I have been here in Madison for close to 4 years now and I think I have accumulated enough experience dining out in Madison area restaurants to compile a few posts about them. This is the first in the series.
There are many other web pages of a similar nature specific to Madison and I consider this addition positively since restaurants and cooks and waiters do change with time and people's perspectives are different and my idea of a good experience at one restaurant might well fail someone else's test and vice versa. Take these with a pinch of salt. (* yes, pun intended and more to be expected! *)
I am a vegetarian. I don't eat meat, fish or eggs. I however, don't mind eggs baked into a dish e.g. pastry. I try to avoid mushrooms. I dislike eggplants and zuchini. I don't drink. This drastically reduces the list of places (restaurants/lounges/bars/grills/etc) where I can dine out and even among what's left of them, about 75% of the dishes on the menus of those places are ruled out. This means that these experiences will be of little use for the majority.
On first look, Madison seems to have a great diversity in restaurants offerring different cuisines, but digging a bit deeper I feel many restaurants pawn off sub-par food as authentic fare to largely ignorant patrons who unfortunately start considering themselves gourmets of that cuisine. This is arguably true for every place outside the area of birth of the cuisine, but consider this: This topic comes up frequently in office chat and the one thing that every person seems to agree upon is: "The best restaurant for xyz cuisine in Madison is not in Madison." (The follow up usually is that it is in Chicago, followed up immediately with - No, it is in XYZ.)
Well, let's sit down to it, shall we? The content is categorized by cuisine.
Indian
I start with the food I am most familiar with and probably the best judge of. However, my judgement is tainted by the fact that I cook better Indian food than most places I've been to here in the US, which is further surpassed by the cooking of friends, relatives, restaurants in India and of course supremely by my mom.
Some critical points that apply to all Indian restaurants:
The Chilli Factor: Indian food is spicy. Indian restaurants fearing informal boycotts, anti-recommendations - both formal and word-of-mouth, possibly even lawsuits but mostly out of sympathy ask guests in advance how spicy they want their food (Mild, Medium or Hot). No restaurant in India except for those that serve exclusively to foreign tourists asks this question. Food is expected to be appropriately spiced and usually is. MSG is never used here in the US or in India. Unfortunately, instead of preparing the dish 3 times separately to meet the levels of spiciness, most Indian restaurants here in the US prepare one large consignment of mild spiciness and then when an order comes in for Medium or Hot spiciness, Raw Ground Red Chilli pepper is added at the last minute and stirred into the steaming hot dish. Red Chilli needs to be cooked in, not stirred in. This shortcut tardiness gives rise to a dish where the chilli powder attacks unfathomable recesses of the brain rather than the tastebuds on one's tongue.
"Born in the USA" factor: Some dishes have largely been invented here and have now done a reverse migration to India (like the fortune cookie back to China). This is largely a good thing but the hope is that authentic dishes and recipes are not forgotten in the process. Novel dishes include: Mango Lassi, Strawberry lassi, Mulligatawny soup and the recently discovered (by me) Kuchember salad.
Now to restaurants in Madison. There are 5 of them. All 5 are located in strip malls and feature drab decor to create an "ambience" and lack lustre service.
1. Maharaja West
2. Maharaja East
3. India Darbar
4. Taj Indian
5. Curry-in-a-Hurry
The first four are primarily North-Indian cuisine and have moderate seating capacity.
1, 2 and 3 are run by the same management. M West is the oldest of the three. Unexceptional food. Buffet lunch that is a better deal than the dinner service. M East is much like M West except its newer and located elsewhere. India Darbar is the newest of the three and sprouted up where the previous Indian restaurant had burnt to the ground in a fire. It initially featured a purely-vegetarian menu but found it to be a bad stategy in terms of revenue and switched to the same menu as the other two. In fact, the menus of all 3 have the same print, paper and order of dishes. Many times, a waiter in one place will be found "sub"-ing in one of the other two places with equal ineptitude. In retrospect, M East seems to have slighlty better service.
Curry-in-a-hurry is located downtown in the midst of campus buildings and has a small seating capacity. There is talk of tearing the building down and building a new one as part of the "Downtown Revival". How this would affect CNAH is yet to be seen. It is probably meant to be a take-out place targeting UW students. It's run by a husband and wife team. In keeping with the "Hurry" title, service is prompt but this is one case where one feels the service can be a little less prompt. It can be a rated with a black-hole (in the 5-star rating system). They have a more even distributed mix of north and south indian dishes. The one and only time I went to the place was with Mr. Jesus (name changed to protect privacy) and our orders were "prepared" in front of us - the dishes were taken out from the freezer in front of us horrified sappos, reheated inadequately in a microwave (thawed is probably a better word) and presented to us in leaky plastic-ware. Jesus sufferred for others' sins. His company did nothing to improve the experience. Needless to say I never went back.
Taj Indian also opened after I moved to Madison and is located on S. Park St where it meets the Beltline. As Madisonians might be aware this area is kind of shady and it's best to check that your car is indeed locked when parking your car in this neighborhood. Food at Taj is unremarkable.
I have largely given up on Indian restaurants in Madison.
[10/15/06] Yesterday, I went out for dinner to try out the new Indian restaurant "Taste of India". The restaurant had opened in the same place where Yirgalem once stood - on Monroe St. close to Bluephie's. We got there close to 9pm after having found out that they were open till 10 pm and we happened to be the only patrons at that time. We chose our table and as has become my habit at such restuarants I ordered Onion Kulcha in memory of Pablo Picasso. This time the menu had it listed as Onion and Black Pepper Kulcha and so I was attracted by the prospect of having the flavor of black pepper included as well. This and Ginger Naan with "Aloo Matter" and Dal Paneer made for not too bad a dinner. We had had some Samosa chat for appetizers and that had spoiled the apetite. Although I don't know for sure, judging by the menu card it looked like it is another owned by the Maharaja "Group". I think may be because we were the only customers or because it was new, the food had been prepared better than I am used to in other of the Maharaja restaurants in Madison. I can't complain.
[2/15/07] And now Mr Resham Singh has opened two more - one "Maharani" on West Wash a block from the Capitol Square and another "Swagat" closer to my apartment at the corner of High point and Old Sauk. I think Swagat might end up being my choice for take-out. I gotta get outta here!
Nepali
Before I came to Madison, I didn't know that Nepal had a separate cuisine (separate from Himachal Pradesh, Uttaranchal or Northen Uttar Pradesh - Indian states) and I still think all of this qualifies as Himalayan cuisine. There are two Nepali restaurants in Madison both run by the same family from Nepal. Both carry roughly the same set of dishes and are located on State Street, Downtown.
Himal Chuli is slightly less buttoned-up (or is it buttoned-down?) and less expensive than Chautara, two doors down and so in my view has better food for the same money. But Himal Chuli is small and cramped and if you accidentally knock over your glass of water, you can get wet patrons sitting at the table not just next to yours but upto two tables down. The kitchen and the two restrooms and the dining room all open up to a common space close to loft-type ceilings, so that's another something that I don't like. On the other hand, Chautara has not just less cramped seating arangements but more tables as well both on the first (ground) floor and the second (top) floor. A window side table on the upper floor at Chautara makes for good people watching - considering the people who walk along State St - most of them being students of UW.
The State St, it should be noted is a mile long street that extends from the UW Campus to the Wisconsin Capitol building and has a huge no. of restaurants, cafes and shops selling everything from knapsacks, outerwear and feminist books to bathtub ducks, modern art and pipes for smoking [insert whatever illegal drug here.]
Oh yes, about the food --
The food is bland and could use a little more salt and spicy heat. The frustrating part is that the drinks - Chiya (Hot tea), Mango and Strawberry lassi (flavored yoghurt shakes) and the desserts - including kheer are not just lacking in the sweetness expected of Indian sweets but actually have a little bit of salt as well. Actually when I used to live in Delhi, I used to go hiking some of the summers in Himachal Pradesh (near Dharamshala) and Uttaranchal (near Mussorie and Dehradun) and now that I recall, the tea used to taste a little salty but there used to be no shortage of salt in the food or sweetness in the Jalebis.
The rice at the two restaurants is usually not well-cooked. Now, back home in Himachal, due to the altitude, the rice doesn't cook well but there is no excuse to intentionally undercooking the rice in a restaurant on the flatlands of America.
The positive aspects of the food are the tarkari side dishes (usually a medley of cooked vegetables) and the daal (lentils). Both the vegetables and the daal are very tasty and seem to have undergone a process that I guess is dry roasting/grilling, followed by steaming, followed by frying. This, I keep telling myself, would be something to try when I prepare lentils at home.
On the whole, something new to try for visitors to Madison - some friends and relatives of mine who have visited have liked the place - this includes Brinda (who was keen on the Nepali place since she had never been to any Nepali restaurant in the US and she prides herself on knowledge of International Cuisine) and Lennon (who noticed the lentils having been roasted a bit before steaming). And a nice place to have dinner once in a while. Parking downtown is a hassle though and in Winter, the Isthmus on which downtown Madison is located gets a good 5 degrees colder than the rest of Madison - the isthmus being sandwiched between the two large lakes - Mendota and Monona.
Himal Chuli surely gets a recommendation from me and is much better than any of the Indian restaurants for quality food at a cheap price.
[7/29/06] At the end of a very taxing week of personal decision making, I decided I would go out for an evening with friends to put the dust covers on some things for at least an evening. The evening turned out to be more than what I'd bargained for, but not because of our dinner or the choice of restaurant.
King Cullen and I decided to have dinner at the third Nepali restaurant in town Dobhan - situated on Williamson street in a very progressive neighborhood, it has a new age feel and much more spacious accomodations than its older siblings on State St. Chimpoo and BollaHere from MKE joined us after their little sailing expedition on Lake Mendota earlier in the day. Surprisingly, Dobhan has a few items on the menu from other cuisines including Mediterranean, Mexican, Spanish, etc but I went for a conservative choice. We had turned up a little late and so we were the last customers to leave. The waiter had messed up BH's order and later dropped something that broke his glass. The waiter was promptly apologetic and replaced the order with another acceptable one from the menu at no price. Slightly more upscale than even Chautara, it is owned by (no surprise) the same family that owns the other two nepali restaurants. The Nepali food tasted exactly similar to the other two places, so I was satisfied. Easier parking and larger seating capacity might mean a better ranking for this place on my book. We'll just have to wait and see.
Later, BH wanted to try out the bar and club scene in Madison, especially since smoking has been banned in such places in the Madison area and with KC guiding the way club hopping, I decided to tag along as well. Both Chimpoo and myself are non-drinkers and non-dancers and quickly realized that we'ven't missed out on absolutely anything. We turned out to be the rides for the other two and after a 4-hour night of stopping at a string of boring places that gave me a throbbing headache (due to the music) - some better than others, I dropped off my passenger and exhausted that I was, I decided to call it a night. Now, I know when to bail.
Pakistani
There used to be one Paki restaurant by the name "Madison Masala" on state street that had a shady exterior - darkened glass. It seems like this restaurant has closed.
Again, it was Jesus who had taken me to MM when I'd initally moved to Madison. The food was bad as was the service and it didn't help at all that I was in a Paki restaurant that had a bar with a TV that was showing the Cricket World Cup match on that particular day, with the patrons at the bar cheering for the Pak team
Much of this experience had been thankfully forgotten until now and the eatery hasn't been missed.
