Wisconsin #BurgerChallenge - Tipsy Cow (Madison, WI)

Today, a colleague and I visited Tipsy Cow in Madison for a burger fix. I'd been told by a few Madison heads that, being the burger snob that I admit fully to being, I had to check this place out. So...the opportunity arose...and I did!

Overall the feel of the spot was fairly relaxed, especially given it's downtown, across the street from the State Capitol building location on a Wednesday lunch hour. Not quite as relaxed as a college town bar would typically feel, but it wasn't stuff at all. Plus, our waitress had huge tits. (+50 Bonus Points)

For a warm up, I ordered a Saffire and Tonic from the bar, along with a half order of traditional cheese curds and their buffalo cheese curds. The drink was top notch, if not a tad heavy on the gin. I'm not the type of brotha to complain about a heavy pour, but other people drink like sissies, so I guess they've been warned. The traditional curds were good, light and softly breaded, but not really awesome. Just the best basic cheese curd you can find. Which really, is a good thing considering how many places I've been (Stubby's Gastropub, Milwaukee) where you order curds and the f*ckers are brought to your table exploded to hell with essentially nothing but shell and hard, inedible cheese shards. The buffalo curds however, were basically the same curds, but drown.....LITERALLY....drown in buffalo sauce. A damn good buffalo sauce, but still....it was so overpowering we may have been eating buffalo mothballs and most likely wouldn't have noticed the difference. 

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Then, our burgers came.

The buns were a little softer than I prefer, but good and fresh. The toppings (Tipsy Sauce, Nueske's Bacon, 3yr aged cheddar and Widmer's Brick Cheese) were delicious and played very well together flavor-wise. The burger patties themselves? Different story. I found them to be underseasoned & flat out bland. The cook on them was juicy and well done (we weren't asked for temperature options), but overall they left a lotta tastebuds untouched/unfulfilled. The price was fair, but for the lack of blow away flavor, I'd have preferred to pay two dollars less for the burger; which also did NOT come with any sides (fries, chips, etc). Again, my overall impression was that it was an above average burger, but far from ready to play with the big dogs Wisconsin has to offer. 

Overall Grade