| rev:text
| - Just before Christmas, I took my mother to Tornado Steakhouse for a meal. It was her first time in Madison and I wanted somewhere special, yet quintessentially Wisconsin and I thought Tornado would fit the bill. I wasn't disappointed.
We had a 7:15 reservation and arrived early, so after check in we decided to start in the bar. I introduced her to the brandy old-fashioned, which I ordered for her sour and with olives -- she loves olives. Mine was the same, but with fruit. Very good, and the bartender was polite, professional, and cheerful -- he cared for his job and obviously enjoyed what he did, and the results showed in his drinks. It was a pleasure to watch him work.
Starters were a spinach salad for me and French onion soup for her; these were accompanied by complimentary bread and crudites. The bread was quite good and accompanied by quality fresh butter. Crudites were serves in a chilled mug filled with ice...imagine a Bloody Mary, with no vodka or tomato juice. The vegetables were good quality but the actual process of eating them was somewhat fussy due to the presentation. We also had to ask for some dressing to dip them in.
My salad was a large and fresh portion with excellent warm bacon dressing. It was very good. However, my mother's French onion soup was so sweet as to be inedible. Despite the good crouton, good cheese and generous onions, the broth was downright sugary and she was not interested in finishing it. To be honest, two sips of the broth was all it took for me to write it off. It was not good and I would not order this.
Her main was the rack of lamb and mine the 20 oz. bone in tenderloin. She gave me a bite of her lamb and it was out-of-this-world excellent; just absolute perfection on every level. Every aspect from the meat to the sauce to the presentation was great. My tenderloin was one of the richest steaks I've had and was cooked precisely on the rare side of medium-rare, as I requested. Whoever is running the grill back there is top notch as they nailed both the lamb and the huge tenderloin in doneness we requested precisely. Great job!
Hash browns were tasty and large enough for me to share with her. The asparagus stalks were quite fat which worried me initially, but each onewas cooked well and of high quality without any woody texture or stringy-ness. Quite nice!
We were far too stuffed for dessert and even if we weren't, the dessert menu was heavy and fair at best.
Service was pleasant, attentive, and unintrusive. It was refreshing to be at a steakhouse with both male and female servers; I think it's interesting that I didn't really notice or think of that until typing this review. I wonder why other places don't follow suit?
Tornado was a good experience. I plan to return and sample some other items; it's not often you see rabbit on a menu and there is a wide variety of promising dishes on the spread. Recommended without hesitation.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)