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.   ;-)