The Blind Pig - A Decent Greenwood Dive

The Blind Pig, on Madison just north of Main Street in Old Towne Greenwood, is kind of grungy and ancient-looking when you first walk in the place, that is if you found an open parking space in the tiny little lot next to the front door (there is another lot and another entrance in the back, off the alley, but you have to search for it). It looks as if long ago three small storefronts were combined to make one good-sized tavern:  The long, long bar is sort of u-shaped, running from the kitchen in the back down to the front, then turning and passing through a big doorway in the wall, then turning back toward the kitchen again.  There must be 30 stools all around it, and there are a lot of tables, a music stage, pool table, and several arcade games in there as well.  The new owner (son of the old owner, who passed away) hasn't changed anything, but he seems like a nice guy, and the bar staff is fairly friendly, too.   I know they have the usual pub grub, but I've never eaten there.  Drink and food prices are reasonable.  This ain't the kind of place I'd take a first date, for sure, and it's not my favorite, but there is something comfortable about it that I can't put my finger on....  Drink up, unless you're parked next to MY car in the little lot!

Ralph's Great Divide- A Gem on the Edge of Downtown

The first few times I drove by Ralph's Great Divide, on the corner of New York and Davidson Street, I thought the place was closed, as in not a going concern, not operating, an ex-establishment.  It was kind of small and dumpy-looking from outside, old sign, no lights, cars, or people around.  I guess those times must have been in the early morning or late night most of the time, but even after I knew that it was open, I still never knew exactly WHEN it's open until I went there and looked on the little sign by the door, which of course I've now forgotten!  Anyway, Ralph's is primarily open during the daytime and early evening, but is completely closed some days (Sundays, maybe?)  We were  recently surprised, however, when we had just finished a Saturday tasting tour of the near-Eastside breweries at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon (see earlier post, "Beer & Wine Tasting-- Cheap Weekend Entertainment!" from 11/27/2011) and drove by RGD and saw the teeny "open" sign by the door blinking. RGD is open from 2:00 to 10:00 on Saturdays--for now, at least!

If I remember the history right, Ralph constructed his little restaurant & bar by connecting two houses back in the 1950's. At that time, Davidson Street served as the dividing line between two distinct Indy neighborhoods in the ancient days before I-65 existed, hence the "Great Divide" name.  It's a charming little place with two dining rooms of maybe 10 tables each, and a good-sized bar with 6 or 8 stools and a bunch of antique signs and other memorabilia on the walls.  There are no windows except those by the door (my Dad said back in the 60's that there was a law that all bars and restaurants had to have at least one window so the cops could peek in to see what was going on, but I dunno if that was really true).  Unlike a dive bar, which RGD certainly is not, the lack of windows gives the space inside a cozy feel, like someplace you'd take your secretary/mistress or maybe arrange a mafia sit-down. It is, in fact, very crowded with suited business folk at lunchtime on weekdays. Hmmm....

The atmosphere is cozy, but the food is the best part. We ordered the Do-a-Duo, where two of you split a sandwich, you each get a cup of their specialty Hot Pot Aug, Hot Pot Pig, Ralph's Chili, or their Soup of the Moment, and split two sides for $18.99, but there are individual menu items that range from only $3.25 to $8.49   The Aug is au gratin potato soup and the Pig is the Aug with bacon and hot pepper cheese added, and it is reeeeally good!  The Little Woman had the Chili and I had the Pig (or was it vice versa?  We always share so I forget).  The chili was very good if not uniquely outstanding, and as I said the Pig was great, just the thing to warm you on a cold winter day, or to kill a hangover. We split a Dave's Bourbon Ham sandwich, which was large and tasty, and we had German potato salad and coleslaw for our sides.  The potato salad was every bit as good as the canned stuff we're used to (I just hope it WASN'T the canned stuff!), and the coleslaw was extremely fresh but could've used just a little more sweetness for my taste.

The service was friendly and fairly quick.  Beer and drink prices were very reasonable if not a bargain, so in terms of atmosphere, food, and drinks, this place meets my every expectation.  The only bad thing about the joint is that neither dining room is considered "family" dining, so children are not allowed inside....   For us old people, though, that may NOT be a bad thing.  Enjoy, you Geezers!

Taco Meats Potato-- Look Beyond the Name, Please!

UPDATE, 07/29/2014: Taco Meets Potato has closed.  Indy Chin Restaurant has opened in its place.  We see what that's like, and whether this is to become one of those fated "black hole" locations....

UPDATE, 03/10/2014:  I picked up lunch to go:  3 tacos for The Little Woman and fajitas for me, along with a small order of chips & salsa.  The new proprietors appear to be gringos, but they were very nice. Again the food was decent but not the stellar stuff the place turned out in the beginning. The salsa was fresh, but the tacos were uninspiring and though good, the amount of meat in my fajitas was kind of disappointing given the $10 price tag.

UPDATE, 12/16/2013:  There is a sign out front that says "UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT",  so I'll probably be suckered into eatin' there again.  Keeping my fingers crossed that the old guy took it back over....

UPDATE, 06/03/2013: I'm putting this at the top of the post because so many folks come here to read about Taco Meats Potato, and I wish all the good things I said below were still true, but something has happened to this place.  We've been there twice in recent weeks, and both times there was a new crew working and (although the waitresses were very easy on the eyes) they don't seem to be following the same recipes as before.  The salsa is decent but now it's really ordinary, lacking the milkiness and whatever it was that gave it such a distinctive and delicious flavor.  My wife's tacos were missing the fresh cilantro and onion the last ones had, and finally, my fajitas were okay, too, but again, not the culinary delight we once enjoyed there.  Sigh.... maybe the potatoes are still exceptionally good, anyway.

UPDATE, 11/15/2013:  I picked up lunch to-go there-- two tacos, the Enchiladas Trio platter with rice and beans, and a small order of chips and salsa.  The salsa was fresh and good, but still lacked the milkiness and whatever it was that made it so good before.  The tacos were decent but lacked the seasoning they used to have, and they only used one corn tortilla per taco, so they lost all their molecular integrity by the time I go home, resulting in what was essentially a taco salad without the bowl.  My enchiladas were decent, too, and the rice was tastier than most other places.  The beans were good depending on how you like you refritos: TMP's are not the whipped solid-mass like you get other places but contained some whole beans.  In sum, it was all just okay, including the price.  We probably won't be back, sorry to say.  Sigh, again..


Taco Meats Potato, 7040 Madison Avenue, recently opened in the strip mall space that was occupied by Heine's Roast Beef-- If I can reminisce a bit, Heine's State Fair cuisine (since that was their main business, running a mobile trailer at fairs and such) was delicious, but it was every bit as pricey as eating at the State Fair, so I suspect that's why the stationary store didn't last.  Hopefully this isn't gonna be one of those black-hole locations fated to have one failing business after another in it.

Anyway, the Little Woman and I were drawn by TMP's ridiculous pun of a name as much as by her boundless craving for Mexican food.  As you approach the door there is a Southwestern scene painted on the window along with the words "Where you bean all my life?" Geez, another pun?  I had misgivings about what we were about to experience, that is until they brought the multi-colored chips and salsa.  Now, my judgement may have been clouded by a couple of beers I had earlier, but I still believe it was THE BEST SALSA I have ever eaten, including in Mexico.  It had the usual pureed tomato, and I could taste lots of cilantro and onion, but the liquid part of it was a little milky, like maybe there was also sour cream in it as well as other spices that aren't in most other salsas.  The rest of the meal could've been made of sandpaper and I would still be raving about that salsa....

It was late evening, like 9:15, and we didn't want to upset our middle-aged digestive systems with a heavy meal right before bedtime, so we decided to split the Texas Nachos, a plateful of more chips with white cheese, three types of meat, jalapenos, and more of that delightful salsa poured over them, capped off with a big dollop of sour cream and a whole steamed jalapeno. I won't say they were outstanding but they were very good, and the price wasn't bad, either.  There's nothing fancy about the place, but it has the feel of all the authentic taquerias here and in Mexico that  I've ever been in.   I didn't ask, but it appears to be a family operation, with the cook and proprietor a young Hispanic guy who said he's from Dallas, although the source of his recipes is his mother, who hails from the Rio Grande valley, he said. 

As we went up to pay I spied the Potato Menu, which the proprietress/waitress said she didn't show us because they had sold out all their potatoes for the day.  There must have been at least a dozen potato combos listed, from taco to cajun shrimp to a regular loaded potato to a tilapia potato.  Maybe we'll get to sample those another time earlier in the day.  !Que bueno!

UPDATE: 12/03/2012-- We went there COMPLETELY sober this time, and the salsa was still da BOMB.  The waitress also gave us a sample of white-cheese queso with taco meat mixed in that was reeeeally good, too: We liked it so much we bought some to take home.  The Little Woman had two flour tacos with steak, cilantro, and onion, which were deeeelicious. The steak was marinated and seasoned somehow, in a way that made it tastier than any other Mexican restaurant's I've ever had .   I ordered the Taco Potato, a huge baked potato loaded with white cheese, taco meat, lettuce and tomato, capped off with a dollop of sour cream and a whole steamed jalapeno, all served with rice and refried beans. The seasoned coarsely-ground taco meat was also extraordinary.   I can't wait till Tuesday, when ground-beef tacos are $1 each.... The beans were ordinary but good and the Spanish rice was !INCREIBLE!  With most other Mexican restaurants I have to pour salsa or hot sauce over the rice to give it some flavor, but TMP's was tasty all by itself. !ANDALE! !VAS AL TACO MEATS POTATO, AHORITA!

Bugsy's Bar & Grille- Unremarkable and Yet...

Bugsy's is (yep) in a strip mall on Brookville Road a little east of I-465.  It's a good-sized place with a pool table and lots of TV's, and it has the look and feel of every other modern strip mall bar you've ever been in.... But wait!  There was just something about the joint that made us feel, well, comfortable.  It's really clean, with tile flooring in most areas instead of the nasty colorless industrial carpeting most bars have.  The barmaid on this Saturday afternoon was a nice-looking non-redneck lady in her late 40's who has two kids in college and generally made sure we had everything we needed.  We'd just eaten lunch so we didn't sample the pub grub, but what I saw looked and smelled really good.  They had some really great drink specials posted, too, so you can definitely make the price fit your budget there if you're willing to be flexible.  We were thus very favorably impressed and wished it wasn't so far from our home....  I guess by way of a compliment you could say that Bugsy's does ordinary right.  Drink up!

Mama Irma's - What The Heck Is Peruvian Food?

Mama Irma's is in the heart of Fountain Square, on Virginia Avenue just west of Shelby Street.  It's in a small storefront with a relatively tiny sign over the entrance that you might miss if you're not looking for it.  The place has like 8 or 9 tables, and at this weekday lunch it was just Mama and one other employee working, so service was a little slow but not terribly so.  I had the $9.25 Chicharron de Gallina, basically strips of deep-fried chicken with a small salad and yucca-root fries, and The Little Woman had Aji de Galleta (not sure if that name is correct), kind of a thick stew with diced chicken, rice, green beans, corn, cilantro, and a bunch of other vegetalia I was unable to identify.  

Mama explained that Peruvian-style cooking is not spicy at all, but usually includes many different flavors.  The fried chicken strips were decent but the seasoning was too subtle for my uneducated palate, so I was left craving some kind of dipping sauce to go with them.   Another patron later requested and was actually brought something in a little cup that resembled a thick teriyaki sauce, which caused me to smack my forehead and say, "Wow! I coulda had that, or even a V-8!"  My little salad was crisp and fresh, with onions and a light sort of citrus vinaigrette dressing that was tart but not sweet.  The yucca-root fries were very similar in flavor and consistency to regular french fries except they were a bit softer on the inside; I wanted to put some ketchup on them but felt it might be uncouth of me to ask for it.  

I skipped the offered Peruvian soft drinks and had Peruvian hot tea, which was lemongrass in a tea bag. It was kind of light, tart, and fairly tasty when sweetener was added.  My Lady had Diet Coke, because they didn't have iced tea. Her $5.25 bowl of soup/stew was the better-tasting of the two dishes, with a combination of many different flavors that was quite good.  There was a whole column of the menu devoted to Mariscos (seafood), but all the dishes were in the double-digit price range and Mr. Cheapskate didn't want to spend that much on lunch when he'd already planned to to get the Steak & Lobster special at Outback for dinner.  All in all, Mama's was decent but didn't exactly wow me, though it was all right for a little change of pace. !Disfrutalo!

Heidelberg Cafe - Affordable Authentic German

Heidelberg Cafe and Bakery on Pendleton Pike just east of I465 is (yay!) not in a strip mall, and much to my dismay it's not on the South Side.  I'd been by there and seen its tidy signs outside a kind of dumpy-looking little white-painted brick storefront like 50 times over the years, but it was always while I was working and not able to stop.  I saw it yet again last Friday when I had an appointment in Lawrence and resolved to go there on Saturday, which we did-- I intended to stop in for some coffee and pastry, then go to nearby Ft. Harrison State Park for a little hike and maybe picnic with some KFC.  As soon as we sat down in the Heidelberg, however, all that changed.

They don't have just pastry and coffee.  There is a nice little lunch menu of German dishes, served by waitresses in German-style waitress dresses, some of whom have real German accents, as do a many of the customers, which I thought boded well  (remember the axiom of ethnic restaurant + lots of customers of that same ethnic community = GOOD).  I had the Heidelberger (essentially a foot-long German hot dog on a plate with two small pickle spears and bread with butter), a side order of  Korean potato salad (just kiddin', it was German), and coffee.  The Little Woman ordered a Bratwurst which automatically came with the potato salad, bread, and pickles.  The coffee was nothing exotic but it was very good and the wait staff kept it coming. Both meats were smoky and delicious as was the potato salad, which was served warm as it should be.  The pickle spears were fresh, delicate, and crunchy, some of the best dill pickles I've ever had.  For dessert I went into the bakery part of the building and purchased an Alligator which we had them microwave a few seconds to make sticky and warm.  It was ohhhhhh so good with the coffee!  

It was a pretty good deal, too, considering we both ate for under 20 bucks.  The food might not be as rich as the Rathskeller's downtown or the Edelweiss Restaurant's in German Park on the South Side, but it was just as authentic, filling, and a heck of a lot cheaper. We rolled ourselves off our chairs, waddled over and  browsed the bakery and little German grocery section (which had a big selection of pickles that I wished I'd taken the time to shop), and also their selection of German-language newspapers, magazines, and souvenirs (They're also a licensed Hummel dealer).  We finally made it to the park to hike, but any picnic plans were  dashed for the rest of the day by our lingering satiation by Bratwurst.  Prosit!

El Puerto - Just A Little Different From the Rest

El Puerto, 7045 Emblem Drive, is (need I say it) in a strip mall in between Mike's Car Wash and Meijer, near the giant sucking vortex of traffic quicksand that is the intersection of Southport Road and Emerson Avenue.  I think it's part of a small chain, as there is another El Puerto at Emerson & Thompson Road.  The decor is simple but clean-- it was a Schlotsky's sandwich shop when first built, and likely retains the original seating.  I've been to the other El Puerto, too, and the decor is similar although this one has more windows and seems more light and airy inside.

On this day I got an order to go, and it was a working lunch so no beer or booze (*sigh*).  The very cordial host took my order promptly and the food was ready !muy pronto!  I had the lunch Chimichanga with beans and my business partner (just kidding, it was The Little Woman) had a burrito with beans, and they were both DEEELICIOUS.  The Chimi was cooked just right, not doughy but not hard, and it was covered with a tasty white queso sauce and filled with spicy shredded beef, while the burrito was covered in a red sauce that was also quite flavorful. The beans had a little bit of white cheese melted on top, which I love, and the to-go order came with a little cup of salsa and a quart-size bag of tortilla chips.  The salsa was excellent for us but maybe a little too spicy for some folks. 

Both dishes seemed a little different from the same ones at other Mexican restaurants (YAHOO!). All the decorations in the place were from Cancun so maybe this is the style of the food there.  I was in Mexico once, visiting Tulancingo in the state of Hidalgo when I saw a restaurant advertising Michoacan-style food, but was unable to go in and ask what that might be because I couldn't leave the tour group....  I've since had the opportunity to ask several Mexicanos living here what regional Mexican food differences there are, but none of them had any idea beyond one guy who said that in Cancun they eat a lot of seafood. D (wait for it) UH!  I can tell you, though, that in Hidalgo they have Pastes (pronounced PA STAYS), a variation of the English Pasties that British miners brought over when they came there to mine silver, yet another variation of which (the pirogi?) was the lunch of German and Polish miners up in Minnesota.  A paste is a pie crust-like pastry baked hard and filled with meat and cheese, to which the Hidalguenses have added plenty of Mexican spice and flavor.  The tour guides brought 'em to us in big boxes like doughnuts, and I woulda consumed a whole box of them if those danged Seguridad Publica guys hadn't tackled me.  Ah, but I digress.... 

El Puerto is nothing fancy, but the food is just a little different and a little tastier than most of the other cookie-cutter Mexican restaurants, for which I am VERY grateful for every cup and every plateful.  Thank you Lord for all this food.  Amen!  Sorry, got carried away there....  !TOME Y COME AQUI AHORITA, MI GENTE! 

The Party's New Face-- More Than Just a Makeover

The renovation of The Party, 7350 Madison Avenue, is almost complete, and owner Steve Waugh has really transformed the ancient former Rax Roast Beef location.  There is a DJ booth, some nice new seating in the great new bar area, and the covered outdoor patio is a thing to behold-- There are two little man-made waterfalls out front and a gas fire pit in the middle as well as propane area heaters stationed at intervals throughout the patio, and I'm told there are even radiant heating panels in its ceiling!  With all the renovation expense I expected prices to rise uncomfortably like they did at Waugh's other joint, Big Daddy's at Meridian and Pleasant Run Parkway, but so far that hasn't happened.  On Monday drafts were $1.50 + tax, the regular price for a well drink is still $3.50, and a glass of Sutter Home wine is $3.95. (They still have half-price bottles of all varieties of their wines on Sundays, too!)  There's a pretty extensive pub grub menu, too.  What's not to like?  Cheers, y'all!

Zelma's: An Eastside tradition stays fresh.

One afternoon on a crisp Fall Sunday, we went in Zelma's, 935 N. Shadeland Avenue,  for the first time in maybe fifteen years.  I remembered the place as the rather comfortable epitome of the words "greasy spoon", the type of 24/7 place that decades ago would have been frequented by the likes of Philip Marlowe.  Now, however, though she is still open 24 hours a day and probably serves a lot of late-night drunken revelers and other nefarious characters, the spoons are NOT greasy and the dining room is bright and clean.  

The Little Woman had a grilled tenderloin sandwich with fries and coleslaw while I ordered the Beef Manhattan which (in case you weren't born on this planet) is usually brown gravy over roast beef on an open-faced sandwich with mashed potatoes, but in this case it was just like they made a regular sandwich, put it down on a plate with some mashed potatoes and poured gravy over it.  I later learned one of their specialties is Fried Chicken, so I guess I wasn't exactly sampling their flagship dish, but our stuff was decent if not outstanding.  The gravy and mashed potatoes seemed straight out of the Sysco catalog but were tasty nevertheless, and the sliced roast beef was browned, which suggests to me they warmed it in a frying pan or the broiler.  However they did it, the browning added a little extra flavor to the beef.  Her tenderloin was again decent if not inspired. Both the coleslaw and my dinner salad were very, very fresh, a real treat coming from an all-night diner. The price was right, too-- less than twenty bucks for both of us. All in all, Philip Marlowe would be happy to eat there, except he'd have to put his cigarettes away and straighten his tie, because it's so clean and bright he'd want to look presentable.

UPDATE, 02/27/2014:  We visited again last Sunday, I think it was, and the food was really decent but the service wasn't so good.  They became quite busy, and the waitress (sorry I forgot her name, although she said she'd been waitressing 36 years) was not keeping up very well, and didn't look like she was trying too hard, either.  The first cup of coffee she brought me was, no joke, ice cold, must have been sitting on a warmer that was turned off.  It took her a while to get back around to me to warm it up, too.  Still, when the food came it was very good-- I had Zelma's Breakfast deal: 4 slices of bacon, 2 eggs, toast, home fries, and coffee all for just $6.50, which seriously warmed my $$ heart.  Enjoy!

The Patio Gyro Place- The Quick, The Cheap, The Not Ugly

The Patio Gyro Place, 7371 S. Madison Avenue, is in a really small strip mall next door to Pay Less Liquors and across the street from The Party.  It's only been open a month or so, and it looks so tiny from the outside you might miss it, overshadowed by the liquor store's giant sign letters.  I was surprised to find that they have a decent-sized dining room with about a dozen tables, nothing fancy but neat and clean.  I had planned to just get 2 gyro sandwiches, but I was ambushed by an extensive menu that includes hot dogs, Mexican dishes, catfish platters, jalapeno poppers, and ribeye steak sandwiches, to name but a few of their many offerings.  But like the kid who goes into Baskin Robbins and has 'em read off all 33 flavors only to order vanilla, I stuck to my original plan and ordered a chicken gyro sandwich and a regular (beef & lamb) gyro sandwich.

I've never seen 'em prepare sandwiches at other gyro restaurants, so I don't know if they do it differently,   but this place has a griddle on which they pour batter to make the sandwich bread right then and there, so it tasted really fresh. The tomatoes and onions were really fresh and crisp, too, and they didn't skimp on the tzadziki sauce, either.  It seems like all regular gyro meat is provided by one supplier (Kronos), so it has the the same tasty goodness wherever you go. The chicken, on the other hand, was better to me than most other grilled chicken sandwiches because they browned it nicely on the griddle. The REALLY great thing about this place is the price:  $4.49 for a good-sized gyro sandwich or a combo that includes fries and a drink for $5.99. We split a baklava for $1.45 that was tasty if not as light and fluffy as what the Acropolis serves up the street.

The service was quicker than I expected, so it would probably be a good workday lunch destination.  The menu says there is a sister store, The Patio, in (I think) the 7300 block of E. Washington Street.  The Gyro Place made a great first impression, so if The Patio is just as good, we have yet another go-to place. I'll at least have to go back for some of the myriad other dishes.  O-pa!

UPDATE, 07/01/2013: The time I ordered a gyro sandwich and a breaded tenderloin sandwich:  the gyro was good, the onions on it were crisp and fresh, and it was swimming in tzadziki sauce, which wasn't a bad thing.  The tenderloins was HUGE, and it was decent if not radically different from all the other tenderloins I've had.  The value for the price continues to amaze me.  :-)

Windows On The World-- Never Forget.

Some folks didn't really understand my last blog entry about this place (Windows on the World: End Of An Era, blog entry for 09/11/11), which wasn't in a strip mall.  It was a restaurant at the top of one of the World Trade Center towers.

It's Patriot Day - never forget.

Britton Tavern - Good, Not Cheap.

So on Saturday afternoon we'd helped clean up our niece's new house in Fishers in preparation for their move-in and were extreeemely thirsty, punched "bars & nightclubs" into the GPS and came up with the Britton Tavern at 141st Street and State Road 37 in (yep) a strip mall.  This establishment is rather big, generally clean, and kind of generic, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.  What hit me first about the place was its really good sound system, with the rock muzak playing very rich with bass notes and sound emanating from what seemed to be many, many speakers.  They publish a new glossy menu each month with the bands scheduled to play there (I recognized the names of several popular Indy-area bar bands), along with the drink and food specials.  Classy, I tell ya!

It was a beautiful day, so we sat in the small outdoor seating area and took in the sunshine and the traffic noise from SR37....  The bartender was friendly without being obsequious, the service was good, and the draft beer was really cold, a real plus at any bar.   The only (slight) drawback was that our 64 oz. pitcher of Dos Equis Amber was $16, which is only 4 bucks a pint, not terrible for import draft at a bar, but  it hurt a little bit after having paid only $6 for the same size pitcher of Pacifico at Bojack's in Franklin the Saturday before.  Still and all, I would go here again, I think.  Slainte!

Bojack's Pub- Pretty Place, Pretty Deal

Bojack's is located (say it with me) in a strip mall that runs perpendicular to E. Jefferson Street in Franklin, Indiana near the Franklin College (or is that Franklin University?  Seems like no institution of higher learning is a mere college, anymore) campus.  It's a really nice little strip mall, though, being red brick and only containing a few little upscale shops in addition to the bar, and the parking lot is bordered by a tree-lined creek, making the place almost picturesque. There is a large covered outdoor seating area, but it was hot outside. The inside of the bar is clean, classic sports bar decor, with 5 pool tables and 15 flat screen TV's.  The Little Woman and I had drifted south in an effort to find some dinette chairs to go with our kitchen table, and after stopping at Dinette Land, then going on to find that Amish Furniture Mart no longer exists and Long's Furniture was closed due to a fire or something, we decided to stop in Bojack's, one of the few Franklin pubs we've not visited.  The others (with the exception of The Tavern, which seemed a little sketchy) are all very comfortable places-- we've pondered maybe making an overnight visit, checking into one of the motels by I-65 and seeing if their shuttle might take us to town and back.  Ahh, someday....

It was 3:00 p.m. on a Saturday and the regular crowd hadn't stumbled in, yet, so I dunno what it's like later in the day,  but we ran into an old bud who now lives in Prince's Lakes who said he likes to stop in Bojack's and drink a beer on the way home when he doesn't want to do it with the rednecks in Edinburgh (opinions expressed here may not be those of the author).  The cook was late because his car had stalled in high water from a storm, so the barmaid (a comely girl with glasses and hair in a bun-- sort of a naughty librarian thing) was doubly busy and not in the mood for chit chat or taking too long to decide on your food order.  She lightened up considerably once the wayward cook had arrived and manned his duty station.  The beer special was a pitcher of draft Pacifico for $6, and it turned out to be a good sized (64 oz.) pitcher, too, so Bojack's made a good first impression on us.  But bar food is always a hit or miss proposition, so we hoped for the best and placed our orders for a 7-inch personal pizza with 3 toppings and the day's special, a Philly Cheesesteak sandwich with sweet potato fries.  Both were really good, if not great, a definite passing score for pub grub.  The pizza was like most bar pizza, but it was really fresh, and the cheesesteak meat was nicely marinated. The kicker was, though, that the price was reeeeeally GREAT!  The pizza was $2.99 and sandwich plate was $6.95, so our entire bill came to like sixteen bucks and some change.  Incredible! 

Meridian Falls Bar & Grille: Soon to Be a Happenin' Place-- Maybe

Meridian Falls Bar & Grille, on Old Meridian Street a block or so south of Epler Avenue, is in a beautiful building just down the street from the Old Meridian Pub, which is about the best thing I can say about the place at this point, but it had only been open about two weeks or so when we went there.  The building used to be the offices and design center of a company that did major home remodeling, and it still retains the lush carpet and boardroom-style woodwork.  The bar itself is in a room with stone walls, a vaulted ceiling with a large skylight, and four small chandeliers.  A large patio-style sliding door opens out onto a humongous multi-level deck area with three different gazebos (one of which has a leather pit-group seating area), and there is even a little man-made waterfall at the bottom-- WOW! They are advertising live entertainment every weekend, and it looked like one of the gazebos is going to be used as the bandstand. I was told that for now there was a limited food menu but we couldn't see one because at that hour the owner was still printing them out.  Their special that day was supposed to be a hamburger with a fried egg on it.

And that is the end of the good part.  The food, drinks, and service are so far much less than impressive.  Regular beer and drink prices are 'way on the high side for my plebeian tastes:  Well drinks are $4, call drinks are $7, domestic beers $3.25, and crafts & imports $3.75.  The night we went there, the special was domestic drafts for $2.50 and wells for $3, but apparently nobody told the cash register, as our bill did not reflect the advertised savings, but by that time we were wanting out of there so badly we didn't complain.  I'd heard that the POlice had been called to remove someone the night they opened, and when I asked about it one of the employees (who took time out from arguing with the bartender about something) told me it was a disturbance between the owner and one of his "sweat equity" partners, a renovation contractor.  All the staff (and all the clientele, while we were there) had a kind of redneck rough & tumble appearance that seemed to indicate that MFB&G is gonna be one of those combat nightlife places I would have loved to visit when I was 19 years old, but which try my geezer patience these days.  We left and went down the street to Old Meridan Pub, where on that same night well drinks were $2.  Oh!  I forgot to mention, too, that the sliding door being left open several times led to a small swarm of flies in the area of the bar, most of which (except for a couple of  'em that were caught in a long cobweb hanging from the skylight) wanted to land on The Little Woman, probably because she's so sweet!  :-)

UPADATE 11/25/2012:  I've heard that the place closed down, but haven't been by to see.  One of the rumors was that a local neighborhood group persuaded ABC or Excise or someone to close them, but again, I don't know anything definite....  Boohoo(?)

UPDATE 08/29/2013:  The place is now called Private Reserve, a private club.  The sign out front said they sell annual and short-term memberships, whatever that means.

Motor Inn Truck Stop: A scene from the movie: They Drive By Night!

If you read the post about Dave's Place, you know we went to see my brother-in-law near Delphos in Northwest Ohio a couple weeks ago.  It's a funny kind of region to me, because there are no really big towns nearby, but there is an extensive network of small-to-medium-sized metropoli all about a half-hour's drive from each other, so you end up going to Celina to buy hardware and then to Van Wert to eat, then to Lima to go to the movies and so on, although for extensive shopping trips you might go all the way to that bodacious burg of Ft. Wayne, Indiana.  

Similarly, there is only one Interstate Highway anywhere near the area, I-69 through Ft. Wayne.  In this area the old US Highways are still the predominate routes to travel, with many of them being modern limited-access highways just like the Interstate except for the fancy red, white, and blue signs (and Federal financial support?).  Just as the US routes are still King, independent truck stops are apparently still numerous in the region, of which the Motor Inn Truck Stop, on US 127 at US 33 outside of Mendon, OH, is a prime example,. an ancient but well-maintained small concrete-block building in the middle of a vast ocean of asphalt with a giant canopy for truck and car refueling. The gas-station/convenience store side is old and kind of spartan, reminiscent of the small-town bus stations of my childhood in the 1960's (my Dad was a Greyhound driver, so I saw a lot of 'em).  The dining room, however, is quite modern, and the food draws many local residents as well as truckers and travelers. The service was decent even during the busy after-church rush on Sunday: We had to wait  ten minutes before a table opened up, but when one did they bussed it and had it ready for us in seconds.  The menu was good down-home food that was somewhat different from the menus at the big company truck stops:  I ordered Fried Rabbit, which was the first time I'd ever had that, and yes, Virginia, it does taste sort of like chicken!  The meat all tasted like white meat, though, and it was somewhat more dense than chicken but every bit as tasty.  The green beans were very good, with just enough bacon (and bacon grease?) to make it interesting.  When I started dipping bites of rabbit into the left-over gravy from my wife's plate (her biscuits and gravy were decent but it was white milk gravy instead of the southern-style sausage gravy I crave), the waitress, busy as she was,  brought me a small bowl of gravy of my own without even asking!  It's little touches like that which make me really appreciate Midwestern hospitality.  Ya, you betcha I do!  See www.motorinntruckstop.com  for pitchers....

Dave's Place in Delphos, OH

Dave's Place, on Sterling Road near Delphos, is (yay!) not in a strip mall.  It's not near a major highway.  It's not really a restaurant-- it's my brother-in-law's house.  But it's a great place to be!  Dave and his wife Sandy have all the family over once a year, and the place is great for guests.  They have a 150' x 30' swimming pond (as we passed through the countryside we saw a number of these) with a sandy bottom, a shallow wading area, and a deep part for diving.  There are two big decks and a giant float on which to laze and drift while leisurely guzzling your beer, which is great when ya have great nephew Uriah to act as cabana boy/beer man so you don't have to leave the float except to pee, and not even then for some of us!  (Just kiddin', Dave!)  The whole place is surrounded by corn fields-- there're two neighboring houses about a quarter mile away, but otherwise there aren't any neighbors to be disturbed by your music, or your partygoers, or your gunshots (so Dave should remember that if he ever gets the notion to come home drinkin' with lovin' on his mind....)  Dave is a restaurateur by profession, so naturally he knows how to cook and put out a spread, and OH! the apple pies were DA BOMB!

Blue Agave - Traditional Mexican

Blue Agave, located (say it with me) in a strip mall at 8049 S. Madison Avenue, has opened in the space that for several years housed Los Picachos bar/restaurant/pool room.  BA is primarily a restaurant now, with the old pool room now a party/banquet area.  We stopped in for a light dinner and drinks, and we were unaware at that time that the previous night a party in the banquet room had been raided by IMPD and the Excise Police, who issued citations to 24 underage drinkers.  Hey, nobody's perfect, right? 

I had high hopes for the place since almost everyone in there appeared to be Latino, my logic being that people of the same ethnicity as the food served would seek out places where that food is the best. I mean, if I was an American in Paris and got homesick and wanted a good burger, I'd go to the best American-style restaurant I could find, wouldn'ja think?  Yeah, me too!  Anyway, we both had margaritas, and split a queso dip and a plate of nachos.  The margaritas were big, cheap, and tasty, but we didn't really taste all that much tequila in them. :-(  I had mixed feelings about the chips, as they had apparently combined a couple batches together-- some of them were crisp with a decent corn taste and others were either stale or had been over-fried so much they were kind of chewy.  Ah, but the salsa!  It was fresh, spicy, and had a lot of flavorful ingredients, cilantro chief among them (if you're going to a Mexican restaurant and don't like cilantro, you better stop off at Micky D's and bring a Quarter Pounder with you).  It was some of the best salsa I've ever had, and I've had quite a lot, beer probably being the only other substance I've ingested more often. 

The queso was billed on the menu as "Grandma's Secret Recipe" and I now must find this Grandma woman and give her a big ol' lip smack on the cheek.  It was the white queso you're used to but with a bunch of little tasty bits added (Little Woman said she thought most of them were minced tomatillas).  Whatever they were, they made the queso DEEEELICIOUS!  The queso and the salsa were proof positive that you can take matchbook covers and coat them with something delicious and make them edible....  The nachos came out, and they were a little different than what us gringos are used to.  The combo nachos ($7.95, I think) included seasoned and grilled chunks of chicken, flank steak, and ground beef piled high on top of a single-thickness bed of those less-than-stellar chips, then covered with lettuce, sour cream, and a smattering of melted white cheese, a meaty mountain quite unlike the gooey foothills of mostly chips & cheese that we're used to getting.  We actually had to eat down the meat & lettuce with forks a ways to get to the chips, which by the time we reached them had been soaked in the juices from the meat, cheese, and lettuce so that they'd lost most of their molecular integrity and had to be eaten with a fork, but they actually tasted better that way!  All three meats were really tasty and well-prepared.  Just as we were about to leave, the proprietor brought out a free slice of cake for me in honor of Father's Day, he said, and it was great, too, topped with about an inch of whipped-cream icing.  Soooo, Blue Agave was a mixed bag, but the good parts were so good that we'll have to go back and try some of their other stuff.  iSalud! 

Old McDonald Cafe: Basic Eats From A Bygone Era

One good thing about Old McDonald Cafe is that it is not, repeat NOT, in a strip mall!  It's in an old storefront on Exchange Street in "downtown" Acton, across the street from the Dinner Bell Market.  It's a pretty simple place, evocative of a lot of small-town cafes I've been in across the USA-- concrete floor, basic booths and tables, kitchen counter with table, griddle, and fryers along one wall, separated from the dining room only by a cash register counter and refrigerated display cooler like a meat market or deli would have.  OMC harkens back to the day when Acton was a little bit of civilization surrounded by farm fields.  Actually, Acton hasn't really changed that much from those days, although now it's mostly surrounded by suburban housing developments.  The closest food competition is in Wanamaker, which is only about 10 minutes away by car, but if you live out that way and have one of those days when you don't want to cook and don't want to drive any farther from home than is absolutely necessary, you wind up at OMC.  Pretty much everyone I know who lives in Franklin Township has been there more than once, for just that reason, if not just to look at the displays of the founder's WWII memorabilia on the walls.  I'm told the founder is 86 years old and still owns the place but doesn't come in much, so you'll probably never see him there unless you go there a LOT.

The food there is not stellar, but it is pretty good, and simple, and fairly cheap.  I've never had a bad meal there, but never had a really outstanding one, either.  It's just good basic home-style food, with one exception:  The last time we went, there was a sign in the window that said "GIANT TENDERLOINS ARE BACK!", and they weren't lyin'....   We had one, and it was HULKIN' HUGE, more than one person (even Karl the Hutt) could eat, and it was only like 6 bucks.  It was your basic tenderloin sandwich only it's obviously been hit with an overdose of gamma rays.   So eat hearty, my friends, but don't  make the tenderloin angry-- you wouldn't like it when it's angry!   

South of Chicago Pizza-- It's "Da Bears" of Indy Italian

South of Chicago Pizza, on Virginia Avenue at Noble Street, has been open for awhile now, dunno why I haven't been there.  I'd heard their sammiches were almost more of a draw than the Chicago-style pizza, and after lunch today I can see why one might say that, although perhaps that's an overstatement.  The place is just like the little neighborhood pizza joints we had where I grew up long ago, which wasn't Chicago but it was a city with very distinctive neighborhoods.  The joint is housed in two little old storefronts with a doorway connecting them-- carry out is on one side (although it has tables there) and the dining room is on the other.  I went for a carry out lunch because I'd heard the pizza pies take awhile to fix, so I ordered an Italian Beef sandwich to be adventurous and a Ham & Cheese to be on the safe side of the Little Woman's palate.  They were both FANDAMNTASTIC, and at $6.49 each were quite the bargain as they were both like 8" long (B's PoBoys take note) and stuffed with MEAT.  The Italian Beef was marinated and seasoned differently than anything I've had before, and it was incredible how much flavor was packed into it, not to mention the spicy au jus they give you to dip it in. They even managed to pack a lot of flavor into the more mundane Ham & Cheese; like, some kind of Italian cheese, or dusting the mayo with Parmesan, maybe?  Anyway, they were both delicious. The bread didn't have the delicate crispiness of B's Poboys', but that may be because they have to support a much bigger load of MEAT than B's.   

I walked through the dining room on the way out, and they have a new lunch buffet for $8.99 that saves time for us working folks on the clock (yeah, yeah, I take long lunches sometimes, so SUE ME!  Just don't tell my boss-- he's the one who told me about this place!)  It has a small salad bar and 3 or 4 large Chicago-style pizza pies on the buffet, kind of simple for $8.99 but then, on a good day, my colleague Karl the Hutt could do some damage to the pizza side of that spread, so the rest of us gotta pay to compensate for what they'll lose on him.  The pies looked and smelled every bit as good as Geno's East in Chicago, so I'll be baaaack for one of those.  They have a good selection of bottle beers, too, including some local Sun King brews.  (No sir, I wasn't drinking at work, I swear!)  The only drawback to the place is a temporary (?) one, in that there's not a lot of parking on the street due to the never-ending construction of the south leg of the Indy Cultural Trail, so if you're going to get carry-out you might call in advance so you can just duck in and pick up your food while your car is stopped in the alley alongside the building.... Mangia!

UPDATE- 08/09/2012:  The Little Woman and I went there for lunch, and food on the buffet was incredibly good....  There were 3 deep dish Chicago style pizzas under the heat lamps, and the place was rather busy so fresh pizzas kept coming.  I had one slice each of a pepperoni & sausage and a (I think) crumbled sausage pizza.  The third pizza appeared to have a bunch of toppings, including spinach and half-slices of tomato, but I didn't get to eat a slice because I was too freakin' STUFFED.  I'm not generally a big fan of Chicago-style's crust, but SoC's traditional crust is more than made up for by the incredible sauce--  heavily seasoned and full of Italian flavor.  My slices seemed also seemed to have more cheese than I remember getting in Chicago, and that's a GREAT thing.  The buffet also had a Linguine Alfredo that was the bomb-- the Alfredo sauce was lightly powdered with Parmesan cheese and slightly gooey because it also had a lot of actual cheese in it.  The salad was decent, too, with bowls of both Iceberg and Romaine lettuce (although I only saw Italian, Blue Cheese, and French dressings, no Caesar to go with the Romaine), pepperoncinis, cheese, onions, home-made bacon bits, banana peppers, and what appeared to be home-made croutons.  We ate lunch for under $20 and had to be rolled outa there.... Life is good!  My only regret is I have yet to be able to go at a time when I could drink one of the good beers.  CINCIN!

Flashbacks: A Badly Needed Oasis Re-Opens

Flashbacks, in a strip mall (ain't they all?) at Shelbyville Road and Southport Road, has been open for a couple months in the space where Brandon's was. The location is surrounded by residential subdivisions for several miles around, so it is quite an alcohol oasis amid the great suburban-sprawl wasteland that is most of Franklin Township.  The layout is basically the same as Brandon's but they've renovated it nicely, with a kind of faux-marble floor instead of just concrete, and all the exposed duct work has been painted glossy black, along with other touches which give the place a slightly more elegant look.  I met Mike, one of the owners, and he seems to be a nice, really sharp guy.  There is a lot of old Franklin Township High School Flashes memorabilia on the walls, which may be the source of the Flashbacks name, I suppose.  The decor is understated and not overwhelming so I felt really comfortable in the new place.   The drink prices are decent but not a bargain, and the food is your basic pub grub but very decent, too.  They have a good selection of draft beers, and an actual wine list(!)  I've heard the pizza is especially good there, but have yet to sample it. My bro-in-law (see his guest review of Vito Provolone's, below) absolutely loves the French Dip here.  Yet another reason to go back it is, young Skywalker.... 

UPDATE: 12/27/2012-- I went there for a family member's birthday celebration (there were 8 of us) and was totally disappointed, sorry to say.  The birthday boy loved this place, raved about its French Dip sandwich, said the meat was marinated so well and the generous cup of u jus was so tasty he would drink what was left after dipping his sandwich.  Well when his sandwich came this time, it was smaller than anyone remembered, was not as tasty, and the cup of au jus was tiny, not enough to even dip the sandwich.  My tenderloin was decent but nothing special....  When they brought the food, another person in our party, who had ordered the exact same thing I did, did not get her food until like 15 minutes after the rest of us.  On top of that, one of our party paid for her own meal with cash and yet her bill was added onto the host's check, charging us twice for the same meal. I dunno if that was intentional or just incompetent, as the wait staff seemed generally clueless.  I did not see any of the place's owners there, which was unusual, so maybe they suffered from a lack of supervision.  There was no excuse for the apparent downsizing of the French Dip, though.  I still enjoyed the relaxed ambiance there, so I'll give 'em a second chance, but only one.   ;-)

B's Po Boys: Good Cajun Comes with a Price

B's Po Boys at 1261 S. Shelby St. just opened this week and it is already one of my favorite places. It's in a rather small brand-new building that has intentionally been given a patina on the outside that resembles a weathered shack by the bayou.  Inside it's all Nouveau IKEA decor: multicolored earth-tone checkerboard flooring that resembles linoleum, a Swedish style new-wood bar/counter topped with faux marble, steel chair stools, etc. There are about 9 or 10 outdoor tables, too, each with its own bottle of Sriracha hot sauce.  Next to the outdoor dining area are two long narrow troughs that I took to be horse shoe pits, but which are actually for bocce balls, a kind of Italian lawn bowling (not sure if  I spelled it correctly, sorry). The ambiance of the place nicely dovetails with that of the Brass Ring Lounge which is almost next door, and should draw the same sort of trendy clientele.

The cajun-style sandwiches and sides, however, are the real star of the show. For lunch we had two half-sandwiches ($6 each): I had the Spicy Sausage Patty (because they were out of fried oysters) and the Little Woman got the Barbecued Shrimp sandwich. The bread seems to be a kind of French bread that is lightly crisp on the outside but delicately soft on the inside, quite complimentary to the flavors of the fillings. The regular sides are $2 each, but we split two of the higher-priced side items:  Andouille Sausage, Red Beans & Rice and Chicken Gumbo & Rice, $3.50 for each 7.5 ounce cup. The Gumbo was my favorite, very savory and just a little spicy.  The half sandwiches were a little small for the price, I thought, but they were nevertheless very tasty. A couple of my colleagues have been there since, and both ordered $9 full sandwiches, which they said were quite filling, so that must be the way to go.  A medium-sized decent-flavor iced tea was $1.50.

Even though it's not a great bargain, I really liked the food there, and the cool ambiance of the place along with the really nice owner and service staff mean I'll be goin' back for some more Cajun. Ayyy-Heeeeeeeeeee!

Cafe Mediterrano- a different kind of buffet!

I was in a training class up on the North side of Indy a couple weeks ago, and happened to go with a couple colleagues to Cafe Mediterrano, on 86th Street just east of Allisonville Road, located (say it with me, kids!) in a strip mall on the south side of the street.  We only had a little while to eat lunch, and this place was just what the Southside Guru of Gluttony ordered:  a Mediterranean buffet with all that region's staple dishes:  DIY Gyros, Spanikopita, and Stuffed Grape Leaves were just a few of the dishes.  At $10 it wasn't my usual lunch bargain, but all the stuff was good, hearty fare.  As with most buffets of all types, the food seemed to lack some of the seasoning that the same dish a non-buffet restaurant would have, perhaps in the hope of pleasing (or at least not offending) as many people as possible.  You could always add some of the seasonings and condiments provided there to your taste, though.  :-)

The Yardarm Restaurant on the Municipal Pier in Fairhope, AL

Just a note from our road trip of the last couple weeks:  Fairhope is a sort of upscale suburb of Mobile that is across Mobile Bay from the Big Town and is within about an hour of Gulf Shores.  The Barfly is something of a cheapskate, if you didn't know, and staying in the suburbs was 'way less expensive than either downtown Mobile or the Shores.  The Key West Inn (part of a chain I didn't know about) was a great little hotel about 2 miles from downtown Fairhope, which is kind of like Old Towne Carmel, for you Indy residents:  lots of little boutiques, coffee shops, and antique shops.  The Municipal Pier is in a beautiful park on the Bay, and about 100 feet out on the pier is The Yardarm, a tiny little place that serves the best seafood we had the entire trip, which is saying something.  During our week there I ate my weight in oysters at several restaurants, fixed every way possible, and they were all  large, fresh, and tasty, but the fried oysters at the Yardarm were sooooo tender and juicy, with a light batter and a gentle seafood flavor that wasn't even the least bit "fishy".  A basket of those with two Corona Lights and I was ready for a nap on a bench out on the pier, if it weren't for those pesky herrons begging for leftovers....

Monell's in Nashville, Tennessee- The REALLY far Southside....

On a recent trip to the Music City, the Little Woman and I were looking for an open liquor store (but just as in Indy, they're all closed on Sunday), and we saw this grand old mansion on Murfreesboro Pike next to the airport with a sign out front that said "Monell's Family-Style Dining".  In the South that means that your party sits with others around a big ol' table with like 10 chairs and they bring the food out in big bowls that you pass around just like you were at home and feedin' the family.  While we were waiting for the food to come out, we helped ourselves to the bowls of cucumbers & onions in ranch dressing, and bowls of cole slaw that were already on the table along with pitchers of sweet and unsweet tea, fruit tea, and water.  Then the main course arrived and I was in home-style heaven with perfectly cooked fried chicken followed by mashed taters, green beans, and macaroni & cheese in their own bowls.  I had just begun to dig in when the REST of the main courses arrived:  pulled pork, meat loaf, and pot roast! No wonder they sell t-shirts that say "Help! I've eaten at Monell's and can't stand up!"  There are 3 locations in Nashville, all in historic houses.  It was the best part of the Nashville leg of our trip. 

BTW, if you make it to the Volunteer State, try to get your hands on some Popcorn Sutton's Tennessee White Whisky.  Popcorn Sutton was a famous moonshiner who unfortunately took his own life at age 62 when he found out he was going to prison just a couple years back.  A group of investors including Hank Williams, Jr. were in the process of obtaining Popcorn's recipe at the time, and now they've managed to go legit, although the stuff is currently only available in Tennessee. Supposedly the state said they have to call it White Whisky because "moonshine" is by definition illegal.  It is just about THE SMOOTHEST alcoholic beverage I've ever sampled, exponentiallly better than Georgia Moon, the other well-known legal 'shine, which is produced by a large distillery in Louisville, KY.

Teddy's Burger Joint: Burgers and Then Some....

Teddy's Burger Joint, 2222 W. Southport Rd, is on the back corner of a little strip mall, and if it hadn't been for a billboard I saw out on SR 37, I'd never have found out about it.  They've tried to put up little directional signs here and there, but you really have to look for the place, which is in the little mall right behind Piper's.  We stopped in early on a Friday afternoon, and at that time there was only one other customer in the place.  I thought maybe they just opened and hadn't had a chance to get a good start yet, but when we asked how long they'd been in bidness they proudly said since October of 2010!  As we got closer to dinner time, though, the crowd started rolling in....  It's primarily a family place, but they have wine, draft beer(!), bottle beers ranging from imports to craft beers to American standards, and draft root beer, too!  The decor consists of a  polished concrete floor, rustic wood, exposed duct work (think Hooters' without the girls), and a fireplace with a mix of regular tables and wooden picnic tables.  The little woman said to make sure I mention that the draft beer is reeeeally cold, something she prizes (along with blistering hot soup and steak so rare it moos when you cut it... but that's another story or two).  The burger prices seem a bit steep until you consider that they come completely dressed and include fries and sandwich-length pickle slices. I had the Bison Burger, which is offered at market price (ten-something dollars, that day), and My Love had the Philly Burger, which was $8.69 or so.   She had a 23-ounce Sun King Wee-Mac ale (see previous post about beer-tasting at the local breweries) and I had a big Flat-12 Amber Ale.  The burgers were really decent, but lacked the deadly greasy goodness of Five Guys' semi-homemade big sliders, I think in an homage to halfway healthy eating.  The Bison Burger is very, very lean, and you can also get a Vegetarian Burger, as well as healthy whole-wheat buns and such.  The grilled onions and green peppers on the Philly Burger were outstanding!  For the kids there are 3.99 burger plates and  a play room with chalkboard walls and floor as well as a big TV on a kid-friendly channel, and there is a sandbox on the outdoor patio, which also has a number of picnic tables for good-weather dining.  I liked it, overall, although I haven't had a favorite burger there yet, but they have a number of variations, so we'll be back!  Oh, yeah, they have a small stage, too, for live music on weekend nights. Whoa!  What's not to like?

The Quest for a Great Steak Sandwich, and Some BBQ, Too!

Kyler had asked me a while back to let him know if I ever found a good steak sandwich anywhere, and, like the Union Army at Bull Run, what I thought would be a quick and easy quest turned out to be a rather long and nightmarish one.  Seems like when I was younger every little burger bistro and beer joint in town had its own version of the Great Steak Sandwich, but today many either don't offer one or don't provide the appetizing entrees-on-bread that I remember (but back then, everything looked better under the coal-oil light).  So I was pleasantly surprised when Steve the chef at the Old Meridian Pub offered a Wednesday special Prime Rib Sandwich that wasn't normally on the menu.  It was on a kaiser roll, and the slab of well-browned prime rib extended two inches out from the bun all the way around.  It was flat delicious!  Now, I dunno if a Prime Rib Sandwich objectively counts as a Steak Sandwich or not, but I'm counting it.  I swear the OMP folks aren't paying me to say good things about them!  I just love that place, is all.  

After the OMP we stopped in at Robby's Pub at Southport & Bluff, and they had a special on hamburger sliders at 75 cents each(!)  I was stuffed already but couldn't resist, especially after the Little Woman (perhaps envisioning an early life insurance pay-off) encouraged me to have TWO of 'em.  The buns were classic White Castle-sized, but the little burger patties were at least a half-inch thick, seasoned to perfection, and covered with sauteed onions.  My lady almost lost a fingertip trying to snitch a bite of one of 'em before I realized what she was doing.  Ya gotta warn me, dear!  Between the two of us (how could I not share?) they disappeared in seconds.

Finally, we drove the new truck south on State Road 37 to SR 144 and had a couple of brews at Whiskey River BBQ, a rustic little place just behind the Dairy Queen that was so famous for its biscuits & gravy before it closed.  The bar part is pretty small compared to the great big family dining area, but it was full of people that were mostly locals who knew each other. Everyone was very friendly, though, and the beer & drink prices were decent if not quite the deal that OMP has.  I was too stuffed to eat another bite; even a rare truffle morsel would have made me explode like the guy in Monty Python's Meaning of Life, but the guy next to me ordered the (HUZZAH!) Steak Sandwich.  It was smaller than OMP's but looked like a great little piece of meat covered with sauteed onions AND mushrooms.  The guy said it was the best he'd had in a long time, and from the aroma I believed him. We did have what WRB calls Nachos but which one of the patrons more correctly called a tostada (and I din't explode? Hmmmm......).  It was two crunchy tortillas (about taco-size) covered with jack cheese and barbecued pork with a little BBQ sauce mixed in.  The taste was not Mexican but it was reeeeallly good.  We loved our time there, and when we got ready to leave we purchased a pound of pulled-pork BBQ, which was the most finely shredded  I've seen.  It and the sauce (a sweet molasses-type, sort of North Carolina style) were very good but maybe not the best I've ever had, but of course I had not trouble eatin' it!  Oink, y'all.  

What??? Biscuits & Gravy on Saturday at Wheatley's Friday Fish Fry

Am I the only person in Indy who didn't know about this?  Not only did Wheatley's Friday Fish Fry, on the corner of Southeastern Avenue and Northeastern Avenue in the heart of Wanamaker, start up for this year last Friday March 2nd for both lunch (11:00 to 2:00) and dinner (4:00 to 8:00) every Friday through November, but they are now also open Saturday mornings for biscuits & gravy, eggs and/or hash browns. Wheatley's is reason enough in itself to visit Wanamaker.  I've run into many a fellow downtown office worker who has also made the trip there just for lunch. You can't beat the great no-frills fried fish, french fries, cole slaw, and baked beans, and in Spring when the weather is nice it's quite a treat to sit at one of the outdoor tables and breathe in the fresh grass and small-town ambiance while you munch on your humongous fish samich.  On this chilly March Saturday, however, we drank coffee and ate our biscuits in one of the two dining rooms, the one with picnic-type tables with padded benches and plexiglass on the tops covering historic photos of various Wanamaker sights.  Being from the South, I can barely tolerate most restaurants' sausage gravy, which is usually differentiated from the wheat paste with which we used to make papier mache birds in elementary school only by the use of milk and occasional odd bits of sausage (although Bob Evans' is a notable exception).  Wheatley's, however,  has it right, with gravy that has the flour browned just so and just the right amount of seasoning, crumbled sausage, and sausage grease.... Hey! It's SAUSAGE GRAVY, dangit!  You wanna eat healthy, go to the HOSPITAL!

UPDATE: 07/17/2012--  The Fish Fry is now open Saturday, 11:00 am to 4:00 pm, and they serve the biscuits and gravy from 8:00 right up until that time.  We got there at about 10:30, and maybe because it was so late, they didn't have any eggs or bacon like the last time we were there, just biscuits & gravy and hash browns, which were just as good, though.  I've been told that the place has new owners, but can't confirm that.  Let's hope they carry on the tradition without too many changes....

UPDATE: 08/04/2012-- The sign in the window says they will now be open on Sundays for Fried Chicken! Woohoo!  We went a week later on Sunday and had the fried chicken-- a two-piece dark with two sides is $5.99 and a two-piece white is $6.99, and they also sell it by the piece.  The sides included green beans, macaroni & cheese, and mashed potatoes.  There may have been another side, but I don't remember 'cause I'm old, y'know (it was corn-- see next update below).  We both had the two-piece white with mashed potatoes and green beans:  The coating on the chicken could have used some more seasoning for my Southern tastes, but it was still decent and the chicken was perfectly cooked, really tender and juicy on the inside.  The mashed potatoes were made just right, and the Little Woman raved about the chicken gravy on the taters-- very tasty.  The green beans were just okay to me, because where I come from they have to have some ham or some bacon grease in 'em to taste good and these had neither of those, sorry.  All in all, though, it was a great Sunday meal.

UPDATE, 05/18/2014:  It's as if they read the update above:  the green beans were a little salty but tasted excellent, as did the cut corn, and the coating on the chicken was also more seasoned and quite flavorful, maybe the best restaurant fried chicken I've had in a long time.  The Little Woman again raved about the chicken gravy on those really good mashed potatoes.  We also ordered a breaded tenderloin sandwich that was DA BOMB (if people still say that)-- it was sort of a hybrid, not so pounded out as to be wheelcover-size, and thick but not so thick as to be hard to bite off a piece.  It was tender, juicy on the inside, and seasoned to a turn, as my grandma used to say.  I'm tellin' ya, the folks at Wheatley's really knows how to fry some stuff!  YUM-O!

   

La Margarita: Slightly Upscale Mexican

La Margarita Restaurant and Tequila Bar just recently opened in the heart of Fountain Square at Virginia Avenue and Woodlawn Avenue (part of the old GC Murphy Building).  It has a trendy, comfortable decor and  quite a selection of tequilas behind the bar, of which I was unable to sample any because it was lunchtime and I was working, dangit! We were immediately presented with tortilla chips and three different salsas:  a pureed spicy tomato sauce similar to other restaurant's salsas, a spicy green tomatillo salsa that I found to really delicious, and a watery kind of pico de gallo that was good but hard to keep on the chips.  The chips themselves were thick, hard, and crunchy, so much so that I got a fragment stuck in my gum, but it did have good flavor, right up until I pried the chip shrapnel out with a drink straw....  I had the lunch special quesadilla & tortilla soup combo and the Little Woman ordered a taco salad.  The quesadilla was a little smaller than I expected and the outside was a toasty brown, also unexpected but quite tasty.  The tortilla soup was a little bland for my taste, compared to say, Don Pablo's (maybe La Margarita's is more true Mexican-- most of the food I had in Mexico had more subtle flavors than the way they're presented in the US).  The taco salad had very fresh greens and was in a pastry bowl that, like my quesadilla, was more browned than we're used to, but it was nevertheless tasty.  At $7.25, lunch was moderately tasty and not a bad deal, but it didn't provide the giant mounds of food you usually get at your run-of-the-mill Mexican restaurants.  If we go back it will likely be just for a tequila tasting....  !Andale!

Don Hall's Castleton Grill: The Decathlete of Restaurants!

Okay, the Castleton Grill is just outside the Castleton Square Mall is not on Indy's Southside, but you should know about it in case you're ever hungry after a day shopping at Mall and don't want to pay the hostage-ransom priced food places that are actually IN the Mall, but don't want to go far from there to eat.  In our case, we go there as part of our special occasion getaways.  On Valentines Day, for instance, we went 'way up north to Eddie Merlot's, then drank in the bar of and stayed the night in the Four Points Hotel. The next day after a night of passionate lovemaking (Hey! It's my blog, I'll fantasize if I want to), we went to Castleton Grill for brunch. I call CG the decathlete of restaurants because "Jack of All Trades" is just SO cliche, and "Master of None" doesn't automatically go with the title.  CG offers a rich and varied menu of comfort food, like a Denny's on steroids, and it makes all of its dishes very well. There is a full bar, too: they have an awesome Bloody Mary, which is unequaled by any other restaurant or bar's Bloody Mary, and on Sundays it's on special presumably because it is a great hangover cure, if indeed such a thing exists.  The drink itself is a large one of the horseradish-imbued variety, with a generous amount of Hair of the Dog and a wonderful combination of the lime, celery salt, pepper, and spices you would expect in a Bloody Mary.  But oh, the accompaniments that come with it!  There are two stalks of asparagus, a stalk of celery, a pickle wedge, a sliver of red bell pepper, and its crowning glory, a single bite of sirloin steak!  It is almost a meal unto itself, and is even worth the 8 bucks they charge for it during the week.  On our most recent visit, the Little Woman had the Flank Steak Sandwich that was not the Great Steak Sandwich that Kyler is trying to find, but was more like a Penn Station sandwich, and just as good.  I had a Patty Melt, which was two 1/4 pound patties ensconced in two pieces of wheat toast and surrounded by bacon and giant gobs of Swiss cheese, accompanied by the best onion rings I've had in a long while.  I've never had the same thing twice there, only because there are so many menu items I have yet to try!  Until our next special occasion, I await the delight that is Don Hall's Castleton Grill!    

Great China Buffet: Not Different, but Really Good.

Great China Buffet,  in the strip mall (sigh) on the northeast corner of Madison & Hanna, is not to be confused with Fun China Buffet, or Great Wall Buffet, or China Buffet.  If there is anything individual about Great China Buffet, it was that is is the neatest, cleanest Chinese buffet I've ever been in, with the nicest proprietor I've ever met-- I wander around buffets like an Alzheimer's patient in Grand Central Station until I finally cover every bar, so I can choose only what I want from their humongous cornucopias of goodness, and he twice asked me very nicely if he could help me find something, and since no cops or ambulances arrived to take me back to the home I can only assume he was really trying to be helpful. Almost all of the dishes offered were the standard Chinese fare (with one exception- they had roasted chicken thighs that had been cooked bone-in and then sliced, bone-in. They were very good if you're not squeamish about exposed bone marrow-- the meat charred a little on the outside and tender inside.), but all the dishes I sampled were well-prepared and tasty.  This place and Tokyo Buffet (see previous post) are now my go-to Asian buffets.

The Acropolis-- Unpretentious Old World Greek

The Acropolis, on Southport Road just west of Madison Avenue, is an unassuming mom & pop place, both inside and out.  The Greek-style columns on the front of the building (sorry, they taught me the difference between Doric and Ionic columns in junior high school but danged if I can remember which is which) are understated but nevertheless a nice touch.  The inside decor is simple cafe style but with nice tablecloths (my old buddy Jim the Scumbag Attorney said you have to tip at least 20% if the restaurant has tablecloths. It was his one gesture toward decency and good manners.) There is nothing understated about the food, though.  Everything I've ever had there is deeelicious, and an excellent value for the price, which is $$ on a $$$$ scale.  Every trip to a Greek restaurant should include Saganaki as an appetizer, a plate of 1/4 inch thick slices of white cheese (Casera, Gus said) into which rum (not ouzo) is poured and then lighted.  Mmmm... flaming cheese with toasted pita bread for dipping! Mmm.... Mmm.... Oh! Anyway, all the food is great there.  If you don't know anything about Greek food you can always just order a gyro: a mixture of roasted lamb meat and beef on pita bread with onions, feta cheese, and tzadziki, a kind of creamy cucumber sauce (I'm sure you can get some sort of American food for that one person in your party with OCD who REFUSES to eat anything they've never eaten before).  There is a full bar also, and The Little Woman and I both have a shot of ouzo, although I'm not a big fan of that licorice-flavored Greek liquor.  I've never compared the price-per-ounce, but I'm pretty sure you could buy the green Nyquil cheaper and enjoy the same taste. The Acropolis is open every day of the week, but if you go during August check to make sure, because Gus the owner and his family go back to Greece to research new recipes (or so they tell the IRS) for a couple of weeks.  O-pa!

A Guest Review-- Vito Provolone's: Old Fashioned Italian

My brother-in-law sent me his impressions of Vito Provolone's in the strip mall on Meridian Street just north of Meridian School Road (it's a Strip Mall World here in the Midwest, folks).  Being as lazy as the next guy, I've included his musings here so I don't have to write a review myself, although I will say that I concur with his conclusions.  I love Vito's, and though it's a nice traditional sort of Italian restaurant with many fine dishes, the pizza there is the best I've found in Indy on any side of town.  Anyway, here is my bro-in-law's review, with some editing for content and so it will run in the time allotted.  He writes:

As a father of four I know about feeding teenagers. My youngest son is turning 16 years old and as good parents we wanted to take him out for dinner. The obvious thought was Taco Bell (ask any teenager and, for his/her money, Taco Bell rules!), but we wanted something more mature and less generic. Qdoba came to mind since we are not part of the 1%, but much to our surprise my son said he would like an Italian spot. The Little Woman and I were pleased since we both enjoy grub from the"boot"country, too. The Son said, however, that he didn't want to go to any "mall" type Italian places (He made air quotes with his fingers, like Doctor Evil talking about a "LASER").  I asked people from work and all the votes were for Vito Provolone's (except for one for The Old Spaghetti Factory, which would have been okay but we really didn't want to go downtown during Super Bowl week).


Off we went to a place of which I have heard for years but never visited. It was a Godfather's Pizza back when I used to pass it on the way to school on horseback or in the buckboard. .I don't think Mr.Caine still owns the place (or is even still breathing) but you never know!  We didn't need reservations and were greeted and seated quickly. A polite serving staff made sure our every need was met. There was even a complimentary treat for my Birthday Boy (I use the Boy term loosely, as he is a foot taller than me).
   
My wife can be a discerning (see "picky" in the dictionary) eater, but Sonny has Dad's sense of adventure. Son was torn between ordering lasagna or something he was worried he might not be able to pronounce (I love that boy, but as a teenager, not being embarrassed is everything to him!).  I knew Mom would opt for the pizza, because who could go wrong with that, right?(Note from SSBF: I did go wrong with pizza, once: With my blessing you may order any of the delicious dishes at Napoli Villa in Beech Grove except the pizza, trust me. -ed.) She was very pleased, although she thought they might've skimped on the cheese a little, but maybe that's the way it's done in Italy.  Sonny opted for the ravioli and soup (What, no salad?? I can't believe he hates lettuce.... Maybe he ain't my kid!), and given a choice between minestrone and cream of mushroom, he turned up his nose at the mention of mushrooms (WHAT??? Honey, what does our mailman look like?)


The boy had never had minestrone, but Captain's Wafer crackers made everything taste better. (He'd never had them, either-- maybe we should eat out more often, ya think?) A small loaf of Italian bread was nice and buttery but lacked that good gnarly garlic breath-causing flavor.  The Little Man (as I USED to call him. Our baby is all grown up, sniff sniff) really enjoyed the ravioli, saying the sauce was slightly sweet but very tasty and the lack of "chunky" tomato feel but with all the tomato taste was a real plus. He was treated to a free serving of spumoni ice cream (also new to him) and he loved it. He really liked that it came without all the birthday song and fanfare (again,  TEENAGER + EMBARRASSMENT = DEATH, Dad!  Duh!) My work buds had recommended the Pasta Diablo, but after much deliberation I chose.... wait for it.... drum roll.... building drum roll.... TA-DA! Spaghetti and Meatballs. The sauce was a little sweet and there were only two meatballs, but it was the tastiest spaghetti dish I've ever had. All in all, Vito's food was deeelicious, the price was very reasonable for the portions we received, and the servers made sure our colas and our spirits were never low!!!

Tokyo Buffet: Asian Fusion or Asian Confusion?....

Tokyo Buffet, in the big strip mall on Emerson Avenue just north of County Line Road, was an impulse lunch-- we were going to eat at another place there but that wasn't open yet, so we hungrily seized upon the only open restaurant nearby, so I wasn't expecting much-- like most Mexican Restaurants, most Asian buffet places who serve primarily Americans offer pretty much the same dishes prepared the same way.  I once stumbled onto a place 'way on the Far North Side awhile back that was alone on a wooded section of road, a mystical apparition like Brigadoon.  I know I couldn't find it again today.  I went in on a whim and discovered almost all the customers were Asian, and the buffet contained many dishes I didn't recognize, with a number of them composed of only slightly-cooked sea creatures, some of which resembled large insects.  I could only bring myself eat a few of the offerings, but I was enchanted with their flavor and the apparent authenticity of the place and the food.  Tokyo Buffet leans much more toward the familiar than does that fabled mirage, but TB was nevertheless a welcome surprise.  Its dishes are generally the well-known Asian stuff, with some appearing to be Japanese in origin, others Chinese, and still others from Thailand. But get this-- they were all very, very good!

The waitress was very polite and quite sociable despite her lack of fluency in English, which led to some awkward moments a couple times when neither the Little Woman nor I understood her, but she was so darned nice we didn't want to offend her by asking to repeat what she'd just said....  She did correctly fill our drink orders, though.  I love any place where you can get a pot of hot Oolong tea, and it was even better than usual because they gave me a tiny little cup with which to drink it (that's Japanese, right? Or is it--I dunno.)  I found that although you have to keep refilling the little cup, you get a good whiff of the tea aroma each time AND each sip is hot because you've just poured it from the pot.  Brilliant!

There is a sushi bar, too, and the wife cajoled me into trying some kind of combination seafood roll, which has Japanese dressing and rice on the outside surrounding a mix of crab and "other seafood" inside- a term that gavemesomeconcernbutsinceIcouldn'tseewhatitwasIcouldpushthatoutofmindlongenoughtobiteintoit, so it was actually quite good!  There were other rolls, some containing eel, but that was more than enough raw goodness for me....   There were some other somewhat different dishes, too, one of which I can only describe as a Japanese Taquito-- something like filo dough wrapped around tempura beef and fried-- it melted in my mouth and instantly blended several different savory flavors. All the other dishes, as I said, were pretty standard fare, but some were maybe the best examples of those dishes I've had in a long while, including the Spicy Thai Chicken, Broccoli Chicken, and the Hot & Sour Soup.  It's no Kabuto, of course, but for a fraction of Kabuto's price, TB's buffet at $5.99 for lunch was well worth it. Banzai! 

Places for Super Bowl Visitors to Eat & Drink.

I'm gonna pretend someone just hittin' town might actually read this....   Obviously there are hundreds of restaurants & bars in Indy, but I thought I'd mention a few of my favorites that are unique to the city, or at least the local region:   St. Elmo's Steakhouse downtown is a great place in the old steakhouse tradition-- elegant heavy old-boardroom decor, waiters in coats,  fine wine selection, etc.  It's great, but it ain't cheap.  I've never been to Harry & Izzy's next door, which is owned by the same folks and offers the same food but with a supposedly more relaxed ambiance.  Try the Shrimp Cocktail if you like your seafood cocktail sauce chocked full of horseradish-- it'll cure any sinus congestion you might have.  Eddie Merlot's, on 96th Street east of Keystone, is part of an upscale casual chain based in Ft. Wayne that serves exquisite steaks and other elegant dishes, and has a great bar that often has a piano player or jazz trio for entertainment.  On the other end of the price/ambiance spectrum is John's Famous Stews, 1146 Kentucky Avenue, a tavern-style eatery a short cab ride from downtown that has the best spicy goulash you'll ever eat!  Other dishes are more mundane (like Broasted Chicken) but everything is tasty and well-prepared. It is said that David Letterman goes there whenever he's in town, although I've never seen him there.  The Workingman's Friend, Belmont Avenue at Turner Street, is another dumpy-looking place that serves great burgers and sandwiches; no frills, just good food and cheap beer.  Weekday lunch hour draws a heavy business crowd, so you might expect to wait a bit to be seated during those times.  Finally, my just about favorite fast food restaurant of all time is Steak 'n' Shake, a chain with which you folks outside the Midwest might not be familiar. Oh, go ahead and laugh, you local prairie dwellers!  The Steakburger in all its incarnations is still (READ MY LIPS) the Best Burger Around, as far as I'm concerned, and SnS has enough other delicious menu items to keep you interested the whole year 'round.  There, oh foreign tourist, are a couple places to start.  Ya need more, just axe me!

Jack in the Box: Meh.

I don't generally like to review chain establishments since everyone's been to one of 'em, but I heard tell the line to get in Jack in the Box, 8950 S. US31, was outrageously long the day it opened, with new restaurant-starved Southsiders dying for a taste of the famous West-Coast based chain's wares. We went a week later, but the place is still buzzing with customers and they still need an off-duty Sheriff Deputy to direct traffic at the drive-thru....   We got there at about 10:00 AM on a Sunday, so we ordered a Sausage & Egg Biscuit combo, which included Hash Brown Sticks and coffee, as well as a smorgasbord of other stuff,  including a Sirloin Burger, some Jalepeno Poppers, and two tacos.

The sausage on the biscuit was totally foreign to my Southern sensibilities:  it was thin, pale, and not very well seasoned.  It was, in a compound word, flesh-colored: I was put in mind of a veggie patty or maybe something from Motel Hell or Soylent Green.  It did, however, taste a little like sausage, although Allen Purnell would laugh if he tried it-- he and the Tennessee Pride and Jimmy Dean folks have nothing to worry about from Jack. The Hash Brown Sticks were singularly uninteresting and the Kona coffee was just okay (weak in comparison to White Castle, the standard by which I judge all restaurant coffees), but the Jalapeno Poppers were very good, better than most other fast-food places', including Arby's. The tacos weren't bad but they were as un-Mexican as can be, with a weird if not unpalatable sort of corn/burger taste.

The best part of the meal by far was the Sirloin Burger, although at $4.59 I'm not sure it's worth the expense.  It had a big, square patty that had a definite charbroiled taste, kind of like Dairy Queen's Brazier Burger or Mickey D's Angus Burger (both of which are, I think, less expensive).  It really kind of put me in mind of Burger Chef's old Super Chef, which, for you youngsters, was the big-meat sandwich of a now-extinct burger chain that existed just after the Paleozoic Era, popular at the same time as the Brontosaurus Burgers available at the drive-in on The Flintstones.  All in all, though, I could eat there and at Jack in the Box again, although I'm not sure why.....

Old Meridian Pub redux: Come for the Booze, Stay for the Food!

(Please see earlier post about Old Meridian Pub for more details about the place.)  I had only a smidgen of experience with the food at OMP the last time we were there, so we went for dinner on a Thursday, which is Steak Night:  You get a small filet or medium-sized sirloin and two sides for 8 bucks.  Any misgivings I might've had about eating there were immediately put to rest when I saw Steve, formerly the cook at the Gaslight Inn, come out of the kitchen.  I really don't know much about Steve--  I don't know his politics, whether he likes puppies or long walks on the beach, or any of that stuff, but I do know he REALLY can cook.  I had heard that Steve was working for the Mucky Duck, but alas, I can only assume that the ole' MD is still nearly poisoning its diners as before....  Oh well, MD's loss was our gain, as the OMP's dinner was da BOMB!  My filet was lightly seasoned and cooked to perfection, tender enough to melt in your mouth.  As I've said about some other dishes, I dunno what makes a great baked potato, but this one was equal to the best steak house potatoes I've ever had, and the macaroni & cheese (a potato AND macaroni?  Hey, it was Carb Day as far as I was concerned!), while maybe not the absolute best I've had, was darned good.  The drink specials included a bucket of 5 domestic beers for $10 and my favorite-- their house wine, a Chilean variety, for $2.50 a glass!  (Again, Schneider's take note!)  This was our best trip to OMP yet, and not our last, for sure.

An Update:  An acquaintance of ours went to OMP on a Friday and got the Prime Rib, said it was tasteless, lacked any kind of seasoning.   Although I find that hard to believe, I thought I'd note it for fairness' sake.  Apparently Steve wasn't working that night, but it seems like they would still have his recipes. Hmmmm.....

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Another buddy just told me he went on a Friday and ordered Prime Rib, and it was the best he'd eaten in a long time!  Go figure, but knowing Chef Steve I'd say the one bad comment was a fluke, an anomaly, an aberration, a, a, a, er,  HONEY GET ME MY THESAURUS!

UPDATE, 07/30/2012:  Came to OMP after a disappointing visit to Meridian Fall Bar & Grille (see review) and again was pleasantly surprised.  Well drinks were two, two, two dollars each!  We had the Double Dog Dare, two 1/4 pound chili dogs with chips for $7.99.  The dogs and the chili were delicious (beef wieners and real chili, not coney sauce), although they were on Kaiser rolls which stood up to the massive wieners and chili better than a hot dog bun would, but which were a little more dense and bread-y than I would've liked. I looked around and noticed that the clientele was mostly 35+ in age, although I'm not sure why that is.  OMP doesn't have live music or a dance floor, but it does have great food and drink for a great price.  Cheers!

Mexico City Grill - Like the Others, Only Better

You may have seen in the entry on the now-defunct Tequila's the lament that most Mexican restaurants seem to be the same, however well the food is done.  Well, Mexico City Grill isn't really that much different than the others, but we reeeeally liked it, nevertheless.  The decor is faux aged yellow stucco on the interior, with places where the stucco has faux-aged so much that  faux bricks are showing through.  It's kind of hokey, but I found the muted colors more relaxing than the neon-bright hues of places like El Meson. We got off on the right foot with some of the best chips and salsa I've ever had, and that's sayin' something!  As I've said, I dunno what makes great salsa, but MCG sure does-- there was a lot of cilantro in there, but there were other flavors as well.  The chips may not have been home-made but they were fresh and warm.  My Texas Fajitas were da bomb, with perfectly sauteed onions & peppers, relatively tender skirt steak strips, and bigger-than-average shrimp and pieces of chicken, and the little woman's Nachos Supreme had especially well-seasoned ground beef and cheeses. All in all the food was GREAT!  ... and not too expensive, either!  Oh yeah, the draft Dos Equis beers were good and cold, and only $3.99 for a 32-ounce mug.  !Vamanos alli!