Carolyn Fath
Cajun chicken tops a chorizo hash; walleye fingers are an appetizer (rear).
There’s been a lot of talk about Me & Julio, the most recent occupant of the Fitchburg spot that’s been home to Veranda, the Continental, La Paella and L’Escargot, but it hasn’t been about the food.
You might have heard about the live alligators brought in for the grand opening. And the massive (and unrelated) house explosion that occurred in late August about 500 feet away across South Fish Hatchery Road. The restaurant (a second branch of the original Me & Julio in Hastings, Minnesota) was unharmed.
These things don’t really matter to the evaluation of Me & Julio, though the alligator thing does speak to some potentially questionable judgment on the part of ownership. No, the only thing you need to talk about is the food. Is it any good?
I think one of the appeals of the “nightmare restaurant” reality shows hosted by Gordon Ramsay is the “this couldn’t possibly happen in my town” angle, the disbelief that such poor decisions could be made by restaurant professionals. Honestly, I wondered if I’d ever find one in Madison, a restaurant ecosystem I regularly defend to outsiders as punching above its weight.
Well, this isn’t quite Madison, but it counts. And it’s happening here.
I ordered the tortilla chips with guacamole and chili con queso (unnecessarily abbreviated as “CCQ” right after the name) and recognized the flavor of condensed cream of celery (I’m thinking) in the queso. And I was already balking at the $10 price tag, symptomatic of a rather pricy menu overall.
An oddly bitter chunk of something stuck to one surface of the otherwise decent Jucy Lucy-style stuffed cheeseburger, hinting at leftover food remnants burning on the griddle surface.
Scattered atop the enchiladas were bits of avocado that seemed both flaccidly braised and almost pickled. And that’s to say nothing of the enchiladas themselves, which had zero texture and barely enough structural integrity to hold a shape.
I was intrigued at the inclusion of puffy tacos, a specialty of the San Antonio area. This couldn’t be what Me & Julio intended its puffy tacos to be, could it? This shattering taco salad-shell version wasn’t bad exactly, but certainly not the crisp exterior and tender interior that a puffy taco shell should have.
Pan-fried walleye seemed like a safe bet, but I set down my fork after two bites and declared the lukewarm, butter-logged, decidedly unsizzling fish a complete failure. Not even the chunky compound butter atop the dish could be convinced to melt more than a little.
I love brunch, almost unreservedly, and it broke my heart when the yolks in the complimentary hard-boiled eggs at the bar were deeply gray-green, and the sopapilla strips were still raw dough in places — not even an improvement over fast-food French toast sticks. Was this for real?
Service lapses included the young hostesses braiding each others’ hair at the main entrance.
Yet after all this, certain elements still managed to charm me. An excellent bloody mary was made with optional horseradish vodka, and I liked the crisp and zingy bang bang shrimp (available alone in an appetizer, or in taco form). And surprisingly, the chorizo, the CCQ and the boring guacamole come together to build a surprisingly effective breakfast burrito.
But to the ultimate question about Me & Julio — is it any good? — the answer is that while it’s quite popular and impressively renovated, no, it isn’t, not really.
Me & Julio
2784 S. Fish Hatchery Road, Fitchburg,
608-278-1428, meandjuliowi.com
11 am-11 pm Mon.-Thurs., 11 am - 1 am Fri.,
9 am-1 am Sat., 9 am-11 pm Sun., $4-$18
