A Foodie's Delight

I’ve often been known to have a random personality. Well no, I’m not an emotional flip-flopper; I just have what maybe is sometimes a short attention span or a vividly streaming thought process. Of course I’m used to this – and my friends reluctantly are as well – but I’m still amused when this randomness spills over into the events of my social life. For what could have been a “blah” weekend, off-the-cuff suggestions came into fruition and well, fun times were had by all.

After hellish weeks, Friday night left my wife and I hopelessly and lackadaisically pondering where to head for dinner. (My apartment was devoid of food – especially when you leave out the sour milk, spoiled salami, and moldy cheeses in the fridge, but then again I suppose you can’t really count those as food anyway.) We had gone to Panera too often, sandwich places like Potbelly and Quiznos were uninspiring, Qdoba and Chipotle - gourmet fast-food Mexican places – were for once too exotic, and Noodles was too bland (plus I had already gone there for lunch). However faces were brightened with the quick suggestion, “Well I suppose we could go to the Grumpy Troll?”

For those who are not Madison locals, the Troll (as I often call it) is appropriately located in the Norwegian heritage heavy burg of Mount Horeb, about 30 minutes west of Madison. I must admit while growing up I always thought the name was funny. On family car trips through the area, I always had the fascination of changing the road signs to read “Mount Horeble.” Now, we never did actually drive through the town itself so I wasn’t being harshly judgmental about the town, just merely doing the easy adolescent word-play on the town’s name. The town indeed is actually quite nice, your typical quaint small Midwestern town. It has a cute bookstore on the corner, the bridal boutique down the street, and the small grocery / general store as well. Of course the “Nor-Vee-jun” flair as well – the Norwegian housewares and knick-knack shop as well as the Scandinavian styled roofline on the steeple of the local Lutheran church. Of course it goes without saying that there are also most likely a few businesses titled Carlson’s, Larson’s, or Olufson’s in the title.

Although while all this is specific to Mount Horeb, it does still fit into that small town pattern, The Grumpy Troll however does not. The Troll is located in the building that once housed the local creamery, now instead of milk and cheese the building produces great food and more importantly fantastic beer. The brewpub produces nearly a dozen beers at a time, ranging from stouts to lambics, IPAs to wheats, and even a wildly exotic chile pepper flavored beer. I opted to go with their uber sharp Maggie IPA but really it’s impossible to go wrong (well maybe with that chili beer but I haven’t had it so who am I to judge). No wait, you can definitely do wrong at the Troll, as the table next to us proved. Instead of ordering one of the dozen handcrafted small-batch beers, they ordered a round of Miller Lites. Seriously? How does the thought process work on that one? “Hmm, this pale-ale sounds interesting. Oh, this stout has hints of coffee, chocolate, and a nutty after-taste. Wait, hold on. They have Miller Lite bottles?! Done. That’s my drink tonight. Who needs a good microbrew when you came have mass-produced piss in a bottle?” Alright, I digress and will just finish by saying that their beer has won countless awards and well, is amazingly good.

Not only is the beer great but the food is outstanding as well. This always surprises me because I think of the Grumpy Troll as a brewpub version of Kalmes’, the restaurant I grew up with at home where the food is good, but not outstanding. The Troll though does many simple things really well. Take for example their Grump Chips which we ordered for our appetizer. These are basically just a play on homemade potato chips, but done so the chips are perfectly crisp, not oily at all, and not heavily salted. They’re just piled high and sprinkled with grated Parmesan cheese. My other favorite dish is the Chicken Enchilada Soup. Now, the soup of the day was Clam Chowder, which I almost never pass up. On this night however, I ordered the Chicken Enchilada Soup without hesitation. It’s surprising that this would be so good from what could be considered a hole-in-the-wall Wisconsin restaurant, but I could eat the stuff everyday from here on out. It’s the perfect mix of cheese, beans, chicken, and tortilla strips. I also had the Reuben, which was good, but to be honest I’ve never had one Reuben that stood out from every other one I’ve ever had. However, it was good enough to make me realize that maybe I do actually like sauerkraut. It also reminded me off my father’s liking for the Happy Joe special – a Canadian bacon and sauerkraut pizza – when we out for pizza as a family to Happy Joe’s. Hmm, maybe I’ll have to make a suggestion the next time the whole family is at my parents.

Saturday evening was much of the same enjoyable randomness but with a starting plan. A handful of us wanted to go out for drinks and dessert. Being my favorite restaurant in Madison, I suggested Brocach Irish Pub and we were on our way. However after entering the packed pub and doing so behind a mustached drunk of a redneck, we decided that Brocach wasn’t the place for the night. We walked down the street and around the corner to Tutto Pasta Cucina Italiana, a nice Italian restaurant just off the capital square. It’s only mildly expensive, so you don’t feel bad going there – I guess I probably wouldn’t make it a weekly venture though either. However, the extra price is well worth it. Once arriving we did have to wait ten minutes for an open table. I didn’t mind as it allowed me to watch the action in Tutto’s open kitchen. A curiosity sparked by reading a third of Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential, I watched the cooks arranging nearly a dozen pans on a stove of only four or six burners. Every bit of food was being watched, in what was wonder of multi-tasking. Not a thing was burned, everything was done perfectly.

Eventually sitting down and ordering our first round of drinks (a simply ordered a Peroni, an Italian beer), we each find out that our stomachs all need a bit more than alcohol and sweets. We all ordered what Tutto Pasta does best, simple ingredients all put together in an equally simple presentation. Again, you pay for good ingredients and good end product, not an over-elaborate presentation that dulls the food. A few salads were ordered, a pizza, and for myself, gnocchi with pesto sauce. I’ve been tempted to order the gnocchi a few times before but never ended up doing so. Well, it was delicious and definitely did not disappoint – well except for the fact that I had passed over it before. One final round of drinks – me having a soothing Italian version of an Irish coffee – and we were ready to wade through the stark cold mid-November night and eventually slide comfortably into bed with satiated souls and stomachs.

"Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are."
- Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin