Alchemy Cafe

Alchemy Cafe is the kind of place that Madison breeds. It's a bar with a good selection of highly alcoholic beers, served in glasses particular to your beer selection. The food is mostly organic. There is a clear commitment to locally sourcing both the food and drinks and informing the consumer about the source of their food. Some cities have dives. Madison has gastropubs, where foodies expect to know the farm which raised the cow for their burger and smell a sample of the grass the cow grazed. One of those statements is an exaggeration.

Alchemy is a cozy place inside. It does not take credit cards, but is kind enough to have an ATM inside (pet peeve alert: ATM stands for Automated Teller Machine... people who say "ATM machine" are best publicly humiliated). The lights are relatively low and they often have music, though not on our trip.

We went as part of REAP's local harvest: taste of the town. I got the burger special, which was seasoned with aioli and had some seasonal veggies. The burger was great... except for the meat part, which I ordered medium-rare but turned out very dry and shrunken, served in an over-sized bun.

We also tried the Matilda "burger," which is your standard butternut squash burger. What, you haven't had a butternut squash burger? Well, they're really good. A creative dish, pulled off well.

And I guess that kind of sums things up. A bar that makes a squash burger better than a beef burger. Someday, I'm going to miss Madison.

El Rincon Tico

Ok, it's pretty rare that we just flat out do not enjoy a restauranteering experience. But when we went to El Rincon Tico we left not only really disappointed but also...really hungry. Allow me to explain.

I have been excited about this place for months, really since I saw the sign announcing it's arrival. We are big fans of Cafe Costa Rica and Mango Man so Version 2.0 was bound to be good right? We went on a Friday night around 7pm, and got a table right away. And that was the highlight.

Service was slow. Like, really slow. And after our waitress would stop by once it would take days for her to stop again. She also didn't seem to know what she was doing. I mentioned this to a friend she reminded me that this would be what is called "bad service." YES, bad service. Definitely bad service.

We both ordered the special (some kind of garlic chicken with potato stew and plantains), which not only came out suuppeerrr slowly but came out without plantains. THIS, was not acceptable. Before we could ask about where they were our waitress left and never came back. We started to eat- the food was lukewarm and bland. Our waitress FINALLY came back to "check on us" and we asked about the plantains. "Oh, we ran out. But I thought you two would get the last ones." Well, no, we didn't. Thanks for the heads up.

Anyway, we tolerated the rest of the meal, waited 20 minutes to pay the check, then got out of there. Still hungry. So, I made us stop by Willy Street Co-op to buy..you guessed it...plantains. Which we proceeded to take home, cook, and eat.

Ugh, I am so sad. But I just can't stay too mad at Mango Man.