During the amazing four years I spent at the University of Wisconsin I walked past the University Club weekly, and probably closer to daily the year I lived off State Street. But I never ate there because I thought you had to be a member. Once I graduated I looked into the club rules and found that non club members can eat there for breakfast and lunch. I had heard their breakfasts were pretty good, so when I saw a posting for a locavore lunch I asked a friend to go. Their locavore lunch is kind of like restaurant week, where you get to choose an appetizer, entree and dessert from a special menu, but during locavore week they focus on ingredients from local farms and vendors.
I was surprised by the quality of the food, but disappointed by the continuity between the menu and what I was served. The salad I ordered was supposed to be a roasted sweet corn salad with shallot vinaigrette, micro greens, rabbit confit and radish. What I got was extremely good, but was not a sweet corn salad. In fact, there wasn’t a single piece of corn in the salad. It was a pretty good serving of arugula with a creamy vinaigrette of sorts, a small amount of rabbit confit, and and some slivers of radish. The salad itself was fantastic (especially the rich rabbit confit with the crisp radish and peppery arugula), but based on what I was expecting I was a bit annoyed.
The beef kabob was inconsistently cooked, but had a good flavor. The cumin grilled sweet corn (maybe this was the corn that was supposed to be in my salad!) was perfectly grilled and had an amazing char. The corn was billed as cumin grilled sweet corn, but even though I loved the flavor I didn’t taste any cumin. The kabob was supposed to come with a lemon-garlic rice pilaf, but it ended up being cilantro lime rice. As you may know based on previous reviews, I really hate cilantro. If I had known the dish came with cilantro-lime rice I probably would have gotten something else.
For dessert I got the baklava with Babcock ice cream. The ice cream was amazing (obviously because it was Babcock) and the baklava was great. It wasn’t too sticky or overly sweet, and it actually had a bit more cinnamon than normal, which was unexpectedly good. The serving size was also larger than the other two courses, which was unexpected, and given the quality of the dessert I was happy it was bigger than anticipated!
FOOD NOTES: I am very torn about my experience at the University Club. My salad was fantastic, but it was not at all what I ordered. The beef kabobs were fine and the sweet corn was good, but the cilantro lime rice was an unwelcome surprise. The baklava was good, and the ice cream was fantastic. I had high hopes for this iconic place on my campus, and I left mildly disappointed. The service was slow, and based on what I saw other people were ordering from the regular menu and what I got, I was not impressed. I do have a strong desire to like the University Club because of my UW pride, but I’m not sure I’ll be back for lunch. I might give breakfast a try though.
Small Town Tourist 