10.11.2008

Adventure 34: Sunroom Cafe

Sunroom Cafe (website)
638 State St.
3 Adjectives: Informal, classy, spacious.
Price: lunch (3-7), dinner (5-13)
Authenticity:
Atmosphere:
Overall:
Veganness:
Other Opinions: yelp, badgerherald, dane101, ...
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Located on the first block of State Street coming from Library Mall, Sunroom Cafe is tucked upstairs one of the buildings on the left side of the street. Although easy to overlook, long time Madisonians know that here lies a tiny gem of a restaurant that is both delicious and won't break your wallet.

The interior of Sunroom Cafe features a counter on the left where you order during lunch and various summery chairs and tables line the rest of the establishment. There are also nice works of art decorating the restaurant featuring local artists.

During lunch hours, Sunroom features many sandwiches, salads, and quiches. Most of these are excellent and come with crisp and delicious baked potatoes.

At dinnertime, the cafe turns into a waited restaurant and the menu expands to encompass noodles, pizzas, and quesadillas. On our most recent dinner visit, we ordered nachos and I got the grilled steak sandwich. The nachos tasted good but were unremarkable. The steak sandwich on the other hand was very good. Two slices of crisp sandwiching generous slices of steak and caramelized onions. Although the food was pretty good this time around, I do want to recommend some of my Sunroom favorites. The crostini, chevre, and pesto is a must-try. The dish consists of crisp toasts with Parmesan that goes perfectly with the tasty baked pesto and chevre (goat cheese, but don't be intimidated - it works very well with the pesto). This is such a wonderful appetizer I have started making it on a regular basis at my apartment. Another delicious but seasonal menu item is their beet pizza. Whenever I used to think of beets before trying this, I was always reminded of the gross pickled rubbery slabs that you would see at the average salad bar so I was pleasantly surprised at the taste of a real, fresh beet. The crunchy and slightly sugary fresh baked beets go hand in hand with gorgonzola to make this one of the best pizza flavors I have ever tried. Also a must-order if you see it on the menu (and they are really healthy!).

One quibble I have about Sunroom, though, is its slow water service. If you sit in the back of the restaurant, you often have to wait upwards of ten minutes with an empty glass. I feel like they could easily solve this problem by giving all of us larger cups.

Overall, I highly recommend eating at Sunroom whenever you are looking for a relatively inexpensive but nice sit-down meal. You will not be disappointed.

Sunroom Cafe is certainly better for vegans than some other diners and cafes on State Street (see Gino's review). Tossy received a large bowl of pasta, bowl of soup, and complimentary bread for considerably less than one would expect, but Tossy must say, she is sick of paying for sandwiches and bowls of pasta and tomato sauce. These are things she could make more to her liking at home for less than a dollar.

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