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!

   

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!