Linda Falkenstein
MoCo delivers to the 53703 zip code in the downtown and near east side of Madison.
Nouveau convenience store does have is thoughtful.
For breakfast, there's a hot oatmeal bar with add-ons like granola, maple syrup, raisins and brown sugar ($4/lb.). Yogurt, too, is served with toppings from the mix-in bar. If you have never had real oatmeal but just sickly sweet instant oatmeal pouches, you may be taken aback by how not-sweet oatmeal in the rough is. You'll probably also discover how salty instant oatmeal is, and how thin. Real oatmeal is subtle and nutty, and you'll understand why it's grandma's recommendation for a stick-to-your-ribs breakfast.
If you like the sweet, pour a ladle of maple syrup over your oats and add some raisins. One problem with MoCo's oatmeal bar is its brown sugar, which hardens (as brown sugar will tend to do) and is hard to scrape up. Maybe a covered container for the brown sugar would help.
Want your oatmeal to go? MoCo uses Ecotainers, made from renewable resources.
MoCo also serves locally made Gotham bagels in a variety of flavors, with creamed cheese and flavored spreads, too. A salt bagel with a smear of cream cheese (toasted and loaded $3, cold with cream cheese, $1) set me happily on my way to the office. It was still toasty and warm by the time I sat down at my desk, too, seven blustery blocks away.
I've picked up a couple of trays of sushi for lunch -- one set of vegan veggie rolls ($6) and a set of fruit sushi -- "fruishi" ($3) -- with Asian pears and honey crisp apples in sweet rice and rolled in coconut, with a tart ruby-red raspberry dipping sauce. Both the veggie roll and the fruishi were fresh; the veggie roll held up favorably to veggie sushi from Japanese restaurants. (I've never had fruit sushi at a Japanese restaurant.) Other sushi choices favor options other than raw fish: California roll, "Battleship" avocado, smoked salmon wasabi, cream cheese and crab avocado, and spicy tuna.
The fruishi, while offbeat at first, functions well as a light dessert, with the dipping sauce offsetting the sweetness of the rice and coconut and the apple/pear giving the whole thing a crisp bite. Look for daily specials, too, like brown rice sushi.
For lunch, MoCo sticks with bagel sandwiches (build your own, or choose hummus and veggie; chicken, tuna or egg salad; or turkey, $3; also served as a box lunch with choice of two sides, $5), and an organic salad bar.
While it is hard to compete with the Willy Street Co-op's vast salad bar -- probably the best in the city -- just a few blocks down the street, MoCo does a decent job. There's also a choice of two soups.
MoCo delivers to the 53703 zip code in the downtown and near east side of Madison -- via bike, in a nod to its eco-conscious philosophies. So if you're busy, cold and hungry -- give 'em a buzz.