Fresco

Fresco is located on the roof of the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art on State Street and is part of the Food Fight Group. We had originally planned on eating at the Icon but when we arrived we learned that they were only serving all you can eat mussels and decided to try somewhere else instead. Fresco is across the street and so off we went.

Before yesterday I'd only been to Fresco for drinks and I would recommend it for the view alone. It's a great view of downtown Madison and could be a pretty romantic location to watch the sun set. I'm not sure why I hadn't tried their food in the past, but was happy to find out that many of the items on their regular menu were also on their gluten free menu. Their website suggests that their menu changes frequently, so I'm not sure if this is always the case.

Given that I'd originally planned on tapas for dinner, I ended up ordering two appetizers as my meal and chose the sweet corn risotto cakes with roasted poblano cream, corn and tomato salad and the shrimp diablo with a jicama orange salad. They were both delicious with the shrimp diablo being just the right amount of spicy and the risotto cakes being crispy on the outside and creamy on the inside. I must admit that this was an instance that I was so hungry that I forgot to ask about cross contamination issues with the risotto cakes, but I didn't have any negative effects afterward and for that I was very grateful. I would certainly encourage people to ask about these before ordering them but I'd guess that the menu will change shortly as their current menu seemed summer themed.

I can now say that in addition to having a great view, I can also recommend Fresco for their food. It would be a great location for happy hour if they had a happy hour menu. They are somewhat on the pricier side, but certainly in line with other similar restaurants downtown and the view is included. Enjoy!

Flemings

Life has gotten in the way of dining out recently and so it's been a while since I've posted. We've mostly eaten at old favorites recently like jacs and Taste of India which have been consistently good. I've also been traveling and eating at different restaurants around the country and it's been heartening to find out how much more people seem to know about gluten everywhere I go even in comparison to a couple years ago. I was even offered gluten free toast in Ann Arbor at the Dahlman Campus Inn's restaurant with my breakfast when I explained that I couldn't have the regular toast with my breakfast.

Unfortunately this did not extend to a recent experience at Flemings Steakhouse in Hilldale Mall when we recently stopped in to try their happy hour. In addition to their drinks, they have a limited appetizer menu which we thought we might try on our recent visit. It was clear once we sat down that our bartender did not appear to be in a good mood. I did not expect the degree to which this would have affected our experience.

The bartender in general seemed not very excited about his job and the part of his job that involved interacting with people. I asked for the happy hour menu which he dropped in front of us. He took our drink order and proceeded to pour our water, plopped them in front of us along with a bowl of potato chips and asked if there was anything else we needed. In my typical fashion I asked if the potato chips were gluten free and if there were any other gluten free items on the appetizer menu. He took a look at the menu and mentioned two menu items that could be made gluten free with modifications (the tuna and the carpaccio), the two which were not (calamari and ravioli) and that he didn't know about a fifth (BBQ shrimp). His response to whether or not the potato chips were gluten free was a very dismissive "I don't know, they're potato chips." He did seem to check with someone on this and later let us know that the potato chips were not in fact gluten free. We left very shortly after without placing an order for food and found the experience to be very disappointing, particularly since Flemings is apparently well known for their service. Unfortunately on this occasion, we were not on the receiving end of this.