Right in the heart of campus, just a block off State Street, sits a restaurant with a gorgeous view of the city, an outdoor rooftop sitting area and appealing cocktail menu. It’s The Madison Blind, located inside the Graduate Hotel, and it’s easy to miss.

For those in the know, you’re quaffing some outstanding concoctions, such as the Apple Cinnamon Old Fashioned ($8) and the Bourbonic Plague ($8; bourbon, mint, lemon and soda) while glancing at Lake Mendota.

Dinner is served every day. Your first course may come from the Snacks section of the menu. The crispy shrimp ($9) is addicting with its blanket of sweet chili glaze. That contrasts with the very dry and dense turkey meatballs ($9), which didn’t get any help in flavor from the thin sauce in which they were resting.

I tried two of the four items from the Small Plates section. The roasted butternut squash puree ($7) is livened by the sweetness of the pieces of maple bacon walnut brittle and bits of apple swimming about. But it seems for every hit, there’s a miss, and in this round it’s the crispy chicken ($12), which was bland chicken in a thin and non-crispy breading. It was simply dying for either crispier breading or some honey mustard sauce to make it palatable.

The Blind Burger ($14) really activates your taste buds, as it’s topped with bacon, onion, jalapeno jam and smoked gouda on a pretzel bun. It also comes with a side of duck-fat fries. Other Large Plates items include the quinoa veggie burger ($10) and the winter whitefish ($14).

The Madison Blind opens at 4:30 p.m. Sundays-Thursdays and 3 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays. Look for street/meter parking on Langdon Street or park in the ramp on Frances Street.

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.