Klubhouse Bar and Restaurant
Update 11/23/11: Klubhouse is now called the Roost.
In a word: Par for the course.
The specs: restaurant #0300!
Address, hours & details via Isthmus; reviews at Madison Fish Fry; official web site;
JM ate the chicken wrap with French fries.
John R. ate the almond crusted walleye with pommes frites.
John S. ate the deep-fried walleye with fries.
Nichole ate the turkey burger with vegetables.
Rose ate the baked Atlantic cod.
The bill was $60, or $12/person, plus tip.
JM and John R. gave Klubhouse Bar and Restaurant a B+; Nichole and John S. gave Klubhouse Bar and Restaurant a B (see our grading rubric).
Latest Klubhouse news and reviews
We were a little anxious heading to Klubhouse at the Hawks Landing Golf Club in Verona. This was because when we called to make dinner plans, the first thing the answering machine message said was that Hawk's Ridge appreciates their guests wearing proper golf attire, "including no denim." Being the lazy schmucks we are, JM and Nichole went ahead and wore jeans anyway, hoping our dining companions' classier togs would carry us through.
Luckily we needn't have worried. Plenty of other diners wore denim, and the hostess' greeting was no less warm because we weren't dressed up. We were seated right away in a room past the bar with an entire wall made of windows overlooking the gently rolling golf course. Too bad it was 6pm on a November evening, and all we could see were dim reflections of ourselves in the windows. We're sure the daytime view is lovely.
The menu was pretty typical for a midrange Wisconsin restaurant - burgers, steaks, salads, some pastas, and Friday fish, fried and baked.
While the waitstaff were friendly, they didn't seem to have a thorough knowledge of the menu or the night's soup offerings - maybe that's just an experience issue.
Once we heard our options, John S. ordered the seafood chowder. The soup was creamy and fairly good, with recognizable bits of clam, imitation crab, and fish in a thick cream base. He was nice enough to let Nichole sample it, and we both thought it was worth getting. Likewise Rose and John's salads were a decent starter, and included green peppers and a tasty, thick dressing - slightly more than we would have expected from an average golf course restaurant.
The menu's description of the turkey burger as "zingy," and the cranberry-orange relish on the side, are what enticed Nichole to try the sandwich. It was a massive burger that definitely needed two hands to lift. Unfortunately, the ample butter from the slightly overdone vegetable medley had oozed all over the whole wheat bun, which soaked up a significant amount and didn't stand up too well to the lipid invasion. ("Tonight on the Ed Sullivan Show: The Butters!") The turkey patty did turn out to be authentically zingy and peppery, which was a pleasant surprise - turkey may be the stodgiest meat around, so the cook deserves kudos for lightening it up. The touted cranberry-orange relish was nice: it had the ideal moisture content, the texture had a nice pop to it, and the flavor was more tart than sweet.
Rose's cod filet was ample and tasty, though she said it could have been served hotter. All in all, she thought the dinner was pretty standard for a good restaurant - no raves nor disappointments here for her.
John R. availed himself of the maroon paper placemats to record comments about his almond-crusted walleye, shown below in all its golden glory (at least, as well as we can show you given the dim dining room conditions). The filet was blessedly boneless. The almond crust was nice and peppery. The pommes frites were a little thicker than perhaps they should have been, but they were seasoned with plenty of paprika and other good stuff. The serving was ample and enough to share. Though, again, you can see where some stray juices tend to leak all over one's plate.
John S. simply called his fried Great Lakes walleye "yummy." He thought the whole place was nice, even if the golf course thing was a little off-putting to him. The location just outside the southwest side of Madison was far enough to feel like a drive in the country, yet close enough to be easy to get to.
JM tried a chicken wrap, which was neither fantastic nor terrible, although there were some twinges of stomach distress later but that may have been from his typical rate of consumption as well (ca. 0.7m3/minute). The chicken was only a half-step ahead of chicken fingers from the cafeteria. The fries were roughly Arby's-grade, which is not necessarily a bad thing.
So JM, like the rest of us, chalked up Klubhouse's offerings as average.
Awww, I thought I was going to hear about JM needing to break out his knickers and wearing them to dinner!
Posted by: monnie | December 07, 2007 at 10:02 AM
I didn't even notice this was #300. THIS. IS. SPARTA!!!!!!
Congrats.
Posted by: BT | December 07, 2007 at 03:17 PM
Thanks, BT!
Posted by: nichole | December 08, 2007 at 08:51 PM