HopCat is located in a huge (10,000 square feet!), two-story space downtown that once housed Quaker Steak and Lube and Bop. Equally large is the beer list, which sports a whopping 130 tap beers, including 30 from Wisconsin. Since its opening in July, HopCat seems to be impressing as a destination for beer geeks, young professionals, families and people who live/work/shop downtown.
To be sure, the food is worth the visit, too. Take for example the five pepper beef chili ($4.75 cup, $5.75 bowl). It has beans in it but it’s not bean-y, and the jalapenos, chipotle peppers and bell peppers (where are the other two peppers?) add a surprisingly welcome sweetness. (In February, this chili came in a pretzel bowl.) Another satisfying way to start your meal is with the Meat Head Pizza Rolls ($10), which are basically pizzas stuffed inside egg rolls. It’s as tasty as it sounds, though skip the cold, paste-like marinara sauce that comes with it.
You’ll find quite the variety of entrees (even vegetarian), burgers and sandwiches from which to choose. I settled on the Angry Bird ($10.50), a crispy breaded chicken sandwich (I appreciated that the thick chicken is not buried in breading) tossed in a fire sauce (very similar to Cholula Hot Sauce). I also enjoyed the range of flavors in the Barnyard burger ($12.95), which was topped with cheddar cheese curds, bacon, ham, fried egg salad and cheese sauce on Texas toast.
All burgers and sandwiches come with a side of the famous Crack Fries, which mimic Arby’s curly fries in flavor, except these are straight and have more pepper on them.
Brunch is available on Sundays. The Hangover Cure ($9.50), a smorgasbord of scrambled eggs, bacon, red onion, jalapenos, Crack Fries and cheese sauce, is indeed a welcome meal after a long night of partying, though it was sorely lacking in cheese sauce, and the eggs were overcooked. I don’t recommend the Bloody Mary bar, as there were just a few ingredients compared to at least a dozen you find at other bars.
HopCat is open every day for lunch and dinner. You can rent the large upstairs area for private parties.
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See more photos in our HopCat Flickr album.
It’s been almost a year since the Dayton Street Grille became 
The appetizers on the dinner menu seem to be heavy on seafood. For example, there’s the fried rock shrimp and calamari ($9), a dish that was supremely bland (I had to empty a salt shaker to get some taste) and overcrowded with fried Anaheim peppers. I probably should have ordered something else, like the Scandinavian salmon ceviche ($9).
You know why there are more and more restaurants selling ramen in Madison? It’s because ramen is inexpensive and delicious. Taking a simple bowl of noodles and adding textures and flavors is a winning recipe, and that recipe can be found at the newly opened 
Rice dishes, in both teriyaki and curry form, also are on the menu. The super-thick sauce in the pork cutlet curry ($7.75) reminded me of gravy in terms of texture, but it was still a very tasty curry, though light on spices. The pork cutlet had a 2-to-1 breading-to-meat ratio, yet I appreciated the texture contrast it brought to the dish.
