If you are looking to spend between $8-$30 of your hard-earned money on an average meal, Madison Social should be the first point of interest on your list. Madison Social, affectionately known as “MadSo,” sits at 705 South Woodward Ave., or as they put it, “in the shadows of Doak Campbell Stadium.”
While MadSo has a great atmosphere, especially during “Tuesday Trivia,” the food unfortunately does not bring the same energy.
After skimming the menu several times, partly because the lighting in the restaurant was so dim and also because the randomness of the menu confused my taste buds, I finally settled on the dirty shrimp.
The dirty shrimp described as “marinated and chargrilled jumbo shrimp, dirty rice, tequila lime cream,” sounded like a great mixture.
The food came out fairly quickly, that was surprising given how busy they were.
My first bite wasn’t great. The dirty rice was a bit more like brown couscous than dirty rice. There was a strange tang to it, a tang that I’m not 100 percent sure was supposed to be there. I even tried to squeeze some of the lime I was given on the rice to offset the taste, but to no avail. The tang stayed.
After a few bites of “dirty rice” I moved on to the shrimp. The shrimp was great. It cleansed my palette of the interesting taste that was the dirty rice. The flavor of the shrimp was almost refreshing. The tequila lime cream was spot on.
Because the shrimp was such a hit, I tried it with the rice in one bite. It did the trick. The rice was much more bearable.
Besides the food, the service wasn’t bad. The hostess wasn’t very friendly, but our server was excellent, very attentive and friendly despite having to take orders and bartend for everyone sitting at the large rectangular shaped bar.
My experience at MadSo was nice. But the food was disappointing. While most of the reviews on Google list them as a four- to five-star establishment and a “staple restaurant in Tallahassee,” I would go on the record to say otherwise. The atmosphere seems like an awesome place to hold social events, but outside of that I can’t think of a reason why I would go back. It’s safe to say I most likely won’t.