What I get angry about is the fact that, while Madison, Wisconsin is said to have the highest number of restaurants per capita of any American city over 200,000 people, it has A LOT of mediocre food. There is an abundance of chain stores here, but there are plenty of locally owned establishments as well, and some of them are quite good. But, the food culture here seems stunted, as if there is no real sense of identity. Again, please don't get me wrong, there is good food to be had, but for every L'Etoile and Shinji Muramoto, there's twenty or thirty Samba's or Parthenon Gyros.
What has set me off was a trip to Chicago this past weekend. Some friends and I celebrated a birthday at Fogo de Chao in the Loop. It's part of a Brazilian steak house chain that opened in Brazil in the late seventies and now has sixteen restaurants around the U.S., mostly in major cities. The experience was amazing! The meat never stopped! It was quality food, tasty drinks, excellent service, a wine list that wins awards, and an upbeat atmosphere. It wasn't cheap, mind you, (a date night could easily set you back $200+,) but it was well worth it.
Here in Madison, we have Samba. It's owned by a couple who also own several other restaurants and a couple of liquor stores and are taking turns serving time in prison for tax evasion! The last time I was there, (also for a friend's birthday,) the lamb was game-y, some of the other meats weren't very well cooked or spiced, the salad bar was pretty good, the drinks were ok, and the service absolutely sucked. All of this and I only paid $10 less for the meal than I did for Fogo de Chao.
I'm not sure I have anything constructive to say about Madison's food scene at the moment. There are quality restaurants here and places I love, but some folks here have an attitude that the scene here is on par with Chicago, and I'm here to tell you...it's not. I'm going to sleep on this one and we'll see if I have anything more to say about this issue. /rant
I haven't really lived anywhere aside from Madison (Stevens Point isn't really a place and I wasn't in Hyderabad for very long) so I don't really have any idea what other cities have to offer. I am more than a little proud of Madison for a whole bunch of reasons, but one of them is that my undeveloped palate loves the food here.
ReplyDeleteI am curious to know what you think about the bar food in Madison, particularly the Willy Street area. I love taking friends from out of town to what looks like a tavern on the corner and treating them to fries coated in truffle oil or angus beef burgers. So, what do you think of places like Mickey's Tavern, The Weary Traveler, The Alchemy, or The Harmony? Do other cities have better bar food than we do?
Jinx
as someone who was born and raised in the Madison area, i've seen many favorite restaurants come and go. it frustrates me to no end when what i see to be a restaurant with great food and flavor has to shut down due to lack of business. here's what i think: the high restaurant per capita is in part the reason why mediocrity prevails. you set a toe outside Madison's city limits, and you'll find a gastronomic landscape of blandness where people will lose their shit if a dash of black pepper touches their mashed potatoes, or if anything other than yellow mustard goes on their bratwurst.
ReplyDeleteas a survival method in this highly crowded restaurant market, sadly it turns into a race to the bottom to appeal to a wider group of diners. and this means less spice, less creativity, less risky foods. we with discerning palates are not the majority here.
nor are we so culturally diverse that people understand the differences in the way food is prepared and served between ethnic groups. Ethiopian Diamond in Chicago serves everyone's order on a common platter and injera takes the place of silverware. now try sitting down your average 'Sconnie to that meal and watch him complain. i put up with "poor" service at my favorite Jamaican food joint because i understand they don't operate like a typical American restaurant (and if you strike up a nice conversation with the staff, it will have a positive impact on your dining experience ;) yet i hear people dis the place for the very reasons that make it unique.
Chicago has a lot of restaurants that blow away the offerings here in Madison. but i'll bet for every Fogo de Chao, Ethiopian Diamond or Little Italy you'll still find at least twenty places that offer bland, watered down, Americanized (and Midwesternized) crap. it's just that Chicago's so vastly bigger that it can sustain the nicer and more culturally authentic restaurants.
Dealing with one issue at a time...I like the bar food here in Madison, but I like bar food in Chicago better. The bars here put a lot of effort in making good food, and I like that. But bars in Chicago have the advantage of an established scene and a clientele that is dualistic in that it loves familiarity, but also thrives on variety. I think Petey is on to something when talking about the lack of cultural diversity in Wisconsin and its effects on the food culture here. There is some diversity in Milwaukee, less so here in Madison, and I think it affects our expectations here.
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