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| - I flew home to Madison today to surprise my mom and dad for mother's day. For a special gift I wanted to take her out to dinner tonight. The schmanciest restaurant L'Etoile was booked so I settled on Harvest. It sported a good review from the NYTimes, some lackluster and slim feedback on Yelp and Zagat totally dropped the Mad-town ball with only TWO restaurants listed here. Tsk tsk Zagat.
But my mom had heard about Harvest and got excited about going. She dressed up all nice in a cute pink summer coat and white pants while my dad put on a nice black turtle neck, jacket and slacks. To compliment my handsome parents I wore my travel dirty Yelp blue hoody, distressed jeans and Bonnydoon t-shirt. Before you cry foul I wasn't dressing the role of privileged california boy slacker - actually my suitcase got lost by the f***ers at United and it was that or wear my dad's clothes which were a couple sizes too giant for me.
Harvest is on the square and has a lot going for it. Charming, warm decor, in an intimate cozy setting. Our server was fantastic, actually a recent San Francisco transplant.
We started the meal with a complimentary potato and leak soup - a tad salty but nice. We savored an appetizer of morel mushrooms sauteed in butter, served in a type of gravy - butter gravy perhaps?
It was a night for red meat in the midwest - my mom had hanger steak, my dad Wisconsin bison (who knew?) and I had beef short ribs. My mom's steak was a tad chewy, but had amazing flavor. My short ribs were fantastically lush, flavorful and rich - definitely the best.
For dessert we shared an almond cake and chocolate cake. This was the only unsatisfactory part of the dinner - imagine two crappy cupcakes with a weak spoonful of ice cream. Where the hell was the choco-goo, choco-lava, or almond creme. What a cop-out for $10 a dessert.
But all in all we shared a fantastic time. My folks didn't even mind staying out past 9pm :) Harvest promotes organic foods raised from local farms delivered fresh to your table. It was well worth it. While the cost was high for midwest standards, I've paid far more for far less. And my parents and I didn't even try to strangle each other once while talking about politics!
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