2013 Wisconsin Grilled Cheese Championships

Here are some photos from the 2013 Wisconsin Grilled Cheese Championships held on Saturday, April 27, 2013 in Mineral Point. 

Each competitor had 15 minutes to make two sandwiches, one for the judges, and one for display.

You couldn't eat the competition sandwiches, but there were four vendors selling lunch.  We sampled three different sandwiches from Melthouse Bistro, a grilled cheese restaurant that made the trip all the way from Milwaukee.

This is the "Baconmoto" sandwich from Melthouse Bistro, made with Wisconsin aged sharp Cheddar, pecanwood smoked bacon, tomatoes and olive oil mayonnaise on Breadsmith Country French Bread.  My mom, sister, and I all agreed it was incredible.  The Melthouse Bistro cooks grill both sides of the bread before assembling their sandwiches.  Because of this technique, the fillings don't sog out the bread.  This technique especially paid off for the mayo and juicy tomatoes in the Baconmoto.

This is the "Recco" sandwich: Focaccia from Breadsmith and Wisconsin Feta and Fontina cheeses.  Delicious.  You can see it was a little skimpy on the cheese but I wonder if the cooks were just conserving cheese so they wouldn't run out.  (One of the other sandwich vendors had completely run out of ingredients before noon.)

And, this is the "Arla," a dessert sandwich made with Havarti, sweet spiced apples, praline pecans, on brioche bread.  It was basically an apple pie in a sandwich costume. 

We also tried some beer cheese soup from Fox Heritage Farms.  Currently, they are solely a catering company but will be opening Fox Heritage Tavern soon at 131 East Mifflin Street in Madison. The soup was made with Ale Asylum's Madtown Nut Brown Ale and featured lard-popped popcorn on top.  It had a rather disgusting color, but a really full, rich taste.    

There were several vendors including several cheese companies and the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board, which was giving away free grilled cheese cookbooks.   There were also a few non-cheesy vendors that I think are worth mentioning: 

• Sector 67 - a studio in Madison where engineers, artists, and other creative people can use shop space and tools for a monthly fee.  They had a cool 3-D printer set up that created plastic bracelets as we watched. 
• Miracles on Hoof CR Therapy - a therapeutic horsemanship farm in Spring Green.  I know from past experience that therapeutic riding and hippothereapy are really good programs, so I will give them a shout-out here. 

The event was packed - it was awesome to see so many grilled cheese aficionados.  I ate lunch at a table with a family who came up from Chicago and two ladies from Madison.  The weather was about perfect, and it was a great day for a drive along the hillsides of southwestern Wisconsin.  All in all, a great day and a well-run event! 

Monty's Blue Plate Diner

Last night I went to see Jason Isbell and Todd Snider at the Barrymore Theatre with my friend Jenny.  Before the show, we ate dinner at Monty's Blue Plate Diner, at 2089 Atwood Avenue in Madison, right across the street from the Barrymore.  It was very busy -- there was a holiday-fair-feeling in the air, with people from all walks of life out enjoying the first nice Spring evening in Madison.  There was a half hour wait for a table, but no waiting for seats at the counter. 

Monty's serves breakfast all day, and has an excellent selection of vegetarian foods on their menu.  I had a hard time choosing what to order.  I almost went with the Walnut Bistro Burger, Falafel Wrap, or Ultimate Mac and Cheese.  There are two grilled cheeses on the menu:  one with Swiss, cheddar and Parmesan cream cheese on brioche bread that is served with tomato dill soup, and the Farmer John's Italian Grilled Cheese, with roasted red peppers, provolone, mozzarella and kalamate olive tapenade on sourdough.  I ended up with the Italian. 

The Italian Grilled Cheese was very tasty.  The red peppers added a really bright aspect to the presentation and the olives contributed a lot of savoriness, but didn't overpower the sandwich.  The cheese was warm but not quite melted, which gave it a really good "bite."  This was a 5-napkin sandwich, deliciously greasy.  The bread was a very hard sourdough, grilled perfectly.  It tore up the roof of my mouth and it's still rough this morning ... but no pain, no gain I guess.  The only downfall to the sandwich was that the bottom bread was very, very soggy.  The solidly built crust supported it though, and it didn't fall apart.

Jenny had the Heathen Vegan Shoplifter's Delight, a knife and fork sandwich with Portobello mushrooms, tempeh, onions and avocado.  She said it was fabulous.  The only bad part of our dining experience was that we could not eat one more bite and would have to forgo one of the scrumptious looking desserts displayed in a case by the entrance. 

Overall, it was a good dinner at friendly restaurant.



   

The Koffee Kup

I had the day off of work today and found myself at the Koffee Kup at lunch.  It is a super cute small town diner that has been in Stoughton, Wis., at 355 E. Main Street, a long time.  They serve breakfast all day and have a pretty good selection of lunch offerings.  But since I have a responsibility to my readers, I went with their grilled cheese.   

You can choose from about 5 different cheeses on your grilled cheese sandwich.  The sandwich section of the menu states that customers are not limited to what is listed on the menu but are free to come up with their own ideas.  I went with cheddar on sourdough, and cinnamon apples for a side. 

The sandwich was grilled perfectly and had a buttery flavor.  The cheddar was sharp tasting and scrumptiously stringy.  An honest, simple, and well executed grilled cheese.  The cinnamon apples were very good, like apple pie filling, but not as sugary.  My friend got a BLT with fries.  She's very particular about her bacon, and was pleased that it was cooked perfectly to her specifications.  She was kind enough to share some fries with me and they were excellent.  They were home made with skin on, and very crisp. 

We also got dessert.  I had a brownie a la mode, which was very rich and had a delectable chocolate frosting.  My friend had Fruit of the Woods pie - mixed berries, apples, and rhubarb.  It was delicious and had a good crust. 

The food came out very fast and the service was good.  The waitress brought the check to the table with the food, which I appreciated since I hate waiting for the check after finishing a meal.  All in all, it was a really good lunch, and the whole meal with dessert was under $20 for two. 

Fromagination

Fromagination, at 12 South Carroll St., Madison, Wisconsin, is celebrating National Grilled Cheese Month by featuring a different gourmet grilled cheese sandwich each week of April.  They describe this week's offering as "Crave Brothers' Petit Frere with Truffles and Espresso BellaVitano with fresh tomato and honey."  It sounded so delicious that I walked over in the pouring rain today to try it.

Fromagination is a beautiful, upscale artisan cheese store that also sells cheese accessories and accompaniments, as well as a small variety of sandwiches, soups and salads.  They are a champion of local agriculture.  The staff members are knowledgeable, well dressed, polite but they give off a (deservedly so) cheese-snob air.  Their dining area is limited to a long communal table in the back of the store, and sidewalk tables in the summer, so I got my sandwich to go.

The cheese was delightfully melty and sweet.  The tomatoes didn't add much (being pinkish and out of season).  I got a taste of honey about every other bite, and it was heavenly.  I didn't taste the truffles.  I think the more subtle flavors of the sandwich were suppressed by the bread.  The bread was overly greasy, with small burned bits, and had sesame seeds on the crust.  The toasted sesame seeds overpowered all other tastes the sandwich could have offered.  Unfortunately, the bread slices were assembled crookedly, giving more disappointing crust area per bite than necessary.  Included with the sandwich was a charming square of dark chocolate sprinkled with sea salt, nuts, and dried cranberries.  It was a perfect little dessert. 

Overall, the meal I got for $9.50 and thoroughly rain soaked clothing didn't tally up to what I had imagined.  The foundation of a sandwich, after all, is the bread. 

 

    

The Rigby

The Rigby, at 119 East Main Street, Madison, Wisconsin, is a casual pub-style restaurant with a Beatles / 60's rock / British theme. On the main floor, there's a large J-shaped bar and a mural of record album covers on one wall.  Table seating is upstairs, where a "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" painting featuring a mosaic "Penny Lane" takes up the majority of a wall.  Stained glass umbrella lamps hang from the ceiling. 
 

The menu is creatively written, and includes many tempting choices with names like "Lonely Hearts Turkey Club Band," "The Wrap of John and Yoko," and "Sgt. Popper Burger."   I ordered the "Mozzarella Moon Delight" and my compatriot ordered the "That's a Fish Taco Wrap." We shared a half order of "Help! I Need Some Nachos."
 

The nachos came first.   The half-order was huge for a two person appetizer, but the menu did warn us it would be. They didn't look like anything special ... but the nacho cheese was a delightful surprise.  It had a smooth, glutinous texture, like Taco Bell cheese sauce (I mean that in the most complimentary way possible), and didn't harden as it cooled, but it was obviously made with real cheese and tasted great!   We also appreciated how the nachos were assembled, with cheese layered throughout.  Very few chips were bare. 

 

The "Mozzarella Moon Delight" was a grilled cheese take on a Margherita pizza, with real buffalo mozzarella, tomatoes, and basil.   The innards were really tasty - the mozzarella was super melty and gooey, and the basil contributed an exciting flavor boost.  The tomatoes didn't really add anything, but it is only early April, and there are no good tomatoes here in Wisconsin yet.   I thought it was such a good idea to make a Margherita style sandwich, but The Rigby's version fell a little short, being brought down by the bread. Although grilled to a golden perfection, the rustic Italian white bread was flavorless and too crunchy.   I think the mozzarella would have been complemented better by a softer bread, like flatbread, or perhaps a slightly browner bread for color contrast, maybe with a garlicky mayo as a sauce. I ordered potato chips as an accompaniment.  They turned out to be homemade ruffled chips, a little thicker than commercial potato chips, but not too thick.   They were crispy and were salted perfectly.

My friend ordered the soup of the day along with with her "That's a Fish Taco Wrap."   The soup was a creamy potato bacon.   She thought it had ample, appropriately sized potato chunks and a good amount of bacon, and was probably the most flavorful version of potato soup that she has ever eaten.  The soup was garnished with pita chip croutons that were tasty, but too large and crunchy to conveniently break up and add to the soup.   As for the wrap, in her words, "the fish, warm and moist with a light and still-crispy coating was surrounded in the wrap by lettuce and a nice coleslaw, neither of which was wilted in the least by the warm fish.  The sauce, not too much and not too little, was slightly spicy and very flavorful.   All was assembled burrito-style, in a tightly wrapped flour tortilla, cut in half, and easy to handle."

The staffpeople at The Rigby were really friendly and attentive.  We didn't spend much time waiting around and the check was delivered promptly.   It was moderately priced for downtown Madison.  Although the mozzarella cheese sandwich was a little disappointing, I would still go back to try some of their other menu items.