If there's one thing I absolutely love doing, it's trying new restaurants. I liken it to the "thrill of the chase", finding a new place that I deem worthy of my hard-earned food dollars, or a new dish that I will rave about ad nauseum and try multiple times unsuccessfully to recreate at home. Some of these restaurants are brand new, recently opened. Some are established kitchens that I haven't gotten around to trying for one reason or another, (mostly because they're pricey, but I do miss restaurants from time to time.) I just knocked one off of my list recently:
Forequarter, the Underground Food Collective's current restaurant. I took a date there last week with high expectations and they didn't disappoint. I have a list of Madison restaurants I want to try in 2013:
L'Etoile - a Madison institution that is also it's most expensive
Nostrano - a relative newcomer, but has established itself well out of the gate
Merchant - I'm not sure how I've missed coming to this place. I've known about it for awhile
Quivey's Grove - an old standby of many people I know
Greenbush Bar - I'm a sucker for Italian food
Red Sushi - my foodie friends have been raving about this one
Sushi Muramoto - anything involving Shinji Muramoto is going to be good, period
Swagat - new Indian restaurant on the west side
So, what restaurants do YOU want to try in 2013? Go on! Be adventurous!
I've tried 2 on your list. Or perhaps 1.5 since Quivey's actually has 2 separate venues on site. Quivey's Stable Grill was done during a previous Restaurant Week and was decent if not spectacular. The Stone House portion is still on the to do list. Merchant on the other hand I cannot give a good review. Service was poor. There were irregularities with the menu. But most damning of all the food was bad. Bad in taste and bad in value for the money even if it had tasted great. I'll spare you the whole rant here but details are available for the asking.
ReplyDeleteAs far as what I want to try this year I definitely want to check Madison's Indian scene. I haven't been able to try a single one of the local options yet so I'm up for both new stuff and old favorites that others might want to revisit. I'm still on a quest to find the best breakfast spot in town. I've got a lot of high scoring candidates so far but the competition is still open. And then there's exploring outside of town. I know there is still a galaxy of options in Chicago alone that I need to be introduced to let alone other day/weekend trips in the area. Everything else falls into the, "I'm game if you are" category.