Amy Stocklein
For a true indulgence, head for the gyro fries: plenty of topping over lightly battered fries.
Well before Tipsy Cow opened its second location in the Sun Prairie boomtown development known as Prairie Lakes, I lived in this area. Then the land was basically field. No Cabela’s, no Marcus Palace, no Target. It was corn, lit by fireflies in the summer.
Now, it’s something of a macaroni and cheese district, with a Noodles and a MACS Macaroni and Cheese Shop already doing business. And now the Tipsy Cow features a new mac and cheese section of the menu. Order it plain if you want, but it’s a presentation that does beg for the addition of buffalo chicken, or bacon, or piquillo peppers and sweet corn. Any of the six $4 add-ons would provide needed complexity and punctuation to the aggressively cheesy dish.
The gooey and caloric mac and cheese may be new, but it’s certainly on-brand for Tipsy Cow, which has specialized in stretchy fried curds and topped French fry baskets that are almost more topping than fries. Its cheeseburgers are ones you have to really clutch with, like, a fist, to keep from losing your grip on it. A very fully-stuffed cheeseburger. The vast majority of the new location’s menu is identical to the Madison location at the tip of King and Main Streets.
The question isn’t really if there’s value for Madisonians to make a trip eastward — the answer is probably not — but whether Sun Prairie residents are getting a proper Tipsy Cow experience.
The interior is quite different, more a sparse version of French Quarter decor. But from soup to nuts, this is definitely still the Tipsy Cow.
A heavily-onioned 1x1 cheeseburger (one patty and one slice of American cheese, multipliable by as many as a whopping four without deviating from the printed menu) was pattied to a more relaxed density than I am used to outside of a White Castle, but even in its crumblier form, it was still juicy and decadent.
True indulgence, thy name is gyro fries, enough for four friends to share. Imagine the contents of almost an entire gyro sandwich dumped over lightly battered fries, and you have the idea. An order of piping-hot fried zucchini chips might assuage any food guilt, but you’ll still probably finish your little cup of smoked paprika sauce halfway through the zucchini if you’re anything like me. That stuff is great.
So is the Tipsy sauce, a zingy affair that accompanies the aptly named Fat Onion Rings, as well as the Tipsy Burger, but not the Tipsy Chicken. That comes with a mustard sauce, but I’m not mad at you, Tipsy Chicken. It’s one of my favorite fried chicken sandwiches in the area, loaded with bacon and not the least bit wanting for a slice of cheese.
Sandwiches are really Tipsy Cow’s, ahem, bread and butter. A Korean BBQ beef sandwich gave a bit too much real estate to the bread, but potent seasoning and efficient trimming kept the beef from getting lost in the middle. The ham and cheese sandwich is far more than a ham and cheese sandwich, with mustard sauce and brick cheese between very crunchy slices of griddled bread.
Unlike at the Madison location, there is a tendency toward slightly vacant service. Two of three visits saw my empty drink unremarked-upon and un-refilled, and the tableside payment service seems to be a point of confusion for some servers.
That said, I’ve gone on long enough without mentioning the crisp and lightly-dressed PBR-battered fish tacos, a dish for which my strenuous advocacy is already on record. Blessed be, they are now available on Tuesdays and Thursdays, $3.50 apiece and worth every penny. I will brave any big box shopping crowd, even a football gameday Costco crowd, for PBR tacos.
My wife and I had already moved out of Sun Prairie before the first of all those developments rose from the earth like a golem animated by commerce. It’s always stunning to drive into that area and see pavement and cars and strip malls, lit not by fireflies but halogen and headlights. As an east-sider, I will forgive the advance of concrete for the ability to enjoy PBR fish tacos with substantially better parking, but your mileage may vary.
Tipsy Cow-Sun Prairie
2816 Prairie Lakes Drive, Suite 107, Sun Prairie
608-318-0232; tipsycowmadison.com
11 am-10 pm daily; $4-$16
