HA! It’s Tuesday and we went out to eat! Actually, we don’t eat out very often, preferring to cook at home and spend less, but this week is Restaurant Week in Madison, where many great restaurants in town offer a special 3-course meal for just $25 per person. We chose a restaurant we hadn’t yet tried — “Kickshaw” — in Fitchburg just south of Madison. And the great thing about the meal was that we were not stuffed when we left, and I just might have stayed within my calorie limit for the day! I’m not a food critic, but let’s see if I can quickly describe the meal: appetizers, entrée and dessert! Bruce’s choices involved mushrooms and salmon; mine included a vegetable cabbage roll to start, followed by pork ribs in a special Kickshaw sauce with garlic whipped potatoes and braised red cabbage. For dessert we had a panna cotta and a small apple and pear tart with a dollop of “beer” ice cream. Quite yummy and a nice treat at the end of long day.  

One special surprise about Madison is how many great places there are to eat! I thought for a while that Madison might have the most restaurants per capita of any place in America. I once looked online for a list of venues and it’s pushing 500. However, a bit more research turns up the fact that dozens of cities in the country claim to have the most restaurants per capita. So, who cares then? And maybe this partly explains why 60% of Americans are overweight? But even for people who don’t eat out much, it’s great to know that there are SO many choices, when you do want to eat out.  I think it’s accurate to say that there is more than one restaurant of any cuisine you could possibly want somewhere in or around Madison.

Another of my favorite food-related phenomena in Madison is the Food Fight Restaurant Group — how can you not love the name?  The restaurant group includes: Bluephies Restaurant & Vodkatorium (yes!), Monty’s Blue Plate Diner, Ocean Grill downtown, Tex Tubb’s Taco Palace (east and west sides), Hubbard Avenue Diner in Middleton (pies to die for), Eldorado Grill and several other great spots all over town. Ah well, most every place has good food, and my enjoyment of so many restaurants over the years has given me a good reason to focus on eating less.

Restaurant Week in Madison in January is a very good idea. Tonight, the temp was down around 8 degrees with a wind chill that I didn’t bother to look up. Nasty.