Grilled Cheesus
Location: Capitol Square on Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd (across from Dlux)
By: Kailey
Every year and every season, there’s a food trend. From cupcakes to cronuts and pumpkin-flavored everything, there seems to be an “it” food that appeals to everyone all at once and then mystifyingly, it disappears or it becomes so ingrained we can’t imagine life without it. Sometimes the trends are odd-I just recently heard about artisanal toast being all the rage-but a trend I fully understand and support is fancy grilled cheese. Once associated with Wonderbread and children’s menus, grilled cheese has been enjoying its moment in the spotlight (there’s even a grilled cheese competition) for a few years. Rightly so. It’s bread and cheese!
Due to the delightfulness that is grilled cheese, I’ve been anxiously awaiting Madison’s very own grilled cheese food cart: Melted. The cart is very mysterious – I tweeted their arrival to the Madison food cart scene in September 2012 when they were at Taste of Madison. Then they appeared at Taste of Madison 2013, but still no regular schedule or even internet presence. But finally, a few tweets and some local press later, it’s not a mirage. Melted food cart finally officially showed up on the Capitol Square on April 21, 2014.
Melted, the new grilled cheese cart
The menu, as you might have guessed, contains an array of grilled cheese sandwiches with various themes and toppings. There were rumors of fries being offered as a side but those were not offered. Oh the choices! A big work group and I ordered almost every sandwich on the menu. We paid ($8/sandwich) and then we waited. And waited. Over 30 minutes later, we began receiving the first of our meals.
Menu at Melted. Miles of cheese.
The whole look of the cart is great: I love the modern colors and no-nonsense logo. But the wait for our food was a bit much. A lot much. If there is going to be a 15+ minutes wait outside a cart some kind of heads up would be appreciated. A simple declaration of “thanks for ordering, just so you know it’s going to be about (insert time here) minutes” would solve this problem. Because after standing and waiting for over 30 minutes with no advance warning, our $8 sandwiches had a STILL DELICIOUS but slightly cranky taste to them.
Buy 10, get one free punch card
A wide variety of grilled cheese
I ordered the American Caprese which was good but pretty standard. Our favorite among the grilled cheeses was the special of the day: a Southwest Chicken grilled cheese. I wish there would have been a grilled cheese with goat cheese because…yum. All our boxes contained an adorable and tasty tomato soup to use as a side and dipping sauce. This was unexpected and a nice touch.
The American Caprese sandwich
Everyone loved their meals and I’ll definitely be making trips back to work my way around the menu (plus, I’m a sucker for punch cards). Melted is a great addition to the food cart scene and once the process/wait time are remedied the fancy grilled cheese sandwiches will be even more enjoyable.
Deliciousness: 5/5 plates
Price: 1/5 plates
Speed: 0/5 plates (negative plates if I could)
Authenticity/Originality: 5/5 plates
OVERALL: 2.5/5 plates
Melted Twitter: https://twitter.com/meltedmadison
Melted Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Melted/693259757355739
Other Melted Reviews:
What Isthmus said
What Cap Times said
Madison Street Eats 