Aloha!

Saturday, was a cold, rainy, and snowy day in Wisconsin. So, what better way to forget about the dreadful weather than to have lunch at Cheeseburger in Paradise.  The moment I walked in I was transported to an over the top beach bar in Florida.  The sound of Jimmy Buffett music greeted my ears, and tropical scenes were painted on the walls in bright, almost neon, colors.  There where thatch roofs over the booths and the bar.  Colorful lighting decorated the thatch.  One wall of the restaurant was made of garage doors that can be opened when the weather is truly nice outside.  I visited Cheeseburger in Paradise one night last summer when the doors were open. It was beautiful!  This is common practice for those of you in tropical climates, but it is a treat for us in the north. Of course, there is a bar in the center of the restaurant that is laid out in a wavy pattern.  What a perfect tropical oasis on a snowy spring day!

Cheeseburger in Paradise has a pretty big cocktail menu.  So, picking a drink was a little difficult.  I knew from the last time I was here that the frozen drinks were all extremely sweet.  They are too sweet in my opinion.  I wouldn’t recommend them.  So, I ruled those out immediately.  Towards the back of the drink menu they have mixed drinks.

Since there was no mai tai; I tried the Tropical Island Tea, first.  The menu described it as, not your typical long island ice tea.  This was very true.  The only thing that made the drink like a long island was that it was all alcohol, and didn’t taste like it.  It had SKYY Infused Passion fruit, Wild Turkey American Honey, Bacardi Silver, and Cointreau.  A delicious passion fruit flavor dominated this libation.  There were hints of orange from the Cointreau as well. It was still a bit on the sweet side, but I enjoyed the drink.

Next up, was the Electric Lizard.  This drink had Coruba Coconut, Midori, lime juice, sweet & sour, and Sprite.  It had a tasty balance of coconut and melon flavors from the Coruba coconut, and the Midori.  It was rounded out with a lemon lime flavor from the sweet & sour, lime juice, and sprite.  This cocktail was also quite enjoyable.  

For an appetiser we ordered the chicken satay.  The satay isn’t on their appetiser menu, it is actually a lunch item, but there were three of us and we were on a mission to find chicken satay! That’s another story… The satay was good, but nothing special.  The peanut sauce made it all right.  I liked Stir Crazy’s Chicken Satay much better.

I had the chicken quesadillas for my meal.  I love chicken quesadillas, and these were pretty good.  It had cheddar and peper jack cheese, mushrooms, roasted red peppers, and pulled chicken.  The roasted red peppers were really good in the quesadilla.  The red peppers and cheddar cheese were a great combination.

The other two in the group had the mini crab cake burgers, and the coconut shrimp.  Both of those meals were very good.  The sweet potato chips are an excellent side dish.  They are thin cut, crispy, salty and sweet. Mmmm…

Overall Cheeseburger in Paradise is a great place to escape.  The food is pretty good, and the drinks are all right.  I really felt like I was in a Florida beach bar.  It was nice to have some tropical drinks in a tropical setting and escape the cold spring weather for a little while. 

Mahalo,

Damon