My Birthday Dinner

On Friday night, my wife and I headed to The Cooper’s Tavern here in Madison for dinner. As far as my favorite restaurant in the area, it’s a toss up between Cooper’s and The Grumpy Troll out in Mt. Horeb. Cooper’s Tavern is a small little place just off of the square that has an English/Irish style pub type atmosphere. There are about two dozen beers on tap with many more in bottles (many of them European). As far as beers on Friday night, I went close to home and far away. For my first beer I had rye beer for a local upstart brewery in town called House of Brews. My second beer is one I almost always get at Cooper’s – Old Speckled Hen. You won’t find it on tap at too many establishments, but it has always been on tap at Cooper’s when I’ve been. I love Old Speckled Hen because to my taste buds it is the perfect creamy English ale.

The food at Cooper’s holds up to the great beers as well. On Friday night, we had an order of Beer Cheese Pretzels for an appetizer. You’ll find soft pretzels with a cheese dip at many places around Wisconsin and especially here in Madison, but this was perfect. Instead of the traditional twist pretzel design, these were just squat breadsticks. That simple shape made them easier to dunk in the cheese sauce. The pretzels were steaming hot and perfectly salty. Their outside had that nice toughness with the inside being nice and soft. That soft interior worked perfectly to soak up the cheese sauce which was made a bit thin, probably on purpose to do just as I mentioned.

For my main course, I had the Brisket sandwich. It’s something that I had thought about ordering many times before, but just always went with something else. This now might become my “usual” at Cooper’s. The sandwich is done on a large ciabatta roll and contains beef brisket and caramelized onions as the main stars. However, the supporting role in the sandwich comes from bacon aioli. That’s right – bacon aioli. It just rounded out this sandwich perfectly. With only four components, it’s one of those simple dishes that are just plain outstanding. My wife probably got tired of me talking about the sandwich. The ciabatta was the perfect bread to carry the sandwich, the brisket was tender and juicy, the caramelized onions were well done (not tough and stringy), and the bacon aioli, well that just finished things off.

We decided to splurge and split a dessert. I’m always one for a good bread pudding so we ordered the butternut squash bread pudding from their dessert list. Of course it was just as good as the brisket sandwich and the pretzels, but the brisket stands out so much that I can’t remember the details of the bread pudding.

If you find yourself in Madison, I wholeheartedly recommend going to The Coopers Tavern. Have a pint, watch a soccer or rugby match on the television, have a nice meal, or just marvel at their ceiling fans that are powered by a pulley system. Yes, the last one sounds odd, but go there and you won’t go the night without mentioning them…especially if you’ve had a few pints too many.