Last week we started this strange trip into the hyper wacky world of Madison Coffee with EVP on the west side. If this I your first time reading, this is a continuing feature on Dane 101 that aims to ultimately put down a review for every single coffee stop in Madison in order to create the official Madison Caffeine Dealer Dossier, subtitled A Man with No Plan but Plenty of Energy.

Looking at EVP it was decided that it was just about perfect for us addicts but clearly lacked sufficient bakery. So next I decided to track down some muffins. My search brought me down the road to Victor Allen’s Coffee at 2623 Monroe St. At my first arrival, which was in the late evening, I was greeted with scores of tasty morsels to choose from. But, at this time of night all left over bakery had been wrapped in twos in order to sell as “day old.” I located a bran muffin married to a cinnamon muffin (At least it tasted cinnamon) for $1.75. The pairing seemed a bit odd; I mean who, in their right frame of thought would be a bran man as well as a cinnamon champion? This being day old I decided not to split hairs and consume the bran and save the cinnamon for later.

The muffins where of ample size, about like a fist, and at the end of the day where still a bit fluffy, I would have to return for a proper morning sample. The coffee, and for the record all shops in this column will be judged by their “small” cup of regular, was really none too special. Don’t get me wrong it did the job but as Victors has many branches throughout the city it felt somewhat eerily mass-produced. In mass production there is very little room for experimentation, mass producers must satisfy a wide range of tastes with just a few selections, and thus nothing spectacular emerges. Perhaps this was just the feel of the place but I personally have a keen desire of my individuality of brew.

On the plus side Victors has a very large and plush seating area including a fire place which must be very nice in the winter but unfortunately today, as I was being chilled by the over-zealous air conditioning bore a sign that said something like “Sorry, please do not turn the fire place on, we still have the A/C on.” Pity, If I wanted to drink hot coffee in cold weather I would brew at home and then step inside my fridge, which would be an enormous hassle considering all beer I would have to unload.

My overall conclusion would be to say that Victor Allen’s on Monroe does many things well but does very little perfectly and this is coffee and I demand perfection!

All the pretty details can be found here: http://www.victorallen.com/