Restaurant roulette

Contributing editor Jerry Minnich writes about Regent Street dining options along the stretch between Park Street and Camp Randall Stadium. Among his picks: Josie's ("good, honest Italian food in unpretentious surroundings"), House of Lu (it lures Minnich whenever he has "a yearning for some Szechwan pepper oil to flagellate my taste buds"), Dunk or Dine (which "has long been a place where you could go for a box of doughnuts at 2 a.m. after smoking illegal substances and getting the munchies" but where Minnich finds a hamburger "microwaved to warmness, its brown edges toughened and dried by the madly bouncing molecules"), Big Ten Pub (where the menu includes "11 different sandwiches named after Big Ten teams"), Brat und Brau (where a brat runs $2.10 and Pschorr Brau is on tap) and Dotty Dumpling's Dowry (to which Minnich devotes 11 paragraphs extolling the many virtues of "my personal favorite lunchtime place in all of Madison"). Things change: Josie's has been closed since a 2004 fire, House of Lu has yielded to Hong Kong Cafe, a Rocky Rococo's now occupies the old Dunk or Dine address, Lucky's Bar now stands at the former site of Brat und Brau, and Dotty's has relocated to 317 N. Frances St. The Big Ten Pub remains.