Red Elephant

In a word: Snazzy.

The specs: #01028   
119 State St., Madison 53703
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JM ate the caramel apple shake.
Nichole ate the chocolate cake.
The bill was $14, or $7/person, plus tip.
JM and Nichole both gave Red Elephant a B+ (see our grading rubric).

Red Elephant is the Madison outpost of a Milwaukee chocolatier. It belongs in a Venn diagram where the Milwaukee's Third Ward and State Street intersect, with its funky images, fair trade perspective, and top dollar/high quality treats.

We did not opt for truffles because another downtown A to Z beckoned for dinner that night, so we just got dessert first.  Nichole's chocolate cake was very, very chocolatey.  Dark and rich, it suffered only from being a bit dry, but the better to sell drinks, we guessed. JM's autumn-themed caramel apple shake made with Sass Cow ice cream was a good as you'd expect, with real apple bits that clogged the straw.  It was very creamy and filled with cinnamon, which made some slurps have a real snap.

Red Elephant looks like Gail Ambrosius for the wine-with-chocolate set, with slightly more attention paid to aesthetic details and less paid to non-traditional to chocolate flavors. In general, you are not going to go wrong here, but you could go elsewhere and not lose much.

Comments

[EmKay]

I'm amazed this place has lasted this long considering the prices and underwhelming flavor or texture of most of the products I've tried. I'm not sure who keeps them in business since they're empty or nearly so every time I go by.