Great Dane Pub Review

      Our last stop on the Great Wisconsin Pub and Brewery tour may have been the best. So good in fact, we ate lunch at the airport location on our way home the next day. The Great Dane looks more like a professional chain restaurant than a local place full of character. That may be because they now have five locations and plan on growing even more. We visited the Fitchburg location. Located in a mall area full of other stores and restaurants, the Great Dane is a stunner to look at. Lots of brick on the outside, beautiful dark woods and copper beer tanks on the inside. We chose to eat out on the patio, as it was a warm and sunny, summer night.

     Our first disappointment, was that some of the beers were sold out ?? It's a brew pub, shouldn't you have beers in stock. Since the Fitchburg location list only 6 beers ALWAYS on tap and of those, two were sold out, that left slim pickings, I settled for Old Glory American Pale Ale, it was quite good , not an exceptional ale but cold and refreshing on a hot patio. Next disappointment was our server, she was all smiles at first, but maybe because we moved to the shade without asking she got sullen? Not sure why but her attitude wasn't the greatest and she would disappear for long stretches at a time.

      When I first glanced at the menu I was intrigued and frightened at the same time. We have all been to those chain restaurants that have a hundred item menu of which NONE of it is local, or even tasty. All of it brought in frozen, in nicely pre-packaged servings, by big trucks with names like Cisco on the side, BLAH my absolute LEAST favorite restaurants in the whole, wide world. Give me a local hole in the wall place making food bought fresh from within the area ANY day. Now that you heard the rant I have to say I was wrong. The food was the best part of this experience. We all tried something different and every meal was great.

      To start we shared the Tuna TaTaki, this was very good, maybe a bit unexpected as we were far from water here, but the tuna was very fresh and the Cajun spice dusted on top gave it just the right amount of heat. For our entrees we visited around the world, starting with wifey and India. Her tandoori chicken was not a true "tandoori" but more tandoori spiced, still very good but what she truly raved about was the almond flavored Israeli cous cous that came with it. Along with tomatoes, olives, artichokes, grilled flat bread and a lemon yogurt dipping sauce, this was the U.N. on a plate.

      My meal was no less exotic for the mid-west. Called "Drunken Jerk", (NO comments please), it was
tender pork shoulder, soaked in spiced rum and jerk marinade,slow-cooked and wrapped in banana leaves, then finished with coconut-lime butter and pineapple salsa (yes I copied from the menu,and no I can't get the fonts to match ). Served with incredible, sweet, fried plantains, this was an exceptional meal. And it was a hoot for everyone at the table, because the amount of pork in the banana leaf wrapper seemed never ending, just when I thought it was done, I'd notice another fold and even more yummy tender meat. For his meal , Dean went with a great American city, New Orleans. His smothered and covered chicken read like this,a hand-breaded fried chicken breast topped with shrimp, andouille, artichoke hearts, mushrooms and tomatoes in a Cajun butter sauce. Served with jalapeno cheddar mashed potatoes and market vegetables. All in all we were extremely satisfied and VERY full after the meal. No dessert for us.

On a scale of 1 to 5;
Food,                Quality means much more to us than quantity.

Beer and Wine,  Based on selection and pricing

Service,             Speaks for itself
Ambiance,          Does the look fit the food and pricing 

Price,                 And finally does the pricing equal the results we had.

Food,                     4.5  Excellent all the way around.

Beer and Wine,    3.    How can you run out when you brew it here.
Service,                 3     Efficient but not really friendly

Ambiance,             4     Patio was great, bar looked inviting, I never saw the main dining room but overall nice ambiance for a Brew Pub.

Price,                     4      This is not a "cheap" place to eat, but the portions are HUGE, you will leave full and happy.

Overall;               3.70    Our final stop on the great beer and pub tour, and certainly the best and most creative food of the bunch. So good in fact, we arrived at the airport early, so we could eat at the Great Dane in the terminal. Food was just as good (just not as many choices), it was more expensive (DUH, it's in an airport) and they had a full selection of beers (Go figure).  If your in the Madison area , make sure to stop by one of their many locations.You won't be disappointed.

Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin

      I am a huge history buff. Where ever and when ever we travel, we love to visit at least one historical site or go on a tour of a famous place. Our spring trip to California afforded us a chance to visit the Hearst castle and on this trip I jumped at the chance to visit, arguably, America's most famous architects studio, Franklin Lloyd Wright's Taliesin. I won't go into alot of detail, but what a life this man led. Three wives, one mistress, the murder of said mistress and her children by a deranged employee, feast or famine in his business which saw him go from nothing to world famous and back several times and finally settling down with a woman 30 years his junior. This is a man, who never got an engineering degree by the way, who truly was larger than life. Oh and less we forget, Taliesin burned down twice, (once by said deranged employee), and then some nasty business with Frank's body being dug up, as he was buried next to the mistress and not the final wife, and his remains disappearing forever. Read the book, it's fascinating.

      Taliesin started as a home for Frank and his mistress, after he left his wife in the Chicago area with their six kids, (OK, he was a visionary but really, not a very nice guy). but eventually turned into an architect school where students had the privilege of paying to become indentured servants and learning architecture from the master (while working on his farm and building his houses for him). Enough talk, more pics.

                                          Eyebrow not top of head.

      You start your tour across the road at the visitors center. This is an original Frank Lloyd Wright building also. Originally a high end restaurant and bar, it has been transformed into a visitor's center,  gigantic gift shop (just like Disney except you walk through before you start instead of after you finish), and a restaurant/coffee shop serving expensive lunch food in a really cool setting. Dean was wise to call for tickets before we left the house, as tours on summer weekends sell out fast (just a word to the wise). Here are a few pictures showing the visitors center;
                                                    The Visitor's center

Stacked stone a Wright trademark

This beautiful set can be yours for $12,000

 

      Once your tour is called you are loaded onto a small bus for the long trip across the road . Some more interesting (or boring, depends on your point of view) facts about Frank and Taliesin. First, one reason Frank embraced the Arts and Crafts movement is long straight lines. Frank was only 5 ft 4 after all, (also the reason he insisted on wearing capes). Over the years Taliesin has been expanded to over 37,000 square feet and some students and board members live there today. They do not live in the main house, as this is a museum but in separate apartments off the main house,(must be fun, as Frank thought bedrooms and bathrooms were wasted space). Back to the tour, as you turn into the driveway, you notice a beautiful little pond and waterfall. Seems Frank damned up the local creek and built himself a little hydro electric plant, thus becoming the first house in Spring Green with electricity.

      Once you reach the top of the driveway you notice the house is not sitting on the top of the hill. That's because Frank believed houses should blend with the landscape, not overwhelm it. So his house is at "eyebrow" level not "top of head level". Of course, being he was not an engineer, the house is now sliding down the hill and costing millions of dollars to anchor properly, oh well can't win them all. Some pics of the house;

      By now I am sure you are all bored to death. So I will leave you with a few more pictures of the view, (Frank was a visionary, buying up all the land around the house so the view would never be interrupted) and a bit of the incredible Asian art collection Frank bought with his commission of the Royal Tokyo hotel (two full railcars sent back home). Unfortunately, you are not allowed to take photos in the house itself, that you have to be here to experience. If you are ever in the area, I highly recommend this tour, enjoy;

Frank was ahead of his time, these are parts of an old barn he reused as a decorative element for the house.

General Store Cafe Review

      This will be a quick review, mainly because we stopped here for breakfast, and I have sort of forgotten what we all had. Needless to say, this is a funky kind of place, part general store, part gift shop, and big part breakfast and lunch place. You stand in line to order, (and on weekends the line can be LONG), then get a country flag for your table and the server brings you your food, (our country was Wisconsin, go figure*S*).

      After all the food from the day before I wasn't really hungry, so I went with my old stand by, bagel, cream cheese and bacon (smoked in this case). Around the table, there was also a fresh blueberry and walnut pancake, an Italian sausage omelet and scrambled eggs with cinnamon toast topped with maple cream cheese, YUM!! Unfortunately, once again brain freeze caused me to forget to take pictures of the actual food. But I did get a pic of the building;

      This was a fun little place and appears to be a destination breakfast place, as Spring Green is kind of small and out of the way, but the place was PACKED.  Would I travel way up here for breakfast, probably not, but then again I am a very simple breakfast guy. I just can't eat a giant omelet or a huge stack of pancakes, give me some toast and peanut butter (Oh, not that this has anything to do with anything, but Dean made some INCREDIBLE homemade bread for breakfast, Thanks again). But, if you plan a day like we did and do breakfast, some shopping, stop at a nice park and then tour Taliesin (post coming soon) then it is a really great day.

On a scale of 1 to 5;
Food,                Quality means much more to us than quantity.

Beer and Wine,  Based on selection and pricing

Service,             Speaks for itself
Ambiance,          Does the look fit the food and pricing 

Price,                 And finally does the pricing equal the results we had.

Food,                     4  Everything was really good. Yes, it was breakfast, but suprisingly easy to mess up.

Beer and Wine,    0  C'mon it's breakfast, Geez I know its vacation but even we have a limit
Service,                 3 This was a tough one, as really there are no waiters. I knocked it down, not because we waited in line for a long time, that's because its popular, but because once we ordered it took quite awhile to get our food. Again, its breakfast so it should be quicker. Everyone was really friendly though.

Ambiance,             4  Great, its a funky old building with lots of rooms and a screened porch and an outdoor porch. Oh, and once a year they have a concert out back called Bob Fest, where all the bands play Bob Dylan songs ,how cool is that ?

Price,                     4 Once again, need I remind you, it was breakfast. But the price were very reasonable for the quality and quantity we got.

Overall,                3.75 A very good breakfast place (and I guess lunch is even better), if your in the area stop by, or plan a full day like we did.

      Finally, a small park we stopped at on the way to Taliesin. Right on the Wisconsin river, with some great sand banks. Looks like it would be a fun spot to go tubing or kayaking. Enjoy;

New Glarus Brewery

      After drinking their beers all weekend long we felt the need to go visit the mothership. And since we were in New Glarus having lunch anyways, off we went down the street to visit. This is a brand new facility, as their beers have gotten extremely popular in Wisconsin.  As far as visiting, this is your typical brewery stop, self guided tour, big gift shop and tasting room. I probably wouldn't go way out of my way to get here. But New Glarus is a cool town to explore, has some great places to eat,(see previous post) and then the brewery. So if your in the area go ahead and stop, Some pics of  our stop;

      One last cool feature, there is a separate room where you can buy New Glarus beers. But what's cool is you pick up an empty six pack holder and you can mix and match any of their beers to make up your six pack. A neat idea and one I wish more places would allow.

Cooking 101; Grilled Pesto Salmon

        OK, this one is very easy. All it takes is some good salmon, some fresh pesto and a grill. This is literally one of those 5 minute meals you are always hearing about. I don't know about you, but every time I see one of the Food Network shows about 5 minute meals I cringe. Sure, maybe if you have a team of chefs behind you doing all the prep and clean-up but for us normal folks it's an hour at least. Not so this one, it's a snap to prepare, have ready, and on the table in no time. First the ingredients;

1) Side of good salmon ( you know how I feel about farm raised but if it's all that is available go ahead).
2) Pesto, homemade is best but if you are lucky like us to have a great farmers market nearby, go ahead and buy some there. I try to avoid the supermarket stuff as it has usually been made months ahead of time and uses alot of preservatives to keep it stable. Here is our excellent farmers market find;

Here is great recipe for homemade;

Fresh Basil Pesto Recipe

Prep time: 10 minutes

Ingredients

• 2 cups fresh basil leaves, packed
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan-Reggiano or Romano cheese
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1/3 cup pine nuts or walnuts
• 3 medium sized garlic cloves, minced
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

      
1 Combine the basil in with the pine nuts, pulse a few times in a food processor. (If you are using walnuts instead of pine nuts and they are not already chopped, pulse them a few times first, before adding the basil.) Add the garlic, pulse a few times more.
2 Slowly add the olive oil in a constant stream while the food processor is on. Stop to scrape down the sides of the food processor with a rubber spatula. Add the grated cheese and pulse again until blended. Add a pinch of salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.

      Now life could not be more simple. Heat up your grill. If you happen to have a few nice dinner rolls, slice them open add a pat of butter to them, wrap in aluminum foil and throw on the grill to warm up. Spread the side of salmon (obviously not the skin side), with a nice even layer of pesto and put on the grill, pesto side down. DON"T walk away, pesto is made of oil after all and this will catch your grill on fire. You want to leave it just long enough to get some nice grill marks. With a couple of spatulas, do a quick flip of the salmon, and continue to grill until fish starts to flake easily. Do not, I repeat DO NOT, overcook. The thickest part of the fish should still be very red, it will finish cooking off the grill. Remove fish and rolls from the grill and let sit for about 5 minutes. This would be a good time to make a quick salad. Don't forget to throw some fresh herbs in the salad, they will pair well with the basil in the pesto. I suggest a nice Pinot Noir from Oregon (shocking really I know, I suggest this wine with everything). Slice and enjoy, voila;

Tofflers Pub and Grill Review

       Our second stop on the pub and brewery tour, Tofflers, only fit half the bill. No on site brewery, but a bar full of New Glarus Brewery beers made us happy, happy, especially after hours of walking the Farmers market, (see previous post on market and stay tuned for future post on Brewery itself). Since we had walked and sampled our way around the Farmers market and planned on cooking all our goodies that night, we just wanted a quick, light meal, RIGHT, in Wisconsin there is no such thing.

      We started with New Glarus beers, Fat Squirrels (nice nut brown ale with great flavors but not too heavy) and Two Women ( a classic country lager, very crisp and refreshing). Just a quick aside , we sampled many of their beers but I do not believe we ever tried their most famous beer The Spotted Cow. So on with the ordering , I chose the roast beef sandwich with, once again, homemade chips (really what is it with homemade chips in Wisconsin? Though I will say, sometimes you just get sick of french fries), Dean also had a sandwich , the name of which escapes me now and both women went for the Cobb Salad, as the picture's clearly show, light was not what we got , Tasty yes, light NO!!;

      Once again a trend is appearing here. Wisconsin pubs (or wait is it a bar? I am going with pub cuz the food is so good), serve some damn, tasty food. My sandwich was incredible, maybe one of the best ever. Slow braised beef had been hand pulled apart and piled high on a kaiser roll, with Swiss cheese and horseradish sauce on the side. The sauce was GREAT not only on the sandwich but perfect for dipping the chips in (LALALALA not listening, I am on vacation). Once again chips were crisp, fresh and salty, The salads were gigantic as you can see and made with fresh ingredients. Everyone loved the meal and once again this is the type of local place I wish we had in our town.

       One quick note, the main reason we were in New Glarus, was because of their incredible bakery and next door meat shop. We stopped to pick up some home made potato rolls for the brats which we picked up at the meat store. These are the kinds of great, small places you find all over Wisconsin, LOVE IT !! Last of the New Glarus pics followed by our review;

On a scale of 1 to 5;
Food,                Quality means much more to us than quantity.

Beer and Wine,  Based on selection and pricing

Service,             Speaks for itself
Ambiance,          Does the look fit the food and pricing 

Price,                 And finally does the pricing equal the results we had.

Food,                     4.5 Actually no faults at all, other than it is bar food, but REALLY good bar food

Beer and Wine,    3.  What is there is good but not alot of choices
Service,                 4.5 The staff here was great.

Ambiance,             3.5 Again, its a bar so not much atmosphere but still clean and nice.

Price,                     4    Price was very reasonable for what we ate.

Overall;                3.90  Another great find, this pub tour is starting to work out great.

The Grumpy Troll Review

       As you will notice, no pics. In my defense, it was a long day, with an early morning flight and NO it has nothing to do with old age. Our first stop on the Wisconsin Pub and Brewery tour was the Grumpy Troll. Located in Mount Horeb, Wisc. (Former home of the World Mustard Museum), and located right on a major bike trail (smart location, nothing better than strenuous biking to work up a thirst). Because of the location, oh and maybe being prime time on Friday night, the place was packed. But, thanks to some friendly natives, we were able to secure a couple stools at the bar and have a tasty beverage while waiting for a table to open.

      We started with an Erik the red, a not too hoppy, American style amber lager. Very good but not entirely memorable. Good and refreshing but not that different from hundreds of other amber's made. Not so my 2nd beer, now this pushed some boundaries, Kentucky Porter, a nut brown ale, which has been stored in used Kentucky bourbon barrels for 6 months. WOW, great flavors, mellow but a great body, a really nice beer.

      How bout the food you say. Above average bar food is my answer.We went with a traditional Friday Night Wisconsin Special, Fish Fry. You could choose from different fishes (fishi? feesh? who knows), either fried DUH or baked and a variety of sides. I went with the fried perch with homemade chips covered in cheese, wife went with baked cod and also the chips, Cindy went with fried cod and (this is cool) sweet potato tater tots (told ya) and Dean had baked cod with I believe mashed potatoes or maybe rice? To start we shared a plate of that quintessential Wisconsin appetizer, fried cheese curds. Yes, I know it was ALOT of fried foods but what the heck we are on vacation. 

      Cheese curds were Ok, I have had better (in Minnesota of all places). These tasted not much different than your typical bar fare cheese sticks. The fish fry was much better, crisp coating and moist, fresh fish  and a huge portion ( to become a trend here in Wisconsin). Chips were fresh, crisp with a nice coating of cheese, all in all a very satisfying meal. All around the table things were great , Cindy's sweet potato tater tots quite yummy, until we got to Dean. Unfortunately, when you get baked fish in a brew pub you take a chance, wife's was good but Dean's had been baked to within an inch of its 9nth life (Do fish also have 9 lives? If not, why not?, these are the questions that keep me up at night). After all is said, it was a great time, with great friends and this is a place I'd love to have in my own home town.

On a scale of 1 to 5;
Food,                Quality means much more to us than quantity.

Beer and Wine,  Based on selection and pricing

Service,             Speaks for itself
Ambiance,          Does the look fit the food and pricing 

Price,                 And finally does the pricing equal the results we had.

Food,                     4  Overall a great meal , with just some slight misses.

Beer and Wine,    4  Great beers made on site, who needs wine?
Service,                 4  The staff was wonderful. And service was prompt and friendly.

Ambiance,             3.5 It's a pub of course, and brewery, so don't think romance or quiet. But it is clean and fun.
Price,                     3.5 This is not a "cheap" place to eat, beer is rather expensive and entrees are average priced in the $10-$15 dollar range, though portions are huge.
                               

Overall,                3.8 Just a really fun place, I wouldn't mind having in my backyard.