Madison, WI trip report -- Part One -- Eating, Drinking, and Knitting

I love food and love eating. So I took a picture of the restaurants we visited on this trip.

Madison is both the state capital and the home of the flagship university, the University of Wisconsin. The two are connected by State Street, a pedestrian only street lined with shops, restaurants, and bars.

First up: Maza, a great new Afghan restaurant, on State Street. It's run by the kids of the people who run Kabul restaurant across the street. As you can see, it snows in Wisconsin. Before Maza, this space was The Saz, which also served Mediteranean food.

Here's Espresso Royale Cafe, where Husband and I had our first date 16 years ago. Good to know it's still there.

This is Samba, Madison's first Brazilian steakhouse. It's housed in the old Women's Club building, back when universities were just begining to accept women, I guess. Before Samba, it housed Avol's Bookstore.For lunch one day, we went to Chautara, which serves "Food from the top of the world: Nepal, India, Tibet."

Wonders Pub, in Schenck's Corners, where we had Friday night fish fry, a Wisconsin tradition, courtesy of the Catholics, and probably all the fishing available in the state. Picture taken the next day, not the night of the actual dinner.

Our last day in Madison, we had lunch with Husband's parents at Ella's Deli on East Washington Avenue. It is an extremely kid-friendly place, with a working carousel, which you can kind of see behind the balloon saying "Ella's Deli." Inside, it looks like a toy store and carnival exploded in there. Everywhere you look are kid-friendly toys and sights, including this flying Harry Potter, complete with snitch:

Ella's is pretty close to the freeway to Milwaukee, and when we got there, we had our last Wisconsin meal at

The only restaurant I didn't get a picture of was Wah Kee's which was voted Madison's best Chinese restaurant. It's a great place to get a big bowl of noodles in soup and to fuel up after a long night of drinking.

Our days of staying out all night drinking are over, but one night we did manage to close out the Crystal Corner Pub. It is located, conveniently, 2 blocks from Husband's mother's house.

At the Crystal, I saw a group of knitters (one was knitting a yellow and black sock. Hufflepuff?) One of them was wearing this sweatshirt. The front says "Drinkers with a Knitting Problem." And she certainly was.

I had my knitting too. Brother Two's afghan is great portable knitting.