. One example doesn’t sound very Hmong but actually is: Owner Tai Thao is opening Bubble Tea Fusion this Saturday in the Hmong Town Market, which is a 25,000 square foot area inside Pacific Produce (at 8340 W. Appleton Ave.) set aside for Hmong merchandise food vendors. This new market will be open by early January.

Bubble Tea Fusion was a food truck that shut down this fall in preparation for its re-opening in Pacific Produce. The café will serve their usual bubble teas and smoothies alongside the new options of popping pearls which are flavored tapioca pearls with liquid centers, matcha and more teas. But the restaurant will also serve Thai food items like banh mi and spring rolls, as well as egg rolls, all of which will be added to the menu eventually. Thao is offering opening specials that will be posted on Facebook and Twitter. Opening day the first 25 customers will receive a free 16-oz bubble tea. On day two, customers can purchase $2 drinks with tapioca pearls with a Facebook or Twitter coupon. The Hmong Town Market will be open from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily. Bubble Tea will also be open daily with exact hours to be announced.

–Ginza Japanese Restaurant, whose first location was in Wauwatosa, will be opening a second location on the North Shore, at 333 W. Brown Deer Rd in the Audubon Court shopping center that straddles the suburbs of Bay Side and Fox Point. Ginza offers a pretty extensive Japanese menu with a Sushi bar offerings a range of choices, and the online reviews have been mostly positive. The new place may not open until January.

-The Buddha lounge is opening at 1504 E. North Ave. early next month, as Molly Snyder reported on her blog last week. The restaurant and bar will include Chinese, Japanese, Thai and Vietnamese cuisine. The space, which used to house Glass Nickel Pizza, is now being remodeled. The Buddha Lounge is owned by Yosef Goldstein who also owns Midwest Investment Association and Dr. Molar Dental Spa. Dental care, dining and investments, now that’s a diversified business portfolio.

-A mid-December opening has been set for the new restaurant at 1110 N. Old World 3rd St., the Ale Asylum Riverhouse. It will open following its remodel, which involves new flooring. The space was occupied by Molly Cool’s Seafood Tavern for five years before they closed down at the end of September. The restaurant is owned by Madison entrepreneur Tim Thompson, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and although unaffiliated with the Madison brewery Ale Asylum, Thompson plan to offer 17 taps for seasonal and year-round beers from the brewery. Former owner of INdustri Café (which closed last spring) Robert Klemm is developing the menu for Ale Asylum Riverhouse. He plans to carry over favorite dishes from INdustri such as the mushroom gratin and hush puppies made with lobster. He is also planning on beer-steamed mussels and deconstructed crab Rangoon-nachos. The restaurant will be open for dinner and for brunch on the weekends and lunch on Fridays.

-The recently formed Milwaukee-based partnership which includes the managing partners of McGillycuddy’s and Red Rock Saloon, Drew Deuster and JJ Kovacovich, and the managing partners of Three Lions Pub, David Price and Christopher Tinker, are preparing to open their new restaurant Red Lion Pub on Tannery Row at 1850 N. Water St. The partners have finished a remodel of the building which used to house Brocach Irish Pub & Restaurant. The opening has been set for December 5th.The new British pub will televise soccer matches and serve British-American food. Some menu items include Shepherd’s pie, Cornish pastry, a pot roast sandwich and ale-battered fish-and-chips. Red Lion will also serve brunch on the weekends, a Monday night special on fish-and-chips and trivia on Tuesdays.

Now Closing

American Euros, the gyros and pita sandwich restaurant at 3133 N. Oakland Ave., will close in mid-December, its co-owner Mark Miller told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. His business partner Damien Wright will be opening a new restaurant in the same space.