The Indigo Duck: Fine Dining in The Bodacious Burg of Franklin

The Indigo Duck, 49 E. Court Street in Franklin, is a really small fine dining restaurant in a historic storefront building on the courthouse square.  It has maybe twenty tables, but also has a full bar with stools in the front part of the space just inside the door.  It's rather simply decorated, with muted lighting that lends a relaxed atmosphere to the place, which bills itself as "come as you are" Southern style.  

I was able to order duck for the second time in as many weeks, woohoo! This dish was entitled "Gunthorp Farm Grilled Duck" (promoting their local supplier), and the manner in which was cooked suited me to a T, whatever that means.  The slices of duck were crispy on the outside edges and sort of medium-well on the inside.  To me it was 'way more tasty than the seared duck I had at Piper's lasts week:  I'm no chef, but I think maybe cooking it a little more caramelizes the fat marbled into the meat of the duck to give it a little richer, saltier flavor.  It was EXCELLENT....  The Little Woman had the Low Country Shrimp & Grits, which was unlike the Shrimp & Grits we'd had when we were actually IN the Low Country of South Carolina, but not in a bad way. The grits were flavored not only by the shrimp but also by small chunks of pork mixed in as well, which made it GREAT!  The portion served was quite large, so She let me have quite a bit of it, and I felt quite fortunate.  Thank you, my lovely Queen!

The service was fairly fast and efficient, too.   I wish I could afford to eat there all the time, but t's one of those $$$ places, and unfortunately I'm a $$ kind of guy.  Dinner for the two of us including two glasses of wine was $117 with tip, but it was, uh, er, um, well DANG, my cheapskate self won't let me say "well worth the price"....  Let's just say Grace and eat, y'all, and worry about payin' later.  www.theindigoduck.com

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!