Cottage Cafe

Variety is the spice of life. It's an old cliché but a good one. As I was packing boxes in Fond Du Lac for my move to Madison, that little cliché served as motivation. Madison = Food Town. Ethnic grocery stores, exotic restaurants, new and interesting taste spectrum to explore and appreciate. Upon arrival, I don't think I ate at a single repeat restaurant for the first six months. I filled up on pho, curry, sushi, barbecue, gelato and pelmeni; everything I couldn't get or was not readily available before.

Two-plus years later, I am still exploring, but my desperation to immerse myself in new cuisine has slowed from “frothing cauldron of doom” to a steady boil.

As such, there are certain times and certain places where one does not feel... experimental.

Cracking the top off a new restaurant is always a little daring. We all have that moment of hesitation before entering the dining room. Will the swivel-factor be overwhelming? Will I finally encounter that mythical beast - a restaurant or bar so insular, so full of lockstep locals, that they rise up as one to reject the intrusion of this audacious newcomer who dares insinuate himself into their sanctum sanctorum.

We should all laugh at this. We should all know that it is beyond reason and that no commercial establishment has ever been anything but delighted to see a new customer walk through the door, but... restaurants... local haunts especially, can be very personal. Once one becomes a “regular,” one feels a bit of ownership and thus becomes protective in a matronly type way. I've always tried to rigidly control that particular fear and not let it stop me from venturing into uncharted waters. I have, however, often noticed my dinner and drinking companions taking ruthless advantage of my determination and bravado by casually slipping into my wake as I open a door and stride boldly forward. I guess the thought is that if they do throw bricks, they can hide behind me.

I am proud of my daring. But daring, like any emotional force, requires energy. As much as I would like to lay claim to superhuman abilities, there are days - after a long work week especially - that I simply cannot whip up such energy. My bravado fails me, my daring slips away and I long for something simple, something familiar and something comforting.

Yes. I have become one of those men who has “a breakfast place”.

My father has a breakfast place. Now retired and in his 70's, he goes up there to join the crowd of other old men, sipping coffee, telling dirty jokes and discussing the latest Packer game. It constitutes the entirety of his social interaction.

My desire for a stable, regular Breakfast Place is not actually a recent development. A few years ago and still bold enough to dream of Laksa in the morning, I stumbled upon what I hold as the greatest breakfast joint of all time.

You may have caught me at some point going off about Schreiner's Restaurant in Fond Du Lac. Schreiner's, that temple of scratch cooking. That marvelous, reliable, comforting and sweet epiphany of clam chowder for breakfast, perfectly cooked bacon, sweet and friendly wait staff and corned beef. I never went looking for a breakfast place, but I found in Schrieiner's a solution to a problem I didn't know I had. Many a Saturday morning, after a long hard week, when I found myself unwilling to rise, shine and make my own breakfast, I became inexorably drawn to the sweet spiritual pablum of a little commercially-produced TLC.

Yes, let me rise, dress, slip quietly out the door and down a very short road to the warm embrace of your slightly geriatric dining room. Let your polite and immaculately uniformed wait staff ply me with cup after cup of diner coffee, slowly reviving my downtrodden senses. Let my belly be filled with perfect over-easy eggs and crispy bacon. Let there be rye toast and orange juice. Let me stroll out, refreshed and content, ready to face the day anew.

The comfort of a Breakfast Place is the sturdy, constant sameness of the experience. I want for nothing new. I want the same experience on morning two thousand one hundred and eighty four that I had on day one. Let my mind spin in neutral. Let my guard drop, my thoughts turn inward and let a few precious moments be spent chatting casually with my beloved Bride.

I wasn't looking for a Breakfast Place, but it's sturdy comfort charmed me into being a regular.

Once we moved to Madison, my Bride and I spent over a year in pursuit of a new breakfast place. We sampled coffee shops, some famous local spots and some less than scrumptious options, but the search eventually petered out.

It's hard to brain on a Saturday morning when you are half-asleep and grumpy. After a few disappointments, we didn't have the energy to beard the lion in his own den, so to speak. We settled for making our own breakfast for a long time, grabbing the occasional bag-o-bagels from Gotham or Panera.

I finally stumbled upon a keeper in my various backstreet meanderings and at first, didn't believe what I had found.

On a side street, off Cottage Grove Road in the Elvehjem neighborhood, wedged between a daycare center and a laundromat is Cottage Café. An unassuming little storefront with a big stock block lettering sign. No logo, no website... yeah, it's that kind of place.

My first thought when I saw it? Honestly? Dive. Greasy Spoon. It's too cute to be true. It would be so cool if that little place had a friendly wait staff and great breakfast but there is NO WAY I am that lucky.

A few months later, realizing finally how stupid that particular thought was in a classic “book-by-its-cover” kinda way, I talked my Bride into going for Breakfast and we've been in love ever since.

The dual dining rooms are small and open. Classically appointed with the usually metal diner chairs, laminated tables, salt, pepper, tray of sweetener packs and small menus. The burble of morning conversation, old men laughing, clinking of cutlery and clatter of dishes is part of the experience. Signs of life and industry. The big bay windows looking out onto the parking lot make the room bright and airy on a sunny day. The decor is pseudo-northwoods-cabin chic with plenty of hand carved wooden black bears and faux woodsy feel. It should be chintzy, it's not. It's like your Mom's house.

What does one expect from a diner breakfast? What is a diner breakfast? My definition is usually a big, hearty, meal for those who rarely suffer from a thick wallet. The usual breakfast fare includes eggs, bacon, pancakes and the ubiquitous, poor quality, thin, bitter, burnt, luke-warm but-still-somehow-desirable diner coffee (I still think it's about the sugar and cream... or masochism). Regional variations include the frequent presence of dark rye toast, potato pancakes and cheddar cheese.

This is not so very different from the breakfasts served at chain restaurants. If anything, there is less variety. There is nothing rooty, tooty, fresh or fruity. The menu of some of my favorite little greasy spoon breakfast joints have a stark severity about them. Eggs: Any Style. Bread: white, wheat, toasted or untoasted or in French toast. Jams are offered. Butter is often pre-spread. Pancakes. Bacon. Sausage. Coffee. OJ. This is all that is actually required.

So what is the appeal? What keeps us coming back time and again? What is so desirable about the same thing time and again?

This is a hard one to explain. It's a cultural thing. Eggs, Toast, Bacon = Breakfast. It's farm breakfast. It's a leftover from our agrarian roots where fresh eggs, wheat and fat pork were in abundance. It's quick. Mama can have you a plate full of eggs and bacon in minutes and with only one pan dirty. It's flat iron food. Diners do not require ovens, broilers, fryers or even refrigerators or burners. Eggs, French toast, pancakes, bacon, sausage... all you need is a flat top griddle. I knew a place that used to keep it's coffee in a percolator on the corner of the griddle, making a standard diner coffeemaker unnecessary. You have to admire the efficiency.

You can get a very good idea of the quality and popularity of a diner by catching a gander at that griddle. Carbon black from years of use? Good restaurant. Popular.

Cottage Café meets these requirements and exceeds them in entertaining ways. The presence of Spam and Cheddarwurst on the menu struck me first. Two delightfully non-premium meats that are nevertheless extremely desirable when one is A. Hungover or B. About to attempt something Manly. The best part about the Spam is not just that it is there, but that it arrives at your table with a slice of American (pasteurized process) cheese (food) melted over the top. My first time there, commenting in surprise at this “too much of a... thing” addition, our waitress looked at me quizzically and asked “Isn't that the way your Mom made it?” No, no it isn't. Mom hates Spam, but I suddenly felt like the only kid in the neighborhood whose Mom didn't put cheese on his Spam.

Further entertaining menu options include Walleye and Eggs (it seems like such a natural Wisconsin marriage, I'm surprised I don't see it on more breakfast menus), Pork Chop and Eggs (now there is a farm breakfast), Potatoes O'Brien and Eggs Benedict. Now, hollandaise sauce might be a little risky but I don't care - it tastes good. I love that not only do they offer it on the Benedict, but as its own side. I recommend it as a topping for the walleye... SRSLY. It also illustrates another mark of a great diner. The menu offers simple fare with a remarkably thoughtful list of options. Want a side of sausage gravy? Maybe you want to put it over your hash browns or dip your fries in it? Who cares? You ask nice, they will probably do it for you. The menu is just a suggestion. A crutch for those with decision making disorder. If you can describe it to the waitress, they will probably do it for you. You could probably take this basic menu and create dishes never before seen by the eyes of man.

These are all entertaining additions to the menu but they are ultimately just window-dressing. Tasty diversion from those two things that are key to Cottage Café's Greatness.

As diners and consumers in this country, we often underestimate the importance of skill in production of a good product. It's our industrial love-affair perhaps that has us pursuing “more” when what we really want is “better”.

A fry cook may not be able to make you Liquid Ravioli or a plate of Mousse de la Boue dans une Panier de la Pâte de Chaussures (or maybe they can, you never know these days, but probably not), but a good fry cook can make you a perfectly cooked egg, every time. Over easy, over medium, over hard, sunny side up, scrambled but not overcooked... maybe a master chef in a three star restaurant making you a perfectly cooked Sole Meunière might be worthy of slightly higher admiration than a perfectly cooked egg. But then again, skill is skill. Maybe the repertoire isn't quite as broad, but perfectly cooked is still perfectly cooked. Michelin is unlikely to be knocking anytime soon, but at the same time, maybe we're taking such skills a little for granted.

Cottage Café nails it. 10 out of 10 on the breakfast scale and I am not speaking from a single visit/one-day perspective. We've been breaking our fast at Cottage Café for a few months now and can offer a few dozen visits as our data set. I've yet to have a bad breakfast. Eggs are always perfectly cooked to order, bacon always done right, not a burnt piece of toast to be seen. The menu is simple but the skill is anything but. Someone back there knows what an over-medium egg looks like and cranks it out like a machine. I wish this wasn't as rare as it is but in most breakfast joints and chains these days, if you order over easy, you are taking your gastrointestinal health into your own hands far more than with the hollandaise.

Like a Double Ristretto Venti Half-Soy Nonfat Decaf Organic Chocolate Brownie Iced Vanilla Double-Shot Gingerbread Cappuccino Extra Hot With Foam Whipped Cream Upside Down Double Blended, One Sweet'N Low, One Nutrasweet, and Ice, breakfast eggs are one of those things we highly personalize. Everyone has “their” breakfast order, and even though diners are completely unrelated or unincorporated establishments, they share a common breakfast language. We all speak breakfast. If you walk into a diner in Oregon and order two eggs over easy with wheat and bacon, you will get the same thing (if the person behind the grill knows what they are doing) as if you place the same order in Maine. We're particular about it. Some people fear runny yolks, some runny whites. Some people like their bacon floppy and some burned to a crisp. Breakfast is a very personal thing and the diner that can get your particular breakfast creation right is the only easy access we're likely to have to such personal service in our adult lives. They can make your breakfast the way your Mom made your breakfast.

Speaking of Personal Service, this leads into Cottage's second strength.

Our waitress's name is Penny. Penny is our waitress. After our second visit, we knew Penny's name. We always sit in Penny's section. I'm not sure if Penny remembers our names yet but she knows our faces and she's clever enough to fake like she remembers ;-).

Penny is friendly. Penny is attentive. Penny keeps our coffee filled, is non-plussed by any special order, knows the menu by heart and has been working there for years.

Penny is always good for a joke. Penny laughs readily and manages to be “happy” without being “cheerful” in the morning (which, as any pre-coffee coffee junkie can tell you, is grounds for murder in the most horrific manner). Upbeat and funny but still maintaining an appropriate level of world-weary, slightly cynical attitude that is perfect commiseration for hungry, work-weary, groggy patrons. Such an attitude takes YEARS to perfect.

Penny IS Cottage Café for us as much as the food.

Most of the waitresses at the Café are Penny's type. I hate to invoke the word “Flo” here but you know what I mean. Restaurant floor lifers. These are not the giggling, crystal-bright, easily flustered teeny-bopper servers at your local Applebee's or Olive Garden. These gals would eat those skinny chicks for breakfast and pick their teeth with the bones. They can handle more tables, sling more chow and defuse more grumpy customers than anyone. They operate with a code of customer service that corporate chain restaurants would throw a rod over. Dirty jokes and swearing are allowed. You can tell a customer to shut up, to their face, and get away with it. Cause a disturbance in the dining room and they will not escort you politely to the door. They will kick you out and if you are not moving fast enough you may have to dodge flying crockery.

But once you become a regular, once they remember your name, you become part of the place. If you are what you eat and I stay in Madison, I'll probably be 1/21st part Cottage Café in a few years. I'm a little weirded out that I, like my father, now have “a breakfast place.” I know that this is a sign that I am growing older. But, if growing old tastes this good, maybe it isn't all that bad.

Maybe our second time there, my Bride noticed a Thank You card taped to the cash register. The card was from the family of an elderly patron who has “crossed the bar,” so to speak. Cottage Café took the time to send flowers to his funeral and the family, in return, sent them a card. Expressed in the card were thanks for flowers and the line, “we thank you for the big part you played in his life and we hope there is a Cottage Café in heaven”.

Name me another kind of restaurant where such a thing could happen?

Name me a better endorsement than a hope that the afterlife is as good as your breakfast place?

Benvenuto's

Benvenuto's and I have an interesting history. Despite what some Madisonians believe, their flagship store was in, of all places, my home town of little old Beaver Dam.

Their very first store opened as my first foray in the the foodie subculture bloomed. Before the word “foodie” had even been coined. I liked food, I liked to cook, my first cuisine of interest was Italian and in the desperately mediocre world of the Beaver Dam culinary scene, I literally could not believe my luck when Benvenuto's opened. Benvenuto's then was a very, very different creature than it is now. I still, looking back, cannot believe the sheer size of their mighty chrome testicles to offer such a menu in a town so small and so inexperienced. Even today it would not go over, even in Madison (and I'm obviously right, as we shall see).

In a very Big Night manner, they offered house-made italian sodas, cream pastas with shellfish (I do not think there was another shellfish dish anywhere else on any menu anywhere in BD), a communal jug of house wine to every table, regardless of whether you have asked for it, garlic olive oil and fresh foccacia for sopping and,this was my favorite, an honest-to-goodness antipasta plate with salami, pepperocini, marinated mushrooms, cheese and olives.

To this day, any Italian restaurant gets HUGE points in my estimation for offering an antipasta plate. For those who don't know, it's just a little snack plate of various nibblies offered in many restaurants because all the items were the rare surplus, well preserved and available year round. Salami is cured, pepperocini, mushrooms and olives are all brined or pickled and cheese is acidified and preserved by it's own process. It relates in a similar way to English “sideboard” offerings.

I like to nibble. I'm a cheese and sausage kinda guy. I credit my French heritage. I happily can and will make a meal out of snacks for breakfast lunch and dinner.

I can't tell you what percentage of my paychecks I spent at Bevenuto's those first few months but I'm certain I did my share to support their business. I hung out at the bar and drank some of my first cocktails. I knew the wait staff by name. I made a point of taking my friends there and I took great delight in introducing it to people who have never been.

I remember their food fondly. Gigantor Caesar Salads, the garlic mash-potatoes, the Foccacia, the baked alfredo pasta with Parmesan cheese.

The antipasta and the house wine were such authentic Italian touches that they couldn't last. I dined there long enough to see the antipasta plate slip off the menu. I was probably the only one that ever ordered it. It changed to a “antipasta salad” which I once ordered by mistake.

We've always had an issue with Wine in this country. Either starting revolutions over it, or ignoring it completely. The stigma attached to wine still sends out conflicted signals. Isn't wine fancy? Aren't wine drinkers snobs? Isn't wine expensive? Isn't good wine expensive? The image of the cork sniffing, pinky raised, pooh-poohing wine “connoisseur” still haunts us. Wine has it's own strange language that is far deeper and thicker than any other adult beverage including cocktails and single-malt scotches. A lot of people buy into, despite their denials otherwise, the notion that drinking wine makes you look sophisticated. From the outside looking in, the language seems impenetrable, the investment steep and the company seems less than desirable.

The irony here is that, for the vast majority of the non-American wine-drinking world, the wine consumed is NOT fancy. Wine is an every day thing. Not everyone who drinks wine in France and Italy cracks open an expensive bottle at every meal, but they do drink wine. It is understood that there is a difference between “house” or “table” wine, what the French call vin ordinaire and the stuff you whip out on special occasions or when company comes over. Table wine is not consumed out of 200 dollar Riedel glassware, it's probably coming out of the same glasses you drink everything from. Tell that to an American wine snob and the aneurysms popping sounds like gunfire.

We would be better thinking of wine like we think of beer. It'd be nice to drink Heineken or Samuel Adams' Utopias on a daily basis, chances are you can't afford it and a lot of beer drinkers would look at you like a freak if you insisted that if you couldn't... it's not worth drinking. On a day to day basis, there is probably a 12 pack of Bud, or Miller, or Pabst chilling in your fridge and if it comes down to “less than optimal” beer or no beer at all... fuck that, gimme a beer. As I have always said, my favorite kind of beer is the kind I don't have to pay for.

The American consumers inability to see the joys of table wine is really doing a number on their collective pocket books. I believe the average price of a bottle of wine in a restaurant is about 3 times retail price at this point, putting it well beyond my budgie and well into the selfish realms of “conspicuous consumption”. Bugger that. Give me my jug of Carlo Rossi Burgundy at my table and let me actually have a few glasses. It's not BAD wine. It's not great. It wouldn't want to drink toasts at a wedding with it, but it's fine for dinner. Do you really want to drink a delicate, refined and nuanced bottle of wine while you're forking down cream pasta with bacon? You wouldn't know the difference between Chateau Montelena and Chateau Mad Dog.

My love affair with Benvenuto's ended suddenly and violently. I became privy to some disturbing information regarding a very, very poor customer service choice made by an erstwhile manager. The nature of this information was so foul that I made the choice not to give them my custom again. I have since encouraged others to do the same.

I believe quite strongly in the power of the almighty greenback and that, if you disapprove of someones business practices, your best way discouraging it is by not giving them your money. People can protest Wal-Mart until they are blue in the face, but people still shop there and that is what matters.

It has been well over a decade since I have actually gone to a Bevenuto's store and I have missed it. I decided that 10 years is long enough to hold a grudge and so, when my Bride suggested it for lunch amidst our errand running this weekend, I agreed.

Despite the many years, I looked forward to the Benvenuto's of old. I looked forward to all my old favorites. Most importantly, I looked forward to a good Italian meal. I think that is what disappointed me the most.

Given our proximity amidst our errands, we took ourselves to the north-side location.

Big tease right off the bat, one of their faux Italian theme-park storefronts was for salumeria and the very fact that someone knew enough to paint that on the wall gave me a little thrill... which lasted just long enough for me to open the menu.

Bevenuto's has become safe. When it came down to a choice between unique and familiar, they chose the latter. Looking at their lunch menu, my first thought, vocalized in a less than charitable tone to my undeserving bride, was that this was barely an “Italian” restaurant anymore. Nothing says Italy like deep fried fish, chicken and shrimp. I twitched every time I saw things like Jack Daniels BBQ sauce, southwest chicken salad, the satanic Chicken Caesar, Greek salad, Cobb salad, Asian Chicken salad and, oh gawd, this one bout killed me... Cajun Grilled Pasta? This is chain food. The menu is designed to please the palate of the lunching office worker.

Now don't get me wrong, the food at Bevenuto's is still good. I had a decent salad and a nice bowl of shrimp fettuccine in a garlic cream sauce. My Bride and I left full and satisfied with the service and the food. Benvenuto's makes good food. They are reliable. It's the kind of place you could go to a hundred times and never have a “bad” meal. They are a crowd pleaser. Someplace safe and familiar where even the fussiest of eaters can find a pleasing menu selection. There is a place for that in the restaurant world, but that place is getting a over crowded. There are so many others just like it.

Compared to the rest of Madison, it doesn't stand out. It's not unique, it's not putting forth any extra effort or obsessing over fresh ingredients, new ideas or new techniques. They are not trying to reproduce the feel and the taste of Italy in any way deeper than the thickness of paint.

My Bride and I had a rather heated debate about this. Somewhat offended at my immediate dismissal of the menu out-of-hand, she pressed me to define what, if anything, was wrong with what Benventuo's is? What is the basis for my disapproval?

Is there anything wrong with a broader, familiar, crowd pleasing menu even if wanders away from your ascribed to cuisine? Is it that my “highly refined palate” cannot be bothered by anything less that the finest cuisine available? It is not hard, I think, to come off like a snob here, pooh-poohing the business choices of a restaurant I have no financial risk in. I can sit here comfortably behind my keyboard and whing about how this restaurant is lame or that it doesn't have the exotic, expensive and obscure fare I desire or demand. It carries about as much weight as the overweight armchair quarterback cussing out his team and bragging how “he could do better”.

We have a long history in this country of scapegoating businesses, corporations and pretty much anything that can be defined as “The Man”. I try to keep this under wraps because it really isn't fair. A business employs people. It puts food in the mouths of the employees and their children. It is not a crime to make money. Isn't that what we all want anyway? Isn't the American dream to be rich and successful?

Foodies are often rather dismissive and insensitive to this, but the truth is that many, many, many delightful hole-in-the-wall restaurants doing exciting and daring new foods have floundered financially due to the uncompromising idealist vision of a chef who could not understand the balance sheet.

I'm sure that the Benvenuto's menu has morphed into it's current incarnation over time due to market pressures from it's clientèle.

In other words, it has become what is has become as a response to... us. The Consumer.

Because who we give our custom to decides what business stay and what business go. Every penny we spend on everything from cheap cheeseburgers to Wagu beef and Fois Gras dictates what kind of restaurants arise to supply our demand. Restaurateurs agonize over menus, decor, prices and location... trying hopelessly to divine the fickle, stingy and seemingly schizophrenic mind of the consumer. So many people have sunk their life savings into opening their own little restaurant, their own slice of the American dream, just to watch that dream die a slow and painful death because the drive was five minutes too long or the prices were 50 cents cheaper somewhere else.

Now, don't get me wrong, restaurants do share SOME of the blame for bad choices. As with the case of Cloud 9, where a restaurant chose to try to please absolutely everyone at once and sets itself up for failure. Some restaurants only offer safe, middle of the road, least-common-denominator fair out of fear that more exotic and experimental fare will fail to attract a crowd. Sometimes that is prudent fiscal strategy and sometimes it is just cowardice. The market is saturated with restaurants who play it safe. Despite this, however, the lion share of the blame lies firmly on our own shoulders.

This is a war of inches... or perhaps pennies. We each have to decide what is important to us. Is money the bottom line? Is quality? Is it something else? Do you care what is local? Do you care what is imported? A Foodie, a Vegetarian, a Vegan, a Chef, a Gourmet or suburban house wife can each talk your ears off for hours on considerations from mercury content to political ramifications of wheat production.

There are no wrong answers to these questions, but each one has an effect... a consequence. We should perhaps consider what consequences our choices have. What kind of restaurants exist, what kind of food is offered, is up to us.

The Rules #1

I am one of those cursed souls who does not accept easy explanations. They bring me no comfort. In fact, easy explanations make me incredibly nervous. When I hear people dismiss things out of hand with a “Well, you know what they say...”, the ellipsis might as well be trailing off a cliff in my mind. Maximum frustration is derived from any inference that it is one of “God's Mysteries”. I've read the Bible and in no place does it say “Thou shalt not be curious.” I understand that part of any religion is to offer an explanation for the unexplainable but this is 2009, we're well past the Age of Enlightenment and the Age of Reason, isn't that kind of thinking obsolete? We have answers now. Even if we don't have all the answers, we have a system for discovery.

I want to know, I want to understand. I want answers and I know that I'll spend the rest of my life in pursuit of them. This may bring me no peace but it will certainly not be boring.

Part of figuring things out is establishing a framework of understanding. Touchstones, benchmarks, solid or at least semi-solid footholds and cornerstones from which one can anchor other theories and cling to while exploring other concepts.

Now, as an empiricist, I recognize that any attempt to define a constant in an ever changing world could be at least futile and at most delusional, but I've seen enough evidence to conclude for my own conscience that there are certain constants that can be reliably counted upon to be true.

In my years of fascination with Human Nature, I've started this tiny notepad file. It's moved with me from computer to computer, from diskette to CD-ROM to thumb drive. It's labeled simply “The Rules” and every time I come upon one of these constants, I write it down for safekeeping. I am certain that this is in no way a complete list. There are any number of them that await adequate reinforcement or the proper definition. Some of them have made the list only to be removed later as my perceptions change. A number of them have been aggregated as two or three concepts are distilled down to an underlying concept or truth. I have always thought that I'd jot these down in a book some day but I think I'll throw them out here. I've recently been inspired by Neil Gaimen's blog to get off my tuckus, start blogging again and... well, I needed a topic. So here we go. Please keep in mind that these are in no way ordered by priority or importance, except for perhaps the first one.

Rule #1: People are People

Yes gawd help me, right off the bat I'm adding so much dignity and gravitas to my little wack-a-doo theories by naming one after a bit from the Muppet's Take Manhattan. But before you click on that Facebook link, hear me out.

As human beings, we are not wired to be a society. We're wired to be a tribe. A small group of like-minded people that can be trusted. We take comfort in the tribe and when their isn't one, our mind invents one. We seek to differentiate ourselves from the everyone by identifying with a small group. Be it a job, hobby, style, like, dislike or whatever. Short people, fat people, long hair, short hair, IT professionals, foodies, Virgos, homeowners, Americans, motorcyclists, vegetarians, 3^rd shifters, Europeans, Wisconsinites, white trash, blah blah blah blah.

Some of these groups are very rigorous and insular. Some can barely be said to exist at all. Often it is pressure or a threat from outside that determines how tight knit and well defined the group is. The more widely perceived and more dangerous the threat is, the tighter a group will circle the wagons.

That sounds somewhat bad but having been a part of such groups, I don't wonder at the appeal. Within the group, drawn together for mutual benefit, the camaraderie and solidarity is euphoric. Soldiers speak of their “comrades in arms” with such fondness and I understand the sentiment.

This is the good side of the tribal instinct and this is why it worked so long as a survival trait. The mental reward for forming a group and the fact that the reward grows as the threat grows is a fantastic motivator for cooperation.

But there is a dark side to this trait as well. For as we knit ourselves together into a cohesive “Us”, everyone outside our little circle becomes “Them” and for every ounce of altruism we feel twords our beloved “Us”, it's matched by fear and suspicion of “Them”.

“It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.“ - Terry Pratchett, Jingo

It's a step down a very dark and dangerous road to set a group apart as Them. It's so natural and easily done but the forces you are toying around with are fundamentally responsible for the vast, vast, vast majority of human tragedy.

Call Them what you will, people don't like Them. Eventually, if they feel threatened enough by Them, they start thinking of ways to deal with Them. This is where things start getting nasty.

Genocide Watch.com defines the The 8 Stages of Genocide and you'll find the very first stage strangely familiar.

1. CLASSIFICATION: All cultures have categories to distinguish people into “us and them” by ethnicity, race, religion, or nationality: German and Jew, Hutu and Tutsi. Bipolar societies that lack mixed categories, such as Rwanda and Burundi, are the most likely to have genocide. The main preventive measure at this early stage is to develop universalistic institutions that transcend ethnic or racial divisions, that actively promote tolerance and understanding, and that promote classifications that transcend the divisions. The Catholic church could have played this role in Rwanda, had it not been riven by the same ethnic cleavages as Rwandan society. Promotion of a common language in countries like Tanzania has also promoted transcendent national identity. This search for common ground is vital to early prevention of genocide. - Gregory H. Stanton, President, Genocide Watch

Now not all acts of distinction between groups lead to genocide. Let's be fair. I don't think we'll every see a World War between Blonds and Redheads. (not to say that wouldn't be cool). But everything that has later turned into War or Genocide or killing in general, has to pass through that thought process to get where it is going. It's the “gateway thought”. When you define Us and Them, death is at the far end of that thought process.

This is my favorite picture in the world, because, well, it is the world.

I'm not the only one to notice the complete lack of national borders when viewed from above. I'm also not the only person to notice how frail and tenuous our grasp on life is. Here we sit, on our little blue marble, on the shores of the galactic beach, with crushing pressure and boiling lava below us and freezing vacuum above. Our thin, thin strip of life giving, habitable space that houses all our hopes, dreams and useless conflicts.

Once you've seen this, how can there ever be a Them again? In the great cosmic sense of things, are our manufactured differences of politics, religion, culture or taste worth much of anything? Are they worth killing each other over?

To make it acceptable to define and delineate any group makes it acceptable for anyone to do to me. It means I can be quantified and organized and walled off. Because the same thought process that defines Them decides what They should have for food, drink, opportunities or freedom. It's at the heart of segregation and war. It cheapens my life and my worth.

And so, I reject it. I reject Them. There is only Us. We. Humanity. I understand that our cultures make us colorful, but we are Humans first, everything else second. As it should be.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. - United States Declaration of Independence, Continental Congress, July 4, 1776

Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,

Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people, - Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations, December 10^th, 1948

And so, in the end, the rule is this: People is People. We are more alike than we are different. We are all human beings. Whatever our differences of culture or ideology, we are fundamentally connected by our humanity.

That's a rule.

Doug's Soul Food

"Bless this bread, bless this meat, bless this belly 'cause I's gon' eat!"
Reverend Williams, Soul Food - 1997

I love my Mom. She is a far better parent than I or anyone deserves. She's a good friend, a reliable go-to person when help is needed and a fabulous mother-in-law to my Wife.

But her cooking...

Mom hates to cook. To be fair, meals in our house were never late and there was plenty of it but she was not, I'm sorry to say, a particularly inspired cook. She's got a repertoire of about a dozen dishes with maybe 8 standard everyday ones. I suspect what drove me to being a Foodie as I grew up was the constant curiosity about new food that can only come from such a limited palette growing up. When I started going out to restaurants I was immediately the one who wanted to try all the exotic places. I was forever trying to talk my friends into going for Thai food, or Indian, or Nepalese or Japanese.

Doug's Soul Food cooks like I wish my Mom cooked. It cooks like I want to cook. It cooks like you wish your Mom cooked. On the front of the menu, along with a picture of the owners mother, is the motto, "Not Mom's, But Close!". It is humbly implied that this means they are not quite as good as Mom. I think the reality is closer to your Mom not being quite as good as they are.

Like good home cooking, you will find no fancy ingredients at Doug's. There is no curly parsley on the plates, there is no exotic ingredients in the food. What winds up on your plate is the fundamentals; chicken, pork, flour, butter, salt, pepper, eggs, and cheese. You are not paying for expensive ingredients, you are paying for technique.

I make pretty good fried chicken. It's one of those dishes I wanted to conquer right from the start. I think I went through about 15 or 20 derivations of the coating, the brine, the cooking method before I settled on what is now, I think, Version 2.7. Took me two years to get that far and it's still not quite finished, the hardest part still eludes me.

When you take a bite of nice, crispy friend chicken, especially a fried drumstick, you should be able to easily bite off a chunk that has some meat and some crispy, delicious fried coating in it (the best part of fried chicken, as we all know). What you are trying to avoid is the entire skin and all the breading sliding off the piece in one mouthful. The breading has to adhere to the skin and the skin has to stay on the chicken. This is not easy. Differences in temperatures, fat layers under the skin melting in the heat and providing lubricant, the wet batter, the dry batter, the fact that skin and flour don't chemically like each other and getting it all done, cooked to GBD perfection without overcooking or undercooking the meat... is a flouncing, flamboyant, flourecent BITCH. I can do it about half the time (I think it has to do with how long you leave the batter on)

The fried chicken I had at Doug's was perfect. I took a bite and left a perfect bite sized hole in the chicken. Every bite had some breading in it till I was done. That is a damn fine trick.

Soul Food has been in our state for a long time but I only began seeking it out after I began reading Southern cookbooks and watching Southern cooking shows. It was love at first taste. More than that. I'm starting to suspect I lived there in a past life. I fell head over heals for greens, love sweet potato pie and I'm dying to try grits (if I could find somewhere that does them well).

My Bride an I went to Doug's on a sleepy Sunday afternoon. We were the only two patrons and enjoyed the undivided attention of the owners. Doug's does not have a large menu but it has a lot of open-ended variables such as "Sauteed Vegitables" which could mean whatever they have that day, "Cakes" which included two selections and "Pies" which included five. The protien options are BBQ Pork Spare Ribs, Perch, Catfish, BBQ Beef Spare Ribs and Southern Fried Chicken. Every meal comes with 2 sides and a starch which are cornbread (a cornbread muffin actually), dinner roll or hush puppies (little deep fried seasoned dough balls for those who have never had). The dining room is tiny, tidy and cute with perhaps a dozen tables, a counter and classy table settings with white tablecloths.


As I've already alluded, the chicken was perfect. This is not KFC chicken. Salt and Pepper are no secret. This is good home cooking. Crispy, juicy and perfectly cooked. The hush puppies had a little kick and were another layer of crispy fried goodness. The greens were nice, tender and just bitter enough to be complex without being icky.

My Bride ordered the BBQ Pork Spare Ribs, Mac & Cheese, candied sweet potatos and cornbread. She was nice enough to let me steal a few bites of everything (in the name of science of course).


Note, in the right hand corner of the web page, it says something about me being an empiricist? Well, that's why I have to say... this is not Barbecue. Barbecuing is a cooking style that involves the application of low heat and smoke over a long period of time. Real Barbecue is famous for taking cheap, tough pieces of meat and turning them into tender, smoky, flavorful piles of goodness and love. I do not think that Doug's has a barbecue pit in the back.

Never the less, the ribs were tasty, tender-but-satisfying and possessed of a nice tangy sauce. No, it's not technically barbecue, but it's good.

My Bride raved about the Mac & Cheese and it was pretty damn good. I suspect some Velvetta was used, and it really did taste like something you threw together in your kitchen in a hurry, but it's the kind of home recipe that other people want a copy off. She plans on making both her sides Mac & Cheese when we go back. The Candied Sweet Potatoes were good, but she makes them better.

Now, I'm not normally a dessert person. Restaurant desserts, especially in this new era of "Death by Chocolate with Chocolate Ice Cream, Chocolate Sauce on Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Sprinkles and shaved Chocolate with Chocolate Mouse served on a Chocolate plate with a Chocolate fork", are not big with me. I am, however, a big fan of PIE. To me, it is the one of the Ultimate comfort foods. It's my Death Row dessert. I want the taste of a cherry/apple cream pie lingering in my mouth as they throw the switch.

Such a whore for pie am I that when it came time to decide on dessert, I took a piece of candy from the fuckit bucket and doubled down. Sweet Potato Pie and Apple Pie for me, the infamous "Edna's Lemon Cake" for My Bride.


The Sweet Potato pie was perfect. Soft, custardy and just sweet enough to accent the potato.

The apple pie was excellent as well. Note the flaky crust? I couldn't help but think that a few notes could be taken by LMNO Pies...


The dark secret my Bride waited to tell me till after we had left Doug's is that she immediately suspected that this was a doctored cake mix. Aunt Edna's cake is probably a yellow cake mix with some lemon zest, lemon juice and a sugar glaze on the outside. If you have a problem with such a thing, then consider yourself warned. If not, then good, cause it was damn good cake and I'd hate to think of you missing it.

Doug's Soul Food is another example of a place that isn't WOW food. It's not trying to impress you, it's trying to feed you and fill you up. This is not the kind of place to take an out of town guest if you want to impress them with fancy local cuisine. But on a cold fall afternoon, after a long and wearysome day, when you just don't feel like cooking and you're maybe feeling a little homesick, stop by Doug's. It's pure comfort food done right.

Hookah

"Oh! hookah of the magic bowl, Thou dost bring me greatest pleasure, Who likes not thee, hath not a soul, And can know of joy no measure. Thy fragrance brings me visions bright-- Dispels the shadows of the night."
- G. Frank Lydston

One of the Joys Of Madison is that we have such a weird and mixed culture. The word "diversity" has recently been politicized beyond recognition so it's starting to leave a bad taste in my mouth but you know what I mean.

We have numerous cultural enclaves and most of them have brought their food with them. Pretty much all of Asia has made the party, Ze Germans and the rest of Europe are here of course, as are a general representation of our African brethren, those crazy guys from the Caribbean, and just about everyone in between.

Hookah has a "Mediterranean" menu that is something of a fib. Read as having a few Greek, Italian, Lebanese and Middle-Eastern recipes with a lot of seafood and some mandatory Midwestern staples (because restaurateurs feel like people will set the place on fire if there is no hamburger on the menu... sheesh) like a Tenderloin and Shrimp Scampi. They even have a Friday Fish Fry.

Having had the food however, I'd be willing to bet there is a Lebanese or Greek cook in the back, doing some very fine work.

We went to Hookah on a Sunday night with our friend Jim. Jim was kind enough to treat us after I scraped 423,827 viruses off two of his computers.

The establishment is broken up into a bar area where you can smoke cigarettes and a dining room that has it's own bar area, where you can't smoke cigarettes but you can smoke the restaurants namesake, the Hookah or water pipe. There are about a dozen tables as well as a room full of cocktail tables/couch/settee groupings more suited for drinking and smoking than food. It's a very casual environment, a number of small TV's are set around, the booths are very Buddha friendly and admitted my large belly with comfort.

Since Jim was paying, we took relentless advantage of the bar service (to be fair, with Jim's urging). It is thereby that I can report that the Bartender/waiter (it was Sunday) mixes a very solid Martini. I give it about a 6.5 out of 10. Good for a restaurant. I also appreciate that they served their drinks in smaller 5 ounce glass. I don't equate quantity for quality in a cocktail and I think a smaller drink is more refined and responsible. Now a days places serve with 8 or 12 ounce cereal-bowl-on-a-stick glasses that make a "three martini lunch" a trip to the ER for alcohol poisoning.

I had the Shawarma plate. Shawarma is one of those dishes for me where once it is spotted on the menu, all debate has ended.


I love food I get to assemble and I love being able to eat with my hands (much to my Bride's Dismay sometimes). It's just more tactile and involved. Being able to tune up my little wraps of pita bread, meat, veg and condiment till I had a perfect mix of spicy, chewy, cool, creamy, rich and tangy... it's more fun than just shoveling food into my maw.

My Bride had the Mediterranean Pizza. She is a food-whore for anything with tomatoes and feta cheese involved.

To Quote My Bride,

"I loved the tanginess of the artichoke hearts in combination with the rest of the toppings. And as a lover of feta cheese, I especially appreciated how there was a nice, healthy dose of it. It's so frustrating to order something that says it includes feta and then have there be so little that you can't even taste it. Not an issue with this pizza at all."

The food, like the drinks, was solid. This is not lay-down awesome fare, this is not WOW food. This is just good food, flavorful, and just exotic enough to be interesting. The flavors are not everyday, but they are not so challenging that I couldn't eat them every night.

I get nervous not saying a place was EXCELLENT or FABULOUS or INCREDIBLE these days. People can be so dismissive and unappreciated of nuances. Not every restaurant is El Bulli or the French Laundry and gawds help me I don't want them to be. There is a place for every level of restaurant in this world and no matter what, someone out there will appreciate it.

Hookah is a great, casual, repeat restaurant and that is a rare thing in itself. I get the distinct feeling that I could go to Hookah 1000 times and never have a bad meal.

Now, food aside, after we finished our meals, the real star of the show made it's appearance.

I am a man who enjoys his tobacco products. There are few tobacco products out there that can be lit on fire and inhaled that I have not tried.

Before you begin with your healthy admonitions, let me add that I did successful quit smoking a few years ago and that now, apart from the occasional stress smoke at work and those shrinking few occasions when I find myself in a bar where smoking is allowed (now done mostly for nostalgia), I have cut myself down to the occasional pipe.

I possess a beautifully carved Meerschaum Calabash pipe and quite simply, life without some sublimely delicious pipe tobacco on occasion is not worth living.

I had, however, never tried a Hookah before, much to my shame.

As a pipe smoker, I was incredibly dubious about the idea of "flavored" tobacco. The idea of "Mint Mohito" flavored tobacco reached into the very base of my brain, clamped onto my fundamental core of cynicism and pulled HARD. In my mind, flavored tobacco is for blunt smokers and rave kids. Real tobacco has exotic names like Burley and Latikia, Black Cavendish, Golden Virginia.... not Watermelon.

I thank my Maker and good sense that I knew enough to let the more experience one in our party, Jim, make the call... and he made a beeline straight for the Mint Mohito.

Hookah tobacco is rolled in flavored molasses and is roasted by the application of small charcoal sticks rather than burned directly. combined with the passage of the smoke through the bubbling, water filled base of the device, it produces THE mildest smoke I have ever had. Great gasping lungfuls of the stuff could be inhaled with no discomfort in the least, all to the merry bubbling of the great glass tower which added a fantastic aural element to the experience.

Every tobacco product has it's own particular idiom. Cigars are best smoked after a meal and when you have extended time to relax. They are strong and flavorful as they need to be to reach your palate after it has been blasted senseless by a long period at the table. Conversation over cigars is permissible but are best suited to long winded old men as they require a minute of constant puffing to keep them lit, every few minuites, allowing you to speak your piece and retire into smoky consideration while your companion speaks theirs.

Cigarettes are best for short, excited conversations and debates. Something with a little more energy. They stay lit, but end quickly, allowing for the repeated act of theatric, incandescent relights. They also add weight and style to expansive hand gestures as they trail smoke or can be stubbed out firmly to punctuate the end of a sentence like a flaming ember for a period. The glowing inhalation, the puffing of smoke in long thin streams, short coughing gouts, sudden explosive bursts or slow, erotic swirls are all within the smokers repertoire. Ultimately, cigarettes are unsophisticated, rough and rude... but that's why we like them.

Oh, and they give you cancer, don't forget that part.

Pipes are unsuited for any conversations whatsoever. Beyond the occasional guttural grunt or short, one-word responses, one must puff rather constantly to keep ones pipe lit. This may sound like a detriment until you realize that pipe smoking requires you to be silent. Pipe smoking is best suited to silent reflection, away from other human interaction. A moment of self-indulgent solitary pleasure. And pleasure it is. There is no more flavorful, robust and potent way to take tobacco than by a pipe.

Hookah's are social creatures. To me, the idea of taking a Hookah by yourself is somewhat absurd. The passing of the pipe, the anticipation, the shared experience and shared pleasure add up to a very jolly, bubbling, social experience. I strongly recommend trying it before our Nanny State takes away all smoking privileges from us, it's poor, untrustworthy children.

In summation, Hookah is a fabulous casual experince that will not disapoint. It might not blow you away, but it will not disapoint. But do not go just for the food. Go for the social interaction in a comfortable enviroment... and the hookah.

The Malt House

To everything there is a season,
a time for every purpose under the sun.
- Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

But doth not the appetite alter? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age.
- Much Ado About Nothing, Act 2, Scene 3, William Shakespeare

There is a time for being ahead,
a time for being behind;
a time for being in motion,
a time for being at rest;
a time for being vigorous,
a time for being exhausted;
a time for being safe,
a time for being in danger.
- Tao Te Ching, Chapter 29, Lao Tzu, Stephen Mitchell translation.

When I was a young and angry man, I liked quite different things than I do now. I appreciated fast cars. I listened to fast music. When I went out of a weekend, my main desire was to put myself in the vicinity of pretty girls, loud music and a reasonable amount of peril. Like many people that age, I didn't want to actually lead a dangerous life, I just wanted it to look like I did.

I have never been a BIG fan of bars or clubs, but when I did choose to go to one, it was usually loud, raucous and hopping. A lot of people like bars like that. A vast majority of people in fact. When they go out, they want their drinks cheap and their music loud. The kind of bar where one can easily get drunk and stupid. Thoughts on quality of drinks or conversation are tertiary at best. It actually makes me wonder about the state of our social society when we apparently seek to avoid talking to people by frequenting establishments where the music is to loud to hear people talking.

As I grow older, what little love I had for the loud bars has evaporated completely. I'm a Words Man, a student of the human condition. I make my way via my command of the language and my love of it. When I go out for social time, good conversation, that lost and elusive creature, is my ultimate goal. The enthusiastic exchange of ideas, the verbal sparing of a debate, the ebullience of a discovered shared interest, these are my bread and butter. All it takes is one loud band or one overblown DJ to ruin a wonderful evening.

And so, I began that search, years ago, for a quiet social venue where one may interact in a meaningful way with ones fellow humans. Luckily society has invented such institutions already. They call them "Taverns".

Actually, they call them any number of things. Pub, lounge and saloon are also used. The nomenclature is pretty hazy but in general, if you say "neighborhood bar", most people understand what you are talking about.

If that still doesn't do it for you, let me define the species.

In general, the creature will have most of the following traits: Dark wood, low lighting, bartenders with personality, above average drinks, lots of accumulated memorabilia and/or items of interest and a fierce local following who will happily bus tables and make a bouncer unnecessary (may the gawds help the stranger who bows up in a neighborhood bar, few things are more embarrassing than explaining to the cops that you got knocked the fuck out by a 65 year old ex-marine swinging a barstool).

Such establishments, once you have summoned enough testicular fortitude to brave the swivel factor, pissed a territorial circle around a bar stool and made the scene enough to earn the title "regular", are a refuge, a Sanctum Sanctorum and a home-away-from-home. I have been lucky enough to find such an establishment once in my life, and, unfortunately, I left it behind in FDL when I came down to Madison.

It's been a year and a half and I've used what little free time and free fundage I have to scour the city in search of a new watering hole.

There have been any number of failed attempts. Madison is a big city and has a lot of wonderful and not-so-wonderful establishments. Many of them are still in the running for my go-to bar but recently I found someplace that lept to the top of the list in very short order.

The Malt House was, for many, many years, the Union House Tavern, legendarily a waystop for Union soldiers on their way to Camp Randall for training and deployment in the Civil War. When Madison's East Side was the hub of Madison's industrial commerce, Union House was a beloved neighborhood bar whose fortune and fate became inexorably tied to the East Sides eventual decline. With the death of it's last owner, Earle Erhart, this local landmark boarded up and locked it's doors after 150 years.

But, Dear Reader, what may seem like a sad story is only the turning of a chapter. The only constant our weird and wonderful world offers is change. So it was that out of the ashes of an abandon Madison Icon, grew the dreams of a man named Bill Rogers. Bill is the head of the local Madison Homebrewers and Tasters Guild and in the old, boarded up tavern, he saw history and possibility. I didn't get a chance to meet Bill, but I'm looking forward to spending some time with someone who is probably Madison's #1 Beer Geek.

My trip to Malt House started with the Isthmus article and that familiar queasy feeling in my stomach. "A reasonably quiet place where you can sit and talk" you say? "150-plus bottles and 18 tap beers" you say? "Best whiskey bar in town" you say? All this and more adds up to potential. I love the historical backround of the place, I love the spirit of the owner. I have been known to do a little homebrewing myself so I love that it's one of our own running the place. Nobody knows beer like a homebrewer. Someone who loves beer enough to want to go through the laborious and smelly task of making it at home? There breaths the soul of a true Beer Man. I also love me some Whiskey. Irish Whiskey for preference (since it is THE BEST).

Potential like this makes me profoundly nervous. For every chance a place has to get something right, they also have a chance to doubly fuck it up. First because it's bad, second because it could have been so good.

And so, it is with great trepidation that I made my first visit to Malt House on a Friday night a few weeks ago.

The revitalization of the Near East/East Washington area is still an ongoing project whose future is still unsure. But, while this is not the best neighborhood in Madison (yet), it's weaknesses can also be it's strengths. I'm not sure if they tore something down next door to the Malt House, but they managed to get themselves a nice BIG gravel parking lot.

One of the things I hate about going to bars downtown is having to figure out where to park so I love me a nice big parking lot. I also hold that a big lot with no overnight parking restrictions is going to lead to a much safer clientele. If someone has had one too many they are far more likely to take a necessary cab home if they know that their automobile is safe and secure and someplace they can easily return to tomorrow.

I was suppose to be meeting My Bride and Lisa Who Eats Paste there at 11pm for some post-work relaxation but the ladies were dragging hindquarters and arrived in their own sweet time. This suited me however as it gave me an extended period in which to peruse the establishment and take in the setting.

I suspect quite strongly that former regulars at the Union House would barely recognize their old stomping grounds now. A thorough cleaning, refinishing and redecoration plan has left the interior cozy, strategically lit and comfortable. A large crew of enthusiastic conversationalists were gathered around 3 or 4 tables pushed together and were creating a pleasant background babble that I enjoyed.


150 beers does make for a daunting menu, 90 some whiskeys doesn't hurt either. Luckily, I'd been wanting to try a glass of Redbreast Pure Pot Still 12 Year since I'd first heard of it, so I got to indulge myself. At 6 dollars a glass, this delightful artisanal beverage is a very affordable luxury (and it was excellent, fiery with a lovely butterscotch aroma and a mellow finish). I sat and nursed my whiskey while chatting with Jaquie our charming bartendress.


From Jaquie, I learned a few entertaining facts about the establishment. Apparently the cleanup was quite a production. Many old men had smoked many cigarettes while enjoying many years of tasty beverages at the Union House and the walls and floor tiles were stained a deep nicotine yellow. The walls were scrubbed and painted but the decision was made early on to leave the famous antique bar in place, along with it's etched glass bar mirror displaying the historical Union House logo as something of a anchor to the bar's historic past.


Everything else in the bar has been redone. New fixtures, lots of tables and a truckload of exotic beer memorabilia covered the walls. The new barstools met the comfort test for my overlarge buttocks and the ladies reported the bathrooms on the girls side to be clean and comfortable. What music there was came from some kind of computerized electronic playlist that seemed to be hitting a lot of The Police's greatest hits at a tolerable backround volume that one could easily be heard over.

I eventually switched from Redbreast to Lake Louie Warp Speed Scottish Ale which was sublime.

Between the fixtures, the lighting, the crowd, the selection, the facilities and the parking, this bar has all the great fundamentals. While it has no kitchen, no grill and thereby no food, it does permit patrons to order in from any of the local establishments who deliver. As such, we ordered ourselves some dinner from another new Near East institution, Burrito Drive. Jaquie was even Janie-on-the-spot with a pile of paper plates and napkins to make our meal easier.

Now, those who know me also know that I have a deep and profound love of a good cocktail. A good mixed drink is a rare commodity in this town and honestly, the Malt House, from what I saw, is not the place to get one. Normally, I would complain about this but really, I don't think it would be fair. You might not be able to get a great mixed drink at the Malt House, but that doesn't mean you can't get a GREAT drink. 150 beers and a massive selection of Whiskey, Rum, Scotch, Gin and other exotics means that you will find something that you like, one way or another. Gawds forbid I'll just have to content myself drinking my way through their massive selection... damn my life is hard.

In the end, this is a comfortable, well appointed establishment with a proud history, profound potential for the future and a very solid foundation in both product and purpose. The Malt House is the kind of place you can call home; a catylyst in the lives of its patrons and regulars. A place where jokes will be made, tales will be told tall, eyes will meet across the room, friends will be greeted after long times apart and if they are lucky, a new chapter in the history of this place will be written.

Cloud 9 Grille

From the minute I walked in the door, I wanted this place to succeed.

Madison is growing out in all directions, looping around lakes and bureaucracy. Like all things in the natural world, it does not grow symmetrically. In some places you find dense clusters of shops, houses or parks, while other stretches are Ikebana-like exercises in empty space. The East Side is like that. Thousands of houses, huge tracts of residential neighborhoods and Sweet Fanny Adams for good local restaurants. Don't believe me? Head east off of Stoughton Road, out into the frontlines of Madison's War Against The Countryside, you will see for yourself. When I moved here over a year ago, I spent my lunch hours driving around the east side getting a feel for the land. The thought came to my head spontaneously, "Damn, this place needs a restaurant, or a bar, or a coffee shop." I'm not the only one. I've heard a number of Eastsiders complain that you've got to drive across town to get to "the good stuff".

So here we find, beyond Stoughton Road, beyond Sprecher, beyond even the Interstate, boldly striking out on the front lines, within sight of the retreating Cornfield Army, Cloud 9 Grille.

As a Foodie, I'm very judgmental when it comes to restaurants. I read too much into decor, waitstaff, plating, bar glass, lighting, sound system... even the choice of silverware. So please, Dear Reader, take my assessment with a grain of salt. Opinions vary, tastes vary, moods vary. No one person's pronunciation is going to encompass a restaurant in toto. At most, I can hope to offer you a perspective. A piece of the picture, but not it's whole. Accept this, too, as default for future restaurant reviews. Always remember, I may be full of shit.

The picture above is the sign that greets you as you walk in the door. Right there, in your face and unapologetic. This is not a motto, this is not a catch phrase, this is a declaration of War. Whoever started Cloud 9 has come to the understanding that long term financial stability and profit comes from being, not an restaurant, but an institution. You must weave yourself into the fabric of the neighborhood in such a manner as to make yourself inextricable. When Eastsiders want to step out for dinner, they should think to themselves... "I don't have to drive all the way across town to some fancy place downtown or on the Westside, I can just go to Cloud 9." When Dad wants to watch "the game," Cloud 9. When Mom wants to go out for drinks with the girls, Cloud 9. When the family wants to go out for dinner, Cloud 9. When the office crew needs someplace to go for drinks or a party, Cloud 9. A restaurant that has accomplished such a feat, (examples 1, 2 and 3), enjoy success, stability and are sources of pride for those involved and in charge. It's something of a Restaurateur's wet dream - to be the owner of a famous local restaurant.

Cloud 9 is aiming high and I would honestly love to see them succeed, but so far is not so good.

Cloud 9 is following along in the long tradition of other Sports/Fusion/Brewpub/Cocktail/Wine/Supper Club/Family/Bar/Grill/Steak House/Restaurants out there. From the Vegas wall mural, to the Moulin Rouge posters, the movie posters, Rat Pack pictures, the multiple flat screens displaying the latest Nascar race and the Cowboys/Viking game (which nobody, as far as I could tell, was watching), the Bowling and Golden Tee video games, the mandatory gas fireplace, the pub tables, the cocktail table/settee groupings, the dining tables, the booths, the wine racks, the cocktail glasses, the large tap beer selection... Cloud 9 has obviously swerved into the short-sighted, never-successful "Let's Make Everyone Happy" plan. Like so many places before it, in a good-hearted attempt to do everything, they won't be able to do one thing well.

This is seriously one of my biggest pet peeves. After watching so many other restaurants before it fail horribly, yet another business owner thinks "I'm different!" "I'm special!" "What hasn't worked for thousands and thousands of other businesses will work for me!"

Now, don't think that by any stretch I'm saying that Cloud 9 is not well-appointed. I didn't dislike a single thing about the decor. It was obviously put together by a restaurant professional. The view, blessed by a fantastic Wisconsin sunset while we ate, is to freakin' die for. I was seduced by Sinatra (or, more accurately, channel 75) playing in the background (attention restaurateurs, this is an auto +10 in my book, just so you know). I liked the low key lighting, the chairs were comfy and the whole place is laid out in zones to give it a more intimate feel. But this is nothing that any of us haven't seen before. This was pretty much every play from the modern restaurant playbook. This is a Catalog Restaurant. Everything from the floor tiles to the ceiling lights is ordered direct from a restaurant supply house. It's not an act of creation, it's an act of shopping.

What makes a neighborhood a neighborhood is its uniqueness. The streets are like whorls in a fingerprint. Environment, economy, history, culture and amenities combine to give every neighborhood a special formula that is as unique as the individuals that inhabit it.

What amazes me is how someone can live in a neighborhood and not understand that, especially in Madison. We've got very strong, very distinct neighborhoods, full of pride in these parts. For someone to open a "neighborhood" restaurant and not understand that is honestly... a little thick.

I could note that I've seen every single piece of decor in another restaurant at another time. I could note how much the place reminds me of TGI McFunsters or Granite City or even Applebees. But the best argument for Cloud 9's insipid reality is the menu.

Cloud 9? Who are you? Why should I choose you over so many other restaurants in this town? You are a restaurant after all, if a very confused one, and it all comes down to your food. What do I brag about? What do I drive across town for? When someone comes to visit, what do I say to them when we go out to dinner? "Hey, we gotta go to our local, they have got THE best.... " what?

Let's have appetizers! Are your buffalo wings better than Hooters or BW3? Are your mini bacon-cheeseburger better than the ones at Applebee's or Damon's? Are your Nacho's or fried calamari better than the ones I can get from any other restaurant (and their dog)? Homemade potato chips, that's kinda original, but Crave does it too.

Salads? From the mind-numbingly ubiquitous Iceberg to the old, old, old standby Caesar... at least it's not a Chicken Caesar (though I'm sure you could get it if you ask).

The rest of the menu suffers from the same personality disorder. Jambalaya? Really? I'm going to go to a Sports/Fusion/Brewpub/Cocktail/Wine/Supper Club/Family/Bar/Grill/Steak House/Restaurant for Creole food? Seriously? I'm sure you've got a New Orleans expat tucked in the back there that makes this, this and only this? Enchiladas? With all the great Mexican places in town, you're going to field this? Oh, I know there are those dinner parties that can't agree on where they want to eat. Some people want steak, some people want Mexican, some people want Italian. So the thought is that they can come to your place and it'll make everybody happy, right? WRONG! Fail! Anyone who wants Mexican in this town is probably used to places like Casa De Lara or Laredo's. You really think your half-assed, afterthought dish is going to satisfy? Take a stand Cloud 9! Focus! Pick a thing, do your thing and do it well! When people can't make up their mind what they want to eat, you don't say "we'll make what you want," you say "don't worry, you'll like what we make!"

The absolute capper to this is their risotto.

Real risotto is a thing of absolute beauty. When it's done correctly, when it is properly al dente and mantecato, it is one of the most wonderful, simple culinary treasures you should ever be so lucky to have. It is also very hard to make, not from a cooking standpoint, but from a restaurant standpoint. Risotto is notoriously finicky. It requires constant attention which is a demand that no dish can make in a professional kitchen. It's done when it's done and there is no ingredient other than hourglass sand that can change that. Italian restaurants that serve Risotto usually have schedules on the menu. Basically warning the diner that if you want the risotto, you have to wait till a certain time every hour, giving them the option of delaying their order so everything comes out at once. Risotto is not a side dish, it's not a starch filler. It's not like Americans think of noodles or rice with Italian or Japanese food, risotto is the centerpiece.

So when I see risotto on the menu at Cloud 9, my heart first leaps, then sinks.

It might be real risotto, but it's reheated. They have relegated this most sublime of comfort food, this legendary exotic and interesting crowd-pleaser to the realm of a side dish.

Attention Cloud 9 patrons, if you'll look to the left of the restaurant, you'll see greatness passing by... please wave. So close but yet so far.

If this place made real risotto, they should have people standing outside, holding signs that read "Check it out, REAL risotto!" or "Holy Fuck! Risotto!" But no, it was slapped unceremoniously on the plate like a scoop of lunch lady mashed potatoes (which I had, BTW). It was okay, but reheating is not kind.

All of this criticism has probably led you to think that I didn't like the restaurant. But here is the mind-blowingly stupid part... the food, was good.

Just because the place don't know who or what it is, don't mean the crew can't cook.

Not only was the place well appointed, our waitress was an excellent example of the species, both kind and considerate. She unabashedly warned us that due to a sudden busy spurt, the kitchen was in the weeds when we sat down. I appreciate that, rather than cover it up or try to make excuses, she was very upfront and matter-of-fact.

We started off with the White Cheddar/Sweet Corn fondue.


Good temp, good texture, good taste. My Bride has her own spin on our dinner over at Insert Pithy Title Here and we are in agreement regarding the sharpness of the cheese. Melting cheese makes it lose flavor. This would have benefited from a sharper cheese. It also should have come with a bottle of hot sauce. Cloud 9 obviously only has one fryalator that they use for everything because the homemade tortilla chips tasted like Friday fish-fry. I actually enjoyed that, it reminded me of some tasty childhood bar food, but others might not be so kind. All and all it was delicious. But it was also cheese that you ate with deep fried food, how was that ever going to be bad? It's not particularly inspired. It follows in the current tried-and-true restaurant trick of fatting foods up, but hey, sometimes that's not a bad thing.


This was a damn good steak. I asked for Medium Rare and that is what I got. Honestly, I wish that wasn't a big deal, but it is. So many other places couldn't find medium rare if the cow was alive and giving them a play by play as it cooked. That speaks to someones grillardin. Note the mashed potatoes... kinda lunch lady ain't they? They were good, however... fatted up with butter and cream as you would expect.

I don't want to mention dessert, 'cause... I ate it, and I shouldn't have. It was teh awesome.

Afterward, we retired to the bar where an indifferent bartender poured us a pair of grossly overpriced rail drinks that were adequate, but hardly worth the price. 7 dollars for a rail cocktail is way too much. I can get a beautifully muddled Mojito at Jade Monkey for 5. Come on folks. I know the bar is where a restaurant makes its money, but remember that neighborhood places have to be reasonable. Remember, repeat business. Your prices should be on par with other local establishments and Jade Monkey is packed. Take a lesson.

This was a good meal. It was good food made by a skilled crew which makes this all the worse.

I have nothing to recommend this place that I can't say about so many other places in Madison. They are not special, they are not unique. The food was good but nothing stood out. The menu said nothing. Nothing in particular anyway. They don't speak for Sprecher or the Eastside. If someone put me on the spot and asked me what Cloud 9 has that nobody else does? I got nothing.

Maybe an identity crisis.