East West 'que...in Wisconsin?

East meets West fusion cuisine reached a critical mass somewhere back in the 90's. Now it goes one step further with East West bar-b-que. Local Madison restaurant dynamo Muramoto adds the Haze to his list of food hot spots.

Since I'm a fan of the sushi and the other lovely dishes at both Restaurant Muramoto and Sushi Muramoto, I decided to go the East 'que route. Bahn Mi is basically a Vietnamese po-boy; stacked with smoked chicken, cilantro, jalapeno, pickled veggies, and mayo all on a baguette. The flavors all melded together beautifully, the pickled veg and spiciness of the peppers set off the smoky chicken. The mayo adds a bit of fat, and the fresh cilantro also adds a tangy aspect and a bit of wild greenery to this po-boy. Cheddar jalapeno grits were full of creamy goodness (very few places in Wisconsin seem to be able to make grits), edamame also was a nice addition to a pretty decent meal.

Drew tried the West route; pulled pork, the much touted house pickles, and fries. He was not as thrilled with his selection. The pork was boring, the pickles were a bit too much for one person, and fries are...fries.

He is determined to try it again. The place was also completely dead at 6pm, during happy hour. In downtown Madison. Thats not a good sign. While I enjoyed my food much more than Drew, I don't feel the need to try it again. I also don't think this one may be around much longer.

More than snooty Ikea food

Our first (and not last) trip to Magnus was a full-service experience from great cocktails to wonderful service. Nice decor, the main dining room was open with a high ceiling and well lit.

Starting with cocktails, I had the Finn's #7 cup, a re-imagined Pimm's cup with local Death's Door gin, dry vermouth, Lillet, St. Germain in an old fashioned glass with apple and cucumber slivers as garnish. Very tart and refreshing, my kind of drink! Drew's Uptown Julep was sweet and tasty, with Bulliet bourbon, mint and a frosted rim in a martini glass.

Our first plates included a good deal of pickled things (apropos?). The Norwegian sausage and duck ham with pickled cabbage, cornichons and truffle mustard was a good marriage of flavors from fats to sweet to sour. Then the pickled herring, salmon, and shrimp with egg creme fraiche and cucumbers gave us even more pickled goodness. The seafood was all fresh and tart, the clean cucumbers and sweet/creamy creme fraiche bookending the flavors perfectly.

Our entrees were also winners; mine was the cardamom crusted sirloin with black currants, truffled cauliflower puree and spinach. The truffled cauliflower puree and spinach became a bit heavy-handed as the meal wore on as is often the case with truffle anything but the richness served as a good foil to the lean sirloin. The cardamom and currants worked well together, the cardamom never overpowering or too menthol. Currants are a good fruit for beef, they are not too sweet but slightly earthy, and they hold up to cooking.

Drew's cocoa nib wild boar tenderloin with wild mushrooms, pea puree and fig syrup was a study in decadent fatty/sweet flavors. When I tasted it, I felt that more pea puree was needed to balance the dish, the figs and cocoa were pretty strong. Overall it worked well because the pork was leaner and more gamey than your average loin or chop, the 'wildness' of the boar accentuated the wildness of the cocoa.

Dessert options looked incredibly boring, how many flourless chocolate cakes can one town have? So we went with savory over sweet; the jarlsberg cheese tart mixed salty/barnyard cheese with crunchy dough and sweet ligonberries.

Magnus has portion sizes and flavor combinations down. The dessert menu was the only flaw, but the menu is seasonal! We were well pleased by the fancy Ikea food.

Tornado Room, and my first rack

With garish come-hither neon signage, dark cozy interiors, and northwoods carcass chic all speak to an era long-gone where men wore pinstripe suits and poured hooch in the back bar. I'm shocked that the Tornado Room wasn't used n Public Enemies, I can easily imagine Johnny Depp's Dillinger charming the pants off some girl in the uber-cool bar.

Having visited twice, each time I've been excited by my entree. I've had the pork with sour cherry reduction and most recently the lamb with mustard, garlic, bread crumbs and mint. The pork was sweet and tart, tender cut dripping with fatty evil. The leftovers became an awesome sandwich, the sweet pork balanced by a salty English hard cheese on a baguette. The lamb was an inspiration. Crunchy burned mustard/breadcrumb on one side, silky lamb falling off the bone on the other side. The mint pops up like a beloved guest star during various sublime bites. There were no leftovers for this one and I let Drew gnaw on the bones after I gnawed until full.

Oysters Rockefeller was well done, but not special. The casear salad was real- real anchovy loveliness. Fatty nummy brussel sprouts were a welcome side.

Booze: The wine list is short, and not super fantastic but its certainly not crap/chain style with only one or two producers per varietal- it was not well rounded and not the usual merlot/cab/chard show. The lamb was safely paired with a semi-sweet rose (too safe, I should have gone for a light/sweetish red), the pork was accompanied by a malbec that was a little dry and tart- appropriate for the sweet/tart/fatty pork but with enough fruit to not be completely opposite. The cocktails were pretty neat in the cool recessed lighting bar. A ginger infused bourbon, peach liquor/brandy and a little lemon was a nice Southern style treat, the Vesper was strong and bracing. One cocktail during a trip last summer consisted of fresh basil, strawberry puree, and rum.

Great taste 09: the quickie

This year I volunteered and even got a snazzy guayabera with my name on it. I 'ran' the beer and cheese education session. This pretty much meant that I shook hands with people, played bouncer to douchebags who were mean to my volunteers, and handed out beer and cheese. Dan from New Glarus gave a great talk and made some good pairings- it was a pleasure to meet and listen to him.



As busy as I was, I didn't take notes nor did I drink as much but I will mention some favorite brews. Real ale tent: Bluegrass Brewing chocolate rye porter, Fat Heads' Collaborative Evil, New Albanian: Beak's Best, Malcolm's Old Setter Ale, Hoptimus IPA (best advertising ever), Surly: Ash-Aged Cynic, Tea Bagged Bitter, Kuhnhnens' Cherry Belgian.

The real ale tent was a big haunt of mine this year, I arrived early and watched the guys and girls tap the casks. I was allowed/encouraged/dared to tap a bunghole (seriously its the hole on the top of the cask that gets tapped first to release CO2), there is footage of this somewhere of my tapping it, air blowing out, then the beer bath. In my first 30min of the festival, I was covered in beer. I also got to be all beer-groupie and meet one of the cool local lady brewers, Jaime of Dells Brewing/Moosejaw. I also got to meet a New Albanian brewer, who told me that the awesome Malcolm's Old Setter Ale was waiting for two years, it was full of alcohol warmth, sweet caramel/toffee malts, gasoline, butter, dark fruits.

Non-cask beers of note and remembrance:
B. Nektar Meadery- Buckwheat Mead
Blue Cat- coriander and orange US wheat
Lakefront- Rosie kriek lambic



Overall, an awesome time. Again. I'll take an even more active role next year, this is really a premier beer event and the small numbers make it all that much cooler. I only saw a small number of stupid shit, a few drunk vomiting, almost fights, outfits that should not be...but as a long-time veteran of DragonCon; this was Sunday school.

Wisconsin BBQ, who knew?

How can they possibly have good 'que here? Its no where nears hot enough. They have no concept of iced tea. The Wisconsin idea of spicy involves ketchup.

I ate these words two nights ago. Smoky Jon's is a much lauded institution here in Madison and apparently award-winning even in the South. So we wanted our fix. Holy crap, vinegar-based ribs that literally were cooked so long that the bones became soft. Sauce that was tangy and only a tiny bit sweet. Almost spicy, but really astringent. The ribs made me want to gnaw on bone like a dog. I don't even really like ribs, I like pulled pork or chicken bbq. Or mutton.

Crinkle fries, baked beans with the vinegar based sauce, and lame bread rolls rounded out the meal. Next time we'll try other sides.

Beer pairing: for unknown bbq, I decided that maybe an opposite flavor would work well. I was thinking spicy, smoky, or tart- so I chose a Belgian Dark Strong Ale with its high alcohol, dark fruits, yeasty malty goodness to balance the flavors. It did work well, we drank the Trois Pistoles by Unibroue and the large goblets of liquid goodness fit the bill.

Service with a sneer

I admit that the reason I generally won't go to an Italian restaurant (Sotto Sotto being an exception), it that I associate Italian-American food too much with Olive Garden. Olive Garden, in my pretentious Viognier swigging foie gras eating mind, is the epitome of staid suburban mediocrity in food and in life. I blame the Will and Grace episode "I never promised you an Olive Garden" for entrenching this in my imagination. I am an unabashed foodie, snob, geek, whatever and since I'm not Italian and have never had grandmother's lasagna, I don't get the big deal. Again, I have had "snooty" Italian and find it very good but since most of the places calling themselves Italian have the spaghetti and meatballs line-up- I simply don't care.

We tried Tutto Pasta on State Street for lunch one day having not heard anything bad about it. Let's start my rant with the fact that as soon as we walked in, we felt like we had interrupted some extremely important standing around time of the staff. After being ignored at our table for close to 10 minutes with Drew getting more and more pissed, we were brought water with ice (no I don't like ice in my water when it 15F outside) in plastic glasses. The cheap local beer was $5 on draft, for Atlanta thats high-end but for Madison its nuts to pay that much for Spotted Cow. Bud was $3.50. Mediocre wines like Ecco was about $8 a glass. So no booze today.

The best part comes when our bread is literally tossed on the table without a word. I giggled and resigned myself at that point to a $30 object lesson.

At least the food didn't suck...entirely. The bruschetta may have been cold, but at least the ingredients tasted fresh. We ordered specials; a cheese ravioli in a tomato sauce, and a chicken in an alfredo-ish sauce with veggies, pistachios, cranberries. The ravioli, chicken, and veggies in cheese sauce were all either canned or frozen. The tomato sauce was homemade with fresh garlic, basil, and tomatoes- it was quite nice. The flavor combination of the pistachio, cheese, and cranberries was nice as well. Immediately after eating, we did get garlic burps since you MUST have a ton of garlic in Italian food right?

I never leave crappy tips. But getting ignored, being made to feel like I was putting out the staff, and the bread-tossing all added up to a small tip. Lesson learned.

Old Fashions are always in fashion

Every once and a while that popular place in the tourist section of town can be judged well worth the hype. Visitors may scoff at the notion of “Wisconsin cuisine” but the OF pulls off this niche so well that there’s an hour plus wait some evenings and most weekends. This food is comforting, filling, and exciting enough to make me come back at least once a month. To add to the all Wisconsin all the time theme, they are now serving all Wisconsin beer that can be bottled or tapped. From the usual suspects of Spotted Cow and Tyranena, to nouveau ghetto (Old Style? Really?), to small brewpubs as far as Lake Superior (Thirsty Pagan coming soon).

Food first: A little something for everyone: veggies, salads, fried food, and tons of meat. The ingredients are fresh and quality enough that even the fried coatings of the awesome cheese curds can’t hide. The roast beef is superb, tangy and a little bloody but full of flavor- the tiger blue sauce makes a great foil to the meaty sandwich. The pulled pork is sumptuous and greasy; toasted bread and a great sauce pull it together to fill up for the day. The veggie sandwich is savory and filling, I am pretty much a sucker for anything with warm goat cheese and roasted veggies that aren’t from a can. Very good burger and the fries are thin and crisp. A really cool touch for dinner are the lazy susans, a selection of finger foods to share. From the great WI cheeses (of which there are many), to the local inspired fish plates (still not sold on walleye), to the great dips; these lazy susans are a great way to introduce people to the spirit of the Old Fashioned. And of course they have brats, you betcha.

I'll get back to the beer in a second. Let's talk booze. If you choose, you may look at the large book o booze, listing cocktails to and exhaustive bottled beer list, to local non-alcoholic drinks- people really go for local brewed root beers here. Go ahead and try the signature drink the Old Fashioned. This is made with brandy in the great white north here which is the subject of much speculation and did get the hairy eyeball from this Southerner who is pretty damn sure that anything other than bourbon in an OF is high blasphemy. There's even an editorial about this, ironically, in the latest issue of Imbibe. I'm sure the bartenders do a great whatever-tini too when the chicks come in to drink at night, but the beer is really worth exploring here.

Not only are there tons of bottled beers, but over 20 taps including a monthly "cheap" beer that generally isn't cheap- right now its Tyranena scotch ale and when I first ate here it was the very drinkable Fattybombalatty by Furthermore. So far in the every brewery initiative, I've tried a couple. Red Eye brewery in Wausau put out a Belgian style called Scarlett 7 that I just had to try because I'm a sucker for Belgian style. Not a big smell coming off of this ruby colored beauty. Slightly floral, figgy and malty. A sweet medium mouthfeel gives way to rich fig, raisin, cinnamon, and spices. The hops are noted at the finish, balancing the sweet and malty taste in a crisp way that American brewed Belgian styles are great for. Wausau is now on my WI beer list.

Tyranena Rocky's Revenge: Bourbon aged brown ale, poured medium brown with a lacy tan head. Good bourbon smell to it. Drinkable and smooth, I could taste the bourbon and wood but only as a finish. It did not slap me over the head with it. Kinda fizzy mouthfeel, overall it was nice but I feel like the bourbon aging was the difference between a boring beer and an ok beer.

Calumet rye! I do miss rye beer, Terrapin was a good go-to beer in Atlanta suitable for all weather. This rye was not as hoppy or crisp, it is more of a go-to beer for a place that has seasons. Muted, smooth, floral, and very drinkable; I felt this rye to be less hoppy and more like an ESB than an IPA- I'm very very fine with that. I want to try this again, more of it than a taste.

So that's the Old Fashioned. I actually did talk about food in this entry. Go me.

Spice is relative and regional

We like Asian food. We like spice. Many times we can get both, but we get the feeling that maybe in Wisconsin there is a different concept of spice. Much like Irish time, or Indian time, or Cuban time; WI spicy does not resemble Southern spicy or (insert ethnic group) spicy.

We tried the little noodle house on Willy St, Wah Kee, not expecting much. Looking at the chef special menu, we concluded that if they served tripe it is probably pretty authentic since most American are not down with tripe. Drew ordered it, being French and used to eating suspect animal parts. Honeycomb tripe with a garbanzo honey sauce- it had a low spice factor but it was flavorfull. The beans were firm denoting dried, not canned. The tripe was, tripe-y. I'm not a fan of the texture but I can get the taste. My entree was supposed to be spicy, it had a little picture of a chili dammit, but the tofu and veggies were kinda blah.

We later tried delivery. This time ordering appetizers such as the sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaf and pork buns. The sticky rice rocked, smoky and slightly sweet with the vegetal flavor of the leaf infusing the rice. Nice. The pork buns were ok, nothing to write home about. As far as the entrees, Drew struck it rich again with the roasted duck with taro. I will say that the duck was mainly gristle, but the sauce was rich and accented nicely by the starchy taro. I tried to order another spicy selection: jambong (seafood, white noodles, spicy broth). Not only was there no broth, there were big clumps of chili on top. Perhaps I was to make my own broth- which I did. The seafood was what I can only describe as fake and it was not even remotely spicy.

I'm wondering if I need to ask for extra spice or non-Wisconsin spice when I order.

All in all, its obvious that you need to order off the chef's menu, dine in, and ask for extra spicy for this to work. We plan on gong back for sure since it seems to be one of the few places that isn't only Chinese-American food. There are just rules that must be adhered to.

Great Taste: final

Three words: real ale tent. If I had known about this, I would have made a bee-line and hunkered down in there like I was having a zero-day. A tent full of cask-conditioned kegs, unfiltered, British style (including not being ass-cold), and cask ales are fermented for a second time in the cask or firkin. This tent is a great example of a growing trend in the US for cask style beer, someday we'll get our own version of CAMRA which is kinda like a Slow Food for "British" style beer and pub culture. Keeping it real yo.

Surly brewing company out of Minnesota. Best name: Teabag Furious, which is a malty IPA-like reddish beer with some tea tossed in somehow. Maybe added post hops, who knows but the beer had a nice tannic taste that was a great palate-cleaner, coppery hue, medium beige head and cloudy with the tea. Tasted more like a good ESB than the usual overly hoppy IPA. Cask style oak-aged Bender was pretty sweet too, lovely low carbonation strong oak taste with a heavy mouthfeel. The best taste from Surly was the Darkness 08. Even the name sounds cool. This Russian IPA-style beer (correction: Russian Imperial Stout NOT Ale holy shit shoot me) had alot going on taste-wise but it all worked: big mouthfeel, black as sin, chocolate, rum, molasses, vanilla, caramel, blackberry/rassberry, oak. The hops ass-smacking aftertaste prevented the Darkness from being too sweet and heavy.

Summit oatmeal ale had a slight bitter taste that came after the initial sweetness. I could literally taste oatmeal, overall it was one of the more unique oatmeal ales I've tried.

Sadly, I missed some really limited ales because I wasn't terribly aware of this tent. I'll do better next year.

On a side note: we were kinda expecting some sort of amateur hour. I mean, 5,000 people with unlimited beer? But this festival is apparently some serious shit, I saw very very few amateurs. No fights, hardly any police (in Atlanta if there were 5000 people drinking, the cops would be thick as fleas). And drunk buses to take you across town. What more could you want? I think we'll be tailgating for tickets next year, I'm not missing this one.

Great Taste Part 2 of 3

Imagine all that beer in only a few hours! Decisions, decisions. Plus, I knew I only had a small window of time before I would have had so much to drink the whole notebook thing would go out the window. So would my taste, that is the time when I can drink crap like PBR.

Onward!

As Florida (from whence we came) is full to the brim of scary tourist traps- the Mouse being the big one- we are used to the things coming out of tourist towns to suck. And be really expensive.

Moosejaw, out of the Dells, seemed to be better than the average beer. Maybe because even in Wisconsin we are not going to fuck around with beer? The apricot (style unsure) was spicy, cleansing, hoppy, and fruity up front. This was no Dogfish Head Aprihop, but it was a nice breath of fresh air on the warm day. The trippel I also tasted, damn I am a sucker for Belgies, was the usual yeasty, quaffable, big-avb. It was kinda "meh"- no real depth, a xerox copy. If we do get the urge to visit the Dells for some indoor water park, mini-golf, or Indian casino action- we'll stop by.

Not only am I a sucker for Belgies, but I'm also a sucker for odd ingredient beer. Seaweed, pine, heather, juniper, peppers....anywhoo Kuhnhenn was not originally on my list but one of the guys we were talking to in line told us to stop by. Holy crap I want to drive way the fuck out to Detriot and have more of their beer. They seemed to do alot of the "ancient" recipes with bizarro ingredients. The heather ale had the mulling spices, honey, almost wine taste to it. Coating mouthfeel, just on the good side of cloying. I like these guys at times, but it may be too sweet for others. Drew tried an interesting brew that he rushed over to have me taste too. I think it was called the 'Sahti' and it smelled strongly of juniper, clove, pine/spruce, and cardamom. All the crazy flavors seemed to work together, it was such an interesting taste (no hops so I'm pretty sure it was an ale) that I'm not sure I could pair it with food- nor do I think I could drink more than one. I get the feeling that they try odd beer flavors often, we missed their legendary creme brulee sadly.

For beer geeks out there, apparently Twin Cities brewer Surly has some sort of cult following or at least some beer geek cachet. Yep, we got Surly. At the booth itself we tried the Bender; a drinkable brown that had some malt, oatmeal, fruit and spice. Just my kind of drink for most of the year with its crisp mouthfeel. Also tried the Coffee Bender: are coffee beers done yet? This one was a typical example, decent but I think I'm over the coffee beer thing in general so if YOU like coffee beers- this is nice.

Next entry: The real ale tent and all its goodness. And a couple more beers with slightly slurred notes and a slightly slurred memory. I will also share in some non-beer related catty observations.

Back with a Great Taste: part 1 of 3

Sorry loyal reader(s), we've been lazy. Frankly moving to Wisconsin (aka: land of beer and cheese) has been so overwhelming to our collective palettes that there is almost too much to write home about.

Let's talk the biggest deal we've lucked into so far here: The Great Taste of the Midwest. Only 5000 tickets which you can either hope you are lucky enough to get through a mail lottery, or you can tailgate starting at 3am outside of Star Liquor (which we actually did walk by one spring AM wondering why people were in line for the booze shop). We got ours because one of Drew's science people had some spares since some people moved. Score!

We took the drunk bus down to stand in a huge-ass line. You can tell the Midwesterners as they already had brats grilling and were outfitted with comfy chairs. I swear these people treat tailgating like boy scouts- always prepared. Once 1Pm hit, the line moved pretty fast and I was able to have a taste in hand by 10 after.

A night or two before, we had been able to scope the online list and make a list of who we wanted to taste, so thus armed with a list and my trusty booze notebook- off we went. Below are my notes for the fateful June day, as the day wore on I made less intelligible notes so I'll have to rely on a sketchy memory along with my scribbles.

First scheduled stop: Founder's for the bourbon barrel-aged porter pouring. I am a fan of their Dirty Bastard scotch ale, so I wanted to hit them up for more stuff. By the way, bourbon barrel would be the theme this year, if I had a dollar for all the ones I had tried; I'd be both drunk and rich. The Founder's was a strong porter, almost imperial in its alcohol flavor, smoky, slight bourbon aftertaste only, and not at all sweet. It was a strong B.

Next on to some Viking. The innovative Mjod mead style ale was a stomach warming, semi-dry, honey and clover flavored bit o nice. Spicy finish making it a nice winter warmer. The Hot Chocolate had a bit of a spice in the back of the throat kick that was a bit much for the nice warm day; not impressed but it was brewed with fair trade coffee so thats cool. Lime wheat- seriously? Corona? How is that Viking? Drink up fratboys, I'll stick to the Viking seasonals inspired by cold weather, not spring break.

On to a palette cleanser: a herby/citrus organic wit by Lafayette. Cool drink of beer.

Dragonmead: frankly the booth looked cool as hell, so I went for the trippel. It smacked my ass with abv and there was a distinct sour taste (not a Flemish sour kinda taste) over the usual citrus/banana/clove flavors. Eh, I'm spoiled for trippels- this was no St Bernardus.

Having had the farmhouse French style from Two Brothers before and enjoying it, we tried a very clean and crisp Dog Days lager, and the Cain and Ebel IPA which were both decent examples of said styles- but frankly I never get worked up over an IPA. Solid selections.

The insane line at the 3 Floyds booth made me think they were pouring something really special. Alas it was scheduled for later or all the good stuff was in the Real Ale tent (oh I'll get to that tent don't worry). Had the Gumballhead wheat, basically it was a typical summer wheat. The Alpha King was a bit more interesting, hoppy and grassy but with actual malt flavor, an IPA I could drink more than once. Why the hell was there such a long line, we didn't get it.

Part 2: the best shit. evah.

Do *not* piss off the surrealist artist

Having a tiny craving for Mexican food, we headed on downtown to a trendy, cleaned-up kinda place that advertised creative Mexican cuisine. Frida should have been cool. It should have had decent food. A place named after a famous surrealist should at least be inventive. Right? Am I taking crazy pills?

The first clue was the fact that my margarita was poured out of a slushy machine. They didn't even make it? Tequila, orange flavored booze, lime, salt- DONE. Its not like I ordered the poma-tini with a twist of green tea flavored granita. Holy crap, a slushy machine?? Maybe it would be good, maybe they have a secret surrealist painter recipe. Nope. It was too sweet and too watered down. Perfect for half off specials and 'girls night' drunk fests, maybe the top shelf ones are actually made by real people.

The guacamole was just fine, and the usual chips and salsa were fine too. But the entrees....Drew had the seafood enchiladas with a creamy red pepper sauce and cheese. I had the mixed plate- pulled pork taco, cheese quesadilla, chicken enchilada with ranchera sauce.

Another bad sign: Upon seeing Drew's food, I asked if he ordered cheese whiz.

We actually split everything hoping that we wouldn't miss anything good. My pulled pork taco was dry on one side, and fell apart with moisture on the other. How can you mess up a cheese quesadilla? It was fine. The chicken enchilada was not too dry or too wet, it was just fine and exactly like any other one I've had. Drew's seafood enchiladas were odd in that we cannot identify a single bit of seafood in the dish. We are pretty sure it was there, but who knows what it was. The 'cheese whiz' looking sauce quickly dried and thickened into a gelatinous mess of off putting cheese/whatever. It tasted like cheese and fat, basically.

Overall, no thanks. If I wanted the same old tacos and fajitas with my large crappy margarita I can go to any number of places that are cheaper, there is no wait, and they have sombreros hanging on the walls. There is plenty of room for that, I'm more mad at Frida because I was hoping for creative, at least one or two things that were unique and/or high quality. I couldn't even discern a regional theme. Frida did have some revenge on us later that evening however, perhaps her spirit visits fire upon those who eat in the crappy restaurant that bears her name.

First Impressions: Madison

Ah Madison, Wisconsin: land of cheese. And beer. And large gray snowdrifts leftover from the fabled 'worst freaking winter' evah. Its been one whole week since we've set up house (kinda) and wandered the town searching for food.

Weary Traveler: Our pick so far for best stumbling distance pub. Small but local craft beers on tap, the Lake Louie stuff is awesome (the scotch ale is dreamt about already); and the food is pretty above average. The goulash had some incredibly good quality beef chunks in its tasty goodness, the ahi tuna and reubens were also of equally good meat-quality. No cheap crap here. The menu is not terribly diverse or inventive, but the weekday ambiance and cool bar-sitting factors make this one a contender for us.

Great Dane Pub: Very tasty beers at this brewpub, the stouts and cask conditioned ales are big winners, but the porter was much too bitter. We shared the eviiiiil mac -n-cheese and a salad initially; very good move on our part as the mac n cheese is super fatty and rich. The second trip at the much better downtown location had use trying some faux-mexi dishes which later...errr...backfired on us. I personally was pretty much more interested in the beer, and I was not disappointed.

Angelic Pub: While they don't actually brew beer on site anymore, the Ale Asylum stuff was pretty nice. The Big Slick stout and Nutbrown Ale were both pretty nice, and the taps are fairly diverse with odd inclusions like Miller and Chicago's Goose Island along with the local stuff. The bar is huge and full of very very bad girly liquor; causing me to imagine that this place so close to campus is serious amateur hour on weekend nights. The beer-cheese-sausage soups was very rich and filling, and the local veggie burger with unique pub fries was the perfect thing to split for a filling but not overly fattening lunch.

Blue Plate Diner- In one of the older neighborhoods down the road, Drew picked out our very first breakfast experience in Madison. Cute diner with plenty of veggie selections (duh its Madison) and freaking MALTS!!!! The gluten-free nut milk french toast was rockin, fresh bananas to top off the most interesting tasting 'fronch toast' I've ever had. It tasted strongly of cinnamon and the nut milk gave it a tart flavor that cuts the usual cloying sweetness of french toasts. We also split a homemade corned beef hash with scrambled eggs and a decent biscuit. I've never had hash that wasn't formerly surrounded by steel, so this real beef freshness was a treat. The coffee was not bad either, a real plus considering that most breakfasty places in ATL had shite for coffee (burned grinds Pastries a go-go I'm talking to you!).

Himal Chuli- Small cash-only Nepalese place on what I consider the most tragically hip (or hippie?) street in Madison. Never having Nepalese food, we found out it is very similar to Indian food and we just had the daily veg tarkara with warm, thick roti bread. The cauliflower and eggplant tarkaras were full of coriander, garlic, and tumeric in this tasty Nepalese style curry. We also had the chiya (tea) to round out our nice veggie lunch.

So while Madison is totally awesome for veggie/vegan/whatever dietary restrictions you have: so far, I've been enamored of the super fresh, quality beef. Sure, I could have bought swank stuff in Atlanta anytime, but for the local pub to have better tasting beef than other comparably priced places is a cause for me to eat a little more meat heavy.

*photo courtesy of cooltownstudies.com