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!