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!