Belly Up The last supper

The New Year’s resolution is a strange custom: Once you’ve set one, you tend to go overboard until the clock strikes midnight on Jan. 1. Remember when you vowed to drink less in 2008? The whiskey fumes wafting off you on Dec. 31 were strong enough to preserve a frog. The same goes for losing a few pounds. If you’re aiming for a calorie count that rivals the country’s fiscal deficit, at least be classy about it. Most of Madison’s fine-dining establishments feature New Year's Eve menus designed to indulge your gluttonous tendencies for one final night. Head to Harvest for a six-course meal, including lobster risotto and the most fattening of delicacies, foie gras. On the other side of the Capitol, the Dayton Street Grille in the Madison Concourse Hotel will ply devil-may-care diners with big, fat porterhouses and chocolate crème-fraîche cakes. If neither of those options sounds like enough food to satisfy you, dig into a buffet dinner of Burgundy sauce-laden tenderloin beef tips, orange Dijon chicken, and a variety of salads, sides, and desserts at The Brink Lounge. Unless you're a bottomless pit, this meal should keep you satiated until you kiss a random stranger, chug champagne, and head home to your new friends: iceberg lettuce and rice cakes.

Fatsometer: 9. Go all out for a last hurrah before cold, hard reality sets in. Memories of face-stuffing will sustain you at least until mid-January—or the first time you come across discounted Christmas candy at Walgreens.