Eating in Madison A to Z: Concourse Hotel Bar

In a word: Business class bar food.

The specs: #0095
Address, hours & details via Isthmus; Ultimate Madison Bar Tour review; official web site;

Latest Concourse Hotel Bar news and reviews at del.icio.us

JM ate the steak sandwich with a lemonade.
Nichole ate the five onion gratinee with a soda.
We split an order of wings.
The bill was $25, or $12.50/person, plus tip. Thanks, kids!
JM gave the Concourse a B; Nichole gave the Concourse a B- (see our grading rubric).

The menu offers a few sandwiches, soup, chili, and one salad (the ubiquitous Caesar), as well as bar appetizers like wings, fried cheese curds, nachos, and more posh choices like mussels and oysters.

Except for the aforementioned fried cheese curds and the "Cheddarhead" fruit and cheese plate, there's little here that would clue you in to where you'd be if you walked out of the cool (read: 66 degrees) of the dim piano bar. There were two or three other patrons there at any given time, and we left just as the happy hour visitors bellied up to the hot snacks.

High points of our meal included the mellow and soothing five onion soup, featuring leeks, garlic, shallots, sweet Spanish and red Bermuda onions. Also, we finally found what we were looking for in buffalo wings: eight hot, bbq-baptized wings and drummies with bleu cheese and celery on the side.

JM's steak sandwich was good but this bar was obviously using "Lot's Wife" brand jus (motto: "A pillar of salt in every serving"). The fries, however, complemented the food nicely while being well-portioned. Overall, a good meal.

The staff was convivial but Nichole wants to know, since when does "freshen" in reference to a soda mean "charge another $1.50"? Oh well. She had arrived early and they'd been patient.