In a word: Authentic. The specs: #0432 Address, hours & details via Isthmus ; reviews at Cap Times , Isthmus , Decider , JM ate the ham and cheese sandwich, a brioche, and an apple juice. Nichole ate the tuna fish sandwich and took a loaf of olive bread home. The bill was $20. JM gave La Baguette a B+; Nichole gave La Baguette an A-. La Baguette is the real thing. We stepped into this Oneida County transplant and heard only French behind and before the counter. We waited quite a while for a conversation to wend down, but it persisted. After a time, another server came up to take our order. The order-taking was brusque to the point of perfunctory, projecting an “are you done yet?” air though closing time was far away. This frazzled us and precluded a splurge on one of the gorgeous tartlets, Napoleons, and other pastries. Here's the thing: who orders a tuna fish sandwich at a French bakery? Only the victim of an analysis-paralysis aneurysm. The less said about that mess the better. Thankfully a thick slice of the olive bread, crusty and fragrant with black pepper, redeemed the experience. As did one bite of the ham and cheese sandwich, which was smoky, chewy and delicious. Bottom line: if you have even a sliver more spine than us when faced with Gallic impatience with Anglo-Saxon indecision, you will reap the rewards of an excellent bakery ne plus ultra .

In a word: Bad luck, Genghis. Nice to have you on the show. The specs: #0429 Address, hours & details via Isthmus ; reviews at 77 Square March 13 and April 29 , Isthmus ; official web site . JM, John and Nichole all picked their own stir fry. The bill was about $35. JM and Nichole gave HuHot an A-. Mongolian BBQ, and HuHot in particular, is the carwash of buffets. Watching the grill staff cook everyone's meals is like watching your auto go through Octopus, in a good way. It's hypnotizing. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. We started off with soup and/or salad. The house Asian salad was a bunch of fresh greens topped with a zingy vinaigrette, raw ramen noodles to add crunch, and sweet mandarin oranges and tomatoes. The hot and sour soup was more hot and less sour. As for the other sides, the brown rice was fluffy enough to please the least granola customers, and the flour tortillas were served warm but stuck together. We were pleased with the ingredients on the stir fry line. There was a huge variety of meat (especially seafood – scallops, shrimp, octopus, shark, white fish, and oysters) and non-meat proteins. The chicken, beef and pork were all frozen rather than raw, which we found reassuring. An even more dazzling array of vegetables, some fruit, and starches (noodles and rice) followed. Finally, more than two dozen sauce components (juices, oils, infused vinegars and spices) ended the line, with suggestions hanging above the station to guide you. The air in the place wasn't greasy; the line moved fast; and though it was pretty packed, it didn't feel crowded. We each tried 3-4 small bowls of stir fry to make the most of the variety available. (Not everyone takes that approach – we saw some patrons pile two bowls to overflowing and sit down with a giant homogeneous mess. To each his own.) HuHot does a better job than most Mongolian BBQs of making suggestions, right down to putting recipe cards at the table. For instance, John followed the Sweet and Sour Seafood recipe exactly and found it a winning combination. Above the condiment/sauce bar there are even more ideas for saucing yourself. You can also play games with your food. Nichole tried the “round trip” recipe card – send exactly one black bean with a bunch of white food like bamboo shoots, chicken, water chestnuts, and tofu and see if it makes it back whole. Her second bowl was Mexi-themed, with hot sausage, cabbage, tomatoes, jalapenos, cilantro and other vegetables in a chile-lime dressing which paired well with the tortillas. JM concocted a few tasty dishes involving pork and beef and hoisin sauce. His tastes, as you might expect, run toward the pedestrian, but even when he ventured out of his safety zone, he was not disappointed. While there was no noticeable klinker among our dishes, there was no real star standout. That's the risk you take here, given that without a pro creating your meal, your food is in your own hands. However, precisely because it helps its customers all get to culinary success regardless of their skill, HuHot is the best execution of the Mongolian BBQ idea we've seen so far. The only one down on the deal seems to be poor Genghis, who never could have guessed to what marketing ends his legacy might be used.

In a word: Doesn't bite. The specs: #0428 Address, hours & details via Isthmus ; review at WiSJ ; official web site . JM and Nichole split the “Growler bucket” of 6 silders. Nichole also got a the spinach salad with an Ale Asylum. The bill was $35 plus tip. JM and Nichole gave Growler's Bar and Grille an A-. Growler's in the Crowne Plaza on East Washington might just be special enough to make a trip for. The ambience is not so much hotel-bar as hotel-lobby, with small tables and even a few armchairs strewn about. The service is relaxed but nice. We jumped on the bandwagon and got the bucket (i.e. plate) of six sliders.Two three-bite sandwiches of each sort, burger, brat, and cheese, proved filling and made Nichole's spinach salad redundant (though it did become a good lunch of fresh, hot bacon raspberry dressing over spinach, red peppers, mushrooms, cucumbers, and shredded carrots). Our metric for the sliders was to measure them against the ones we could make at home and eat mere seconds off the grill. And these were almost as good. The mini Angus and cheddar burger was the least distinctive of the three. The grilled Muenster cheese was a generous portion of none-to-oily yet perfectly melted and at points crispy cheese, topped with something crunchy that was nicely understated (maybe, onion?). But the real standout that we should have gotten six of was the bratwurst slider. A small brat patty was topped with a delightful sauteed purple cabbage and onion and a bit of tasty mustard. We nearly fought over the last one. All the sliders came on a toasted, buttered roll and had a tendency to slip around, but they were worth it. An Ale Asylum pint squeaked in at $6, which inflated the bill a bit along with the superfluous salad; otherwise, we were happy with our adorable repast, even though it meant driving to the edge of the city.

In a word: Among the cream of the Greenway crop. The specs: #0427 Address, hours & details via Isthmus ; reviews at 77 Square , Decider , Isthmus , Cap Times , ; official web site . Ann ate the lobster ravioli. JM ate the pasta vesuvio. Nichole ate the pizza with gorgonzola, fig butter and prosciutto with a diet Coke. Peter ate the pork tenderloin in wine sauce with prosciutto. We split a lemon torte and a creme brulee. The bill was about $120 plus tip. JM gave Bucatini Trattoria an A-; Nichole gave Bucatini Trattoria a B+. Bucatini Trattoria was not the collegiate bargain trough we'd gathered from other reviews, rather a slightly upscale if chain-like Italian venue in the former Macaroni Grill at Greenway Station. This Saturday night it was packed (what recession?) and a bit noisy, with tables close together and the floor swarming with attentive servers. The menu is huge. Speaking as three librarians and a big fan of the alphabet, we had plenty of opinions about making the newspaper-sized tome easier to navigate by adding subsections by main ingredient and/or sauce base under each division, of which there were several. The sheer volume of pasta dishes, pizzas, and house specialties was daunting. To his credit, our server made good     suggestions. A bread and olive-infused butter was a nice starter, but dinner salads (a la carte) were not too special. We wanted for no refills during the brief wait for our entrees. Peter's pork tenderloin came in a delicate wine sauce. Ann's lobster ravioli was wonderful – rich, buttery and plump. Nichole's pizza had a thin, crispy crust – not quite Pizza Brutta or the lost, lamented Cafe Porta Alba , but decent. The flavor combination of tangy gorgonzola, salty prosciutto, and sweet fig butter was well-balanced. JM's pasta vesuvio was a basic red sauce dish. Sans meat it frankly wasn't terribly filling, and when it arrived it didn't seem quite warm enough. The red sauce was good, though, especially the outstanding flavor of the roasted tomatoes.  Dessert was a wonderful lemon torte. On offer also were gelato (played convincingly by scoops of butter on the dessert showcase tray), tiramisu, and an obligatory chocolate volcano cake. We also tried the creme brulee, which was passable, but the fruit topping robbed us of a lot of the fun of cracking the crust. Throughout the meal we received wonderful service – it was so attentive, in fact, that Peter originally thought our cover had been blown by Nichole's photography (in vain due to low light) but looking around he saw that every table was well attended to. He'll be back, and so might we when we're looking for a place to take a large group with diverse opinions – this strikes us as a fine place for an office lunch.

In a word: Philly up. The specs: #0425 Address, hours & details via Isthmus ; chatter at TDPF ; reviews at Isthmus , Yelp , ; official web site . JM ate the BBQ chicken cheesesteak with a fountain drink. Nichole ate the steak with a fountain drink. The bill was $18 plus tip. JM gave Big Red's Steaks an A-; Nichole gave Big Red's Steaks a B+. Big Red's is going for that “slice of home” feel for Philly transplants to the UW. They seem to be hitting the right buttons ( Schmitter er, Schnepfer and a Tastykake , anyone?) but even an Osseo boy like JM has to admit that a lot of his money would have gotten eaten up at this place if there'd been one where he went to college. The sandwiches are reasonably priced at less than seventy cents per inch (OK, $6-8 per steak depending on your toppings) and when we went, they were offering a “recession special” of a steak and soda for $5 most weeknights. The menu is small and focused, featuring just sandwiches and fries. They get kudos for the variety of peppers and toppings available at the condiment station, and for serving Coke Zero instead of Diet Coke for the extremely finicky. JM's BBQ chicken sandwich of chopped chicken breast in mayo and sauce was humongous and not good for you by any stretch, but it was darned tasty. The mere density of the filling was enough to send less notable sandwiches running. The classic steak plus onion, mushrooms, and peppers sans wiz was not as greasy as all those after-school episodes of Fresh Prince had led Nichole to believe. The meat was somewhat tough, but all things considered it was a good sandwich. The crab fries seasoned by Old Bay were tasty, too. The service is extremely friendly – we even witnessed them assemble a sandwich with a very specific cut of meat for a customer with a special request. Friends have also tried it on our recommendation and report that they were also satisfied with its chessesteakiness. So give it a try, especially if you're in the know about authentic cheesesteaks, and let us know if Big Red's would fit in in Philly.

In a word: The city don't know what the city is getting. The specs: #0423 Address, hours & details via Isthmus ; reviews at Decider , 77 Square . JM ate the pepper steak with a lemonade. Nichole ate the larp with tom yum soup and a Thai iced coffee. We split the crab rangoon. The bill was about $30. JM and Nichole both gave Bangkok Cuisine an A-. One of the hazards of the make-up list is that we'll get scooped by other reviewers, so stop us if you've heard the one about the Detroit transplant into the former site of Mekong . It ends well. It began with the customary crab rangoon, here lightly fried pinwheels filled with tiny dollops of buttery crab mixture – passable, but not super. The tom yum soup was such a good deal we almost sent it to 3 Buck Bites . The gingery, piquant broth was instantly warming, and generous chunks of white meat chicken were in nearly every spoonful. The soup was rounded out with fresh tomatoes, mushrooms and onions that were nearly raw, they were so lightly cooked. JM's pepper steak had good flavor, and was not overcooked. He found the whole meal to be a fantastic ensemble outing with a lot of care put in to the dish. Of the gravy, he enjoyed/wished there was more of it

One of the rewards of Eating in Madison A to Z is finding the treasures and nooks no one's found yet. Even if a new place is finding its feet, if it has the promise of offering great food, it's a treat. Unfortunately, there were not really any hidden gems to speak of in the N's; the best ones were among the most popular Madison institutions, among them The Nitty , Nick's Restaurant , New Glarus Hotel , NOTO and even Noodles . ( Natt Spil is possibly the exception to the hidden rule, but it is definitely the most popular underground dining spot in town, if that's not an oxymoron. Kind of like Milwaukee's Safe House , only less kitschy.) On the other hand, we formed another hypothesis about what not to name a restaurant. If there's ever a North Badger Grille on the List, expect us to run screaming for the hills. Here's to finding some interesting and unpredictable O's .Thanks for reading! Our grades thus far: Nichole JM A 181 43% 162 38% B 176 42% 220 52% C 54 13% 37 9% D 9 2% 3 1% F 2 0% 0 0% GPA by First Letter (new! for the stats fans out there) 1st Pass Cumulative A 3.11 3.30 B 3.15 3.17 C 3.25 3.26 D 3.20 3.27 E 3.03 3.06 F 3.24 3.23 G 3.21 3.26 H 3.16 3.15 I 3.40 3.43 J 3.13 3.11 K 3.08 3.09 L 3.23 3.24 M 3.32 3.32 N 3.15 n/a Our favorite N's were: Breakfast: None! Lunch: New Orleans Take-Out Dinner: New Glarus Hotel

In a word: When cost trumps everything. The specs: #0421 Address, hours & details via Isthmus . JM ate the chopped steak and eggs. Nichole ate the Monte Cristo with a cup of vegetable beef soup. The bill was $15 plus tip. JM gave Northside Family Restaurant a C; Nichole gave Northside Family Restaurant a D+. Since changing name (and ownership from the Sofra nee Bavaria Family Restaurant / Copper Top /Prime Table group to the Parkway proprietor) from American Family Table , Northside Family Restaurant has suffered somewhat. When we visited they were in the midst of a remodeling project that could easily be in its third year. While our server and hostess were both friendly and fast, and kids eat free on Tuesdays and Saturdays, we found little else to recommend the place. The desserts in the spinning case (which wasn't spinning anymore) are all brought in from someplace corporate. Plus, they serve Pepsi . JM's dinner had less nuance than a Burger King meal, the chopped steak being bland and the hashbrowns standard. The eggs were decent, neither too greasy nor too dry, and the toast was good (but who doesn't like toast, and how hard is it to make?) When it rains it pours – for her second Monte Cristo in as many weeks, after years of drought, Nichole found several things about this one that could be used as examples of what not to do. Acceptable French toast was about the only passing part of the dish. Thick, gristly slabs of ham and turkey were doused in an Elmers-like liquid that might have supposed to attempt to pass for Swiss cheese. The syrup came in the usual plastic carafe with sliding metal spout, which was stuck open, and the syrup inside swirled with heavy particulates. The plate was garnished with a bruised, floppy pickle. Nichole wished she'd sprung for the $2 Bloody just so she wouldn't remember these details. We really hate to slag on a place that serves affordable, no-frills food in this town, but we can't really recommend Northside Family Restaurant.

In a word: You should eat here at least once a year. The specs: #0419 Address, hours & details via Isthmus ; Madison Originals profile ; stories at WiSJ , Madison Magazine ; menu at Menupix ; reviews at Classic Wisconsin , Outside.in , Decider , Badger Herald ,  ; official web site . JM ate the chicken strips and lemonade. John R. ate the chicken sandwich. John S. ate the Monte Cristo. Nichole ate the Monte Cristo and a bloody Mary. Rose ate the Reuben. Sue ate the salmon burger. Tom ate the feta burger. We split the nachos. John S. and Tom gave the Nitty Gritty an A; JM and Nichole gave the Nitty Gritty an A-; Rose gave the Nitty Gritty a B. What can we say about the Nitty that hasn't been said in its storied Madison history? It's the place for birthdays in this town, and generally lives up to its reputation. We've seen it packed to the gills with revelers, but on this occasion, early for dinner on a Sunday at the less-traveled Middleton location, we had the back room virtually to ourselves. Our party of seven took on a huge plate of loaded nachos and almost didn't win. There was great rejoicing when Nichole and John S

In a word: The food is served hot / And you'll get it / toot sweet / The shakes are so creamy / The burgers: loose meat / Nifty 50's The specs: #0418 Address, hours & details via Isthmus ; reviews at Decider , . JM ate the BBQ pork sandwich with a chocolate shake. John ate the ranch tasty with cheese and a vanilla Coke. Josh ate the cheese tasty and onion rings. Nichole ate the hasty tasty with a peanut butter shake. Stef ate the pizza tasty with a chocolate shake. The bill was about $40 altogether. JM gave Nifty 50's a B; Nichole gave Nifty 50's a B+. Nifty 50's serves loose-meat sandwiches and fountain favorites in a nostalgic setting in an unlikely strip mall near West Towne. Sandwiched between Sa-Bai Thong, Ginza and Saigon Noodles, Nifty 50's is as American as apple pie. Josh and Stef had visited before, and said it would be hard for them to be impartial given their affection for the place. It's the kind of place you usually end up lingering over your shakes and chatting long after your sandwiches are gone. “Come for the American comfort food, stay for the friendly vibe,” is their advice. The idea behind the “Tasty” loose-meat sandwich is steamed seasoned ground beef. Nifty 50's has several varieties, including the Hasty Tasty (plain), Cheese Tasty (plus American cheese), the Ranch Tasty (with ranch dressing), and the Pizza Tasty (marinara). They're served up wrapped in tidy wax paper, and if you get a shake, the spoon is charmingly tucked into the top. Particularly with the “works,” pickle, onion, mustard and ketchup, the flavor and aroma of a Tasty is amazingly similar to that of a McDonald's hamburger, but it has a less greasy mouthfeel and is a slightly bigger, more satisfying sandwich. JM's shake convinced him that the desserts are better than the food. The peanut butter shake was excellent, perfectly creamy yet sippable, with bits of crunchy peanuts to add interest.