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| - We went to Graze for brunch on a Sunday morning with friends from out of town, excited to try the much anticipated menu items. Overall the experience was good, the wait staff was supremely excellent, and the food was okay.
We waited awhile for a table for 4, upwards of an hour, but we were expecting that so it wasn't so terrible. After we were seated we placed our order for deep fried cheese curds, beignets, 3 plates of Nutella stuffed french toast, and one plate of a breakfast sandwich.
I personally 1. love Nutella, 2. love french toast, 3. love cheese curds. The cheese curds and beignets came first. The deep fried cheese curds were absolutely outstanding, currently sitting at the top of my personal rankings for deep fried cheese curds in Madison. The batter was excellent, the curds were humongous, and the sauce clearly had some thought put into it. Well balanced and tasty all around.
The beignets were yummy, but a little on the dense side and lacking in enough powdered sugar. I realize this is Madison, not New Orleans, but if you choose to put something on a menu, I would expect it to be well executed.
Then the plates came out, 3 of which had the french toast topped with the seasonal fruit that happened to be apples. This is where my cheese curd high fell and my "meh" face came out. The french toast wasn't BAD by any means, but it was severely lacking in the Nutella area. I mean, the dish is billed as french toast STUFFED with Nutella, but actual chocolatey decadence was hard to find. It really was just a light smear of it on the inside of two very thick pieces of battered toast. And the apples with smoked almonds were a bit overpowering for me. I was disappointed that they chose apples to start with because the middle of May is not apple season by any means. Hopefully that is strawberry season or maybe any other fruit that doesn't come into its glory during October. I realize that the fresh fruit selection might have been sparse in May, but apples, really? To top that off, I would have called the french toast overdone as the edges were borderline burnt.
In the end, everything on the plate tasted fine, but it was lacking in polished execution which to be perfectly honest, was what I was expecting from a place so highly regarded. For me, what sets a restaurant apart from another is its ability to do everything it serves to its highest potential. And if that is even something as simple as bacon and eggs, then they should be cooked to perfection. Graze just didn't hit the mark for me.
However, the tastiness as well as the attentive and ever helpful staff is enough for me to try it again and hope for the best.
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