One of Door County's best-known visitor attractions is Al Johnson's Swedish Restaurant, in Sister Bay, Wisconsin.  Al Johnson's is a family-owned establishment, serving authentic Swedish cuisine.  The restaurant has a sod roof and goats can occasionally be seen grazing on top of the building!  Inside, the decor is warm and inviting, even remarkably authentic.  The foyer reminds me of a restaurant I visited some years ago on the shores of Sweden's Lake Vattern. My personal favorite is the Swedish pancakes, with whipped cream and strawberries.  The ample menu also includes Swedish meatballs, Broiled Norwegian Salmon, cold plates, limpa bread, lingonberries, pickled herring and pickled beets, Door County whitefish and Lake Michigan perch.  Meals are served by waitresses in authentic Swed... 11/20/2007

  When you go to a restaurant you haven't visited in over twenty years, you expect to find things changed.  The menu is usually different, or the food quality something less than you remember.  So imagine my surprise when I stopped at the Sister Bay Bowl, in Wisconsin's Door County, on a chilly off-season November evening and it was almost as if I'd stepped into a time machine. The origin of the Sister Bay Bowl dates back to 1950, when the Willems family began operating the Sister Bay Hotel.  In 1958, Earl and Rita tore down the dance hall and constructed a six-lane bowling alley.  By 1964, the bowling alley included a supper club, which became today's Sister Bay Bowl. I first visited the Bowl in the late 1970s, when I was a faculty member at the Birch Creek Music Academy in Egg Harbor,... 11/20/2007