Miro's Charcoal House Little Europe

As Milwaukee begins to wan in my taste memory, I need to get an even older experience to LTHForum.com. Otherwise, Miro's Charcoal House Little Europe in Wisconsin will be one blur of schnitzel, sausage and garlic flavored toast. Actually, do I need to say more about Miro's that schnitzel, sausage and garlic flavored toast?

The VI family visited Miro's three times already. Each visit included, if not schnitzel, certainly lots of sausage. Miro's menu goes three pages deep, but like a pizza parlor with an extended list, a lot of the choices are combination plates. It is possible to avoid schnitzel or sausage, but be somewhat forewarned. Twice, the Condiment Queen strayed. Once to fish and once to a beef tenderloin/shrimp combo plate; neither time did she walk away as happy and stuffed as the rest of the table.

Avoiding stuffedness at Miro's is quite hard. It is hard first of all, to resist one of the five or so German and Czech beers on tap including a schwarzbier or black beer. And if you come on a Saturday night, as we have, you may have to wait a while for a table. Peckish, you will need to order the small potato pancakes, latkes, served with a sauce somewhere between ranch dressing and garlic butter. With the edge off, you can enjoy your soup. With the soup eat a slice or two of thick Wisconsin rye, either toasted and soaked with salty garlic butter or plain (plain?). Liver dumpling soup stays daily, a fine introduction to this soup, dumplings more fluffy than livery, while your alternative soup rotates. Needless to say, this being Wisconsin, the alternative probably includes cream and butter. One time, we had cream of chicken. It arrived thick yet unusually yellow in color. Guess what made it so yellow (hint, Wisconsin). The soup and garlic toast could sate. Luckily, Miro's serves enormous platters of food. Order a sausage plate, and you get four sausages about sixteen inches long. A schnitzel plate includes three giant swatches of breaded meat. Of course there are sides including long fingers of potatoes, roasted and then fried, showered with lemon pepper and combo plates of spatzle and bread dumplings. Finally, everyone gets dessert. Dessert of the day, but I doubt it ever changes from the dessert we got on each of three occasions, a fresh crepe filled with sweetened thin farmer's cheese.

As I noted above, if you stick with the basics, it seems hard to go wrong at Miro's. They make four kinda sausage in house, a plump Polish, a taut and spicy Bohemian, a meaty knockwurst and a brat heavy on the nutmeg, and then they grill them perfectly. We went to Miro's twice during recent debate on Hot Doug's, and it is hard to really appreciate Hot Doug's sourced sausages after having Miro's terrific handmade stuff. Aside from the CQ's misadventure in slightly frou-frou food, the only other thing less than delicious I tried was, amazingly, the gravy for the bread dumplings and spatzle. Stagnant and underspiced, it did no help. And the spatzle needed help especially, a little too plain. Since the potato wedges are so good, it is not really a problem in the long run.

Miro and his family, who escaped communist Czechoslovakia in 1981 dominate the dining room. It is easy to do. Miro's Charcoal House is highly visible from the expressway, I-94. There are two buildings, plain in nature, but decorated with effort to look as mitteleuropean as possible. So much so, that it looks almost too cutesy, like Apple Holler, which is an exit or two north. When you get there, you find that one building, housing a classic Wisconsin tavern, remains reserved for parties. Everyone gets crammed into the other room. It reminds me a bit of the famous Marx Brothers scene on the steamship. There is a u-shaped bar with Mrs. Miro, chatting, smoking and pouring large glasses of beer. There is a small showcase cooking area, where Miro with his floppy chef hat, makes his daily specials, and there are typically, at dinner, people waiting for tables. The spectacle though, is all part of the appeal.

Miro's Charcoal House Little Europe
6613 120th
Kenosha, WI
262-857-9073
(You will see Miro's going north on I-94 from Chicago. It is on the east side of the highway, your right. You then exit the expressway and double back on the frontage road to get to Miro's.)

Rob:

Thanks for the nice report. Good schnitzels and sausages and beer are hard to beat and you've got me planning out a Kenosha trip for the near future (though boring spätzle and gravy and dumplings sounds a bit disappointing).

Every time I go up to Kenosha or (less frequently) beyond, I want to stop in "Little Europe" but never have gotten around to it. In a week or two I think I'll hit Ruffolo's (link) for some ravioli and Tenuta's (link) for whatever, put everything in a cooler, and have dinner chez Miro.

What are the prices like for all the overkill?

A

Antonius wrote:Rob:

Thanks for the nice report. Good schnitzels and sausages and beer are hard to beat and you've got me planning out a Kenosha trip for the near future (though boring spätzle and gravy and dumplings sounds a bit disappointing).

Every time I go up to Kenosha or (less frequently) beyond, I want to stop in "Little Europe" but never have gotten around to it. In a week or two I think I'll hit Ruffolo's (link) for some ravioli and Tenuta's (link) for whatever, put everything in a cooler, and have dinner chez Miro.

What are the prices like for all the overkill?

A

It's around $12-16 for most entrees, which as described above is actually a bargain. We always get two if not three meals from the leftovers. One could, I believe, order just one thing, say the Czech combo of two kinds of schnitzel, and a long link of sausage, and have enough food for two. Do, however, splurge on the latke appetizer, which is about $5.

Rob

After drooling over VI's report of Miro's for several months, my family stopped for lunch yesterday on the way home from our last of five trips to summer camp in Oconomowoc this year. The girls were a little creeped out when they saw the gaily dressed dolls in European costume tacked to the walls, but the flavorful food overcame any reservations they might have about returning.

My husband and I both ordered the aforementioned combination plate, which not only contained two types of schnitzel and a huge sausage link, but was also accompanied by a basket of delicious bread with butter, soup (we opted for goulash as I was scarred for life by a bowl of liver dumpling soup as a child), red cabbage and spaetzel. The spaetzel was bland, as Rob described, but we liked it anyways. The girls opted for the pierogi plate, with one ordering cheese and potato and the other ordering ricotta and spinach. The gratis dessert of some kind of jello-strawberry shortcake was a nice finish to the meal, even though we were sure we would explode if we tried to eat another bite.

We came home laden with enough leftover food for at least two more meals. We are sure to stop there again soon.

Suzy

On our way up to Milwaukee this weekend, we stopped by - just for a beer. We were hoping for New Glarus (in retrospect, not a great expectation, but I'd never been there before), but the Bitburger was fine.

What was interesting, though, was that Miro heard us asking if they had New Glarus, and immediately came over. "Yes, we will have New Glarus when we finish big building next door."

"When will it be finished?"

"Will be finished three weeks ago."

Apparently contractors there are slow, but we agreed to stop back in once they finish the upgrade.

We will be there three weeks ago.

Since this thread has resurfaced, let me add that a Wiener Schnitzle I had there a month or two ago was an outstanding break from my drive back to Chicago after a quick trip to Milwaukee.

stevez wrote:Since this thread has resurfaced, let me add that a Wiener Schnitzle I had there a month or two ago was an outstanding break from my drive back to Chicago after a quick trip to Milwaukee.

Steve, thanks for the report. In the last few months, I've been to Miro's twice, and it was like, bad and badder. I hesitated to post, hoping it's a hiccup. Hopefully, from your experience, it was a detour in quality there.

Dad and I had dinner at Little Europe on Sunday evening on the way home after doing Barbecue Sauce demos in the far north suburbs of Milwaukee. Miro's Smokehouse next door appeared to be closed. Don't know if they are just closed on Sundays or if they finally gave up on that arm of the business.

For what it's worth, our dinner at LE, consisting of saurbraten, roast duck, red cabbage and roasted potatoes was quite good.

Buddy

LTH,

Went to the Le Creuset outlet in Kenosha Sunday. After saving a nice chunk of change for our 45-minute excursion from Chicago we decided to splurge a little on lunch so Little Europe got the nod over the Brat Stop.

Little Europe


It's been a year or three since my last visit and, while my last impression was good, I was pleasantly surprised to find Little Europe exceeded my recollection on all counts. Large parking lot, spacious bar, two comfortable dining rooms, pleasant efficient service coupled with an overall glad you're here vibe. There's even been a celebrity or two that have found their way to Little E, most notably Arnold S.



As has been noted Little Europe is not the place for light meal, various combination plates beckon, Schnitzel with smoked sausage, Schnitzel with brats, Schnitzel with rib tips and brats, Wiener Schnitzel with Old Prague Style Schnitzel, Schnitzel and Bohemian Meatloaf. If you are looking to get your Schnitzel on this is the place! Meals include liver dumpling soup, garlic toast, two starches and a veg. I liked the liver dumpling soup, thin broth coupled very mild liver dumplings, though my preference is for the more aggressively livery version at Chicago Brauhaus.

Liver Dumpling Soup


I opted for Wiener Schnitzel, the full on cholesterol be damned 16-oz portion, accompanied by mild red cabbage, and a half and half portion of spatzel and dumpling. Schnitzel was really quite good, tender, greaseless, squeeze of lemon and a few strands of red cabbage providing counterpoint.

Wiener Schnitzel.


My lunch companions, Mr. Pigmon and the ever Delightful Trixie-Pea, went combo platter, Wiener Schnitzel, brat and rib tips. Rib tips had a mild BBQ sauce, but were more on the order of a lightly cured Kassler rib, not BBQ, enjoyable none the less. House made brat, with it's light grill char, was well made though verging on an overdose of mace/nutmeg.

Brat, Rib Tips, Wiener Schnitzel


Dessert comes with each meal, though it was all we could muster to split one crepe between the three of us.

Crepe


Little Europe is pleasant halfway stop for those taking a leisurely Chicago-Milwaukee drive. Be forewarned, a platter of schnitzel and a German brew is better fodder for a nap than 70-mph highway cruising.



Enjoy,
Gary

Little Europe
6613 120th Ave
Kenosha, WI 53142
262-857-9073

Le Creuset
1211 120th Ave #15
Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin 53258
262-857-3124

Chicago Brauhaus
4732 N. Lincoln Ave
Chicago, IL
773-784-4444

I forgot to post this earlier

Sun sets on Little Europe

http://www.kenoshanews.com/scripts/edoris/edoris.dll?tem=lsearchart&search_iddoc=4098596




Miro Gono has presided over Little Europe, Kenosha’s European embassy of food along I-94, for almost 15 years.

“If I made a book, it would be a very interesting book,” Gono said of his experiences there.

Tonight, the restaurant will prepare its last dumpling and serve its last wiener schnitzel before closing its doors.

Gono and his wife, Bozka, opened Little Europe, 6613 120th Ave., in June 1994. The family escaped communist rule in their native Czechoslovakia, currently Slovakia, in 1981 by pretending to be on vacation in other European countries. They were granted political asylum and eventually moved to Kenosha in 1985.

Gono worked in the restaurant business, but he also owned a remodeling company for almost 10 years when the former Timber Ridge restaurant became available. Gono said he was compelled to turn his career toward the restaurant.

“No one here was selling a good wiener schnitzel, dumplings or good smoked products,” Gono said. “I sold my construction business, and I stayed here.”

Gono said his customers included regulars, curious travelers and celebrities such as Arnold Schwarzenegger and members of the Chicago Bulls. Gono said there was an evident appeal to Little Europe with its Bohemian food offerings.

“This is hearty food,” Gono said. “We bring people in, they have a big schnitzel and a couple of beers and they’re out in 50 or 60 minutes.”

Business was still steady at Little Europe recently — Gono said between 600 and 700 people a week were eating there — but he felt it was time to take a break from the restaurant business.

“I love it, but it’s time to change,” Gono said. “I just need to recuperate my body after 15 years. I said to my family to give me time to work until I was 55, and I’m 54 now.”

Gono sold the building to the group of partners that owns Capt. Mike’s Lighthouse Pub, 5118 Sixth Ave.; the tavern just north of Little Europe, Uncle Mike’s Highway Pub; and recently purchased Pazzo, 701 56th St. The owners plan on offering an upscale dining menu at the Little Europe site.

Gono said he was thankful for his employees, some of whom had stayed with Little Europe since it first opened. The Gono family — son Misko, daughter Susan Hurtz and cousin Juri Vrad — also worked at the restaurant at various times.

The family was thankful for the people who passed through the doors over the years.

“The customers became our family,” Hurtz said. “Without the customers and employees, we have nothing.”

Gono said it was amazing to watch customers who first came in as teenagers to visit the restaurant with their own children.

Customers have been bringing flowers, cards and thanks to the family since the closing was announced.

“It’s a little bit touching,” Gono said. “Not seeing those customers will be a little sad.”

Little Europe may be closing, but the flavors of the restaurant are not disappearing.

Gono said he will still be cooking at the Kenosha HarborMarket, working with the Wilmot School District and running a catering business. He also hopes to work with some area restaurants as a guest chef or to provide smoked and barbecued food.

“I still want to keep this ethnic food here,” Gono said.

He also hopes to open a European deli in the future, but does not plan on jumping back in the restaurant business soon. But there is still one more service to go at Little Europe today, starting at 11 a.m. and running past midnight.

Tonight “is like the last supper; it’s a thank you to everyone,” Gono said.

Dammit. First the Star Bar closes, then Little Europe. I'm going to have to find some different places to eat on my trips to Oconomowoc this year.

Suzy

sdritz wrote:Dammit. First the Star Bar closes, then Little Europe. I'm going to have to find some different places to eat on my trips to Oconomowoc this year.

Suzy

There's always Kopp's!