Windows On The World-- Never Forget.

Some folks didn't really understand my last blog entry about this place (Windows on the World: End Of An Era, blog entry for 09/11/11), which wasn't in a strip mall.  It was a restaurant at the top of one of the World Trade Center towers.

It's Patriot Day - never forget.

Britton Tavern - Good, Not Cheap.

So on Saturday afternoon we'd helped clean up our niece's new house in Fishers in preparation for their move-in and were extreeemely thirsty, punched "bars & nightclubs" into the GPS and came up with the Britton Tavern at 141st Street and State Road 37 in (yep) a strip mall.  This establishment is rather big, generally clean, and kind of generic, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.  What hit me first about the place was its really good sound system, with the rock muzak playing very rich with bass notes and sound emanating from what seemed to be many, many speakers.  They publish a new glossy menu each month with the bands scheduled to play there (I recognized the names of several popular Indy-area bar bands), along with the drink and food specials.  Classy, I tell ya!

It was a beautiful day, so we sat in the small outdoor seating area and took in the sunshine and the traffic noise from SR37....  The bartender was friendly without being obsequious, the service was good, and the draft beer was really cold, a real plus at any bar.   The only (slight) drawback was that our 64 oz. pitcher of Dos Equis Amber was $16, which is only 4 bucks a pint, not terrible for import draft at a bar, but  it hurt a little bit after having paid only $6 for the same size pitcher of Pacifico at Bojack's in Franklin the Saturday before.  Still and all, I would go here again, I think.  Slainte!

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! 

Meridian Falls Bar & Grille: Soon to Be a Happenin' Place-- Maybe

Meridian Falls Bar & Grille, on Old Meridian Street a block or so south of Epler Avenue, is in a beautiful building just down the street from the Old Meridian Pub, which is about the best thing I can say about the place at this point, but it had only been open about two weeks or so when we went there.  The building used to be the offices and design center of a company that did major home remodeling, and it still retains the lush carpet and boardroom-style woodwork.  The bar itself is in a room with stone walls, a vaulted ceiling with a large skylight, and four small chandeliers.  A large patio-style sliding door opens out onto a humongous multi-level deck area with three different gazebos (one of which has a leather pit-group seating area), and there is even a little man-made waterfall at the bottom-- WOW! They are advertising live entertainment every weekend, and it looked like one of the gazebos is going to be used as the bandstand. I was told that for now there was a limited food menu but we couldn't see one because at that hour the owner was still printing them out.  Their special that day was supposed to be a hamburger with a fried egg on it.

And that is the end of the good part.  The food, drinks, and service are so far much less than impressive.  Regular beer and drink prices are 'way on the high side for my plebeian tastes:  Well drinks are $4, call drinks are $7, domestic beers $3.25, and crafts & imports $3.75.  The night we went there, the special was domestic drafts for $2.50 and wells for $3, but apparently nobody told the cash register, as our bill did not reflect the advertised savings, but by that time we were wanting out of there so badly we didn't complain.  I'd heard that the POlice had been called to remove someone the night they opened, and when I asked about it one of the employees (who took time out from arguing with the bartender about something) told me it was a disturbance between the owner and one of his "sweat equity" partners, a renovation contractor.  All the staff (and all the clientele, while we were there) had a kind of redneck rough & tumble appearance that seemed to indicate that MFB&G is gonna be one of those combat nightlife places I would have loved to visit when I was 19 years old, but which try my geezer patience these days.  We left and went down the street to Old Meridan Pub, where on that same night well drinks were $2.  Oh!  I forgot to mention, too, that the sliding door being left open several times led to a small swarm of flies in the area of the bar, most of which (except for a couple of  'em that were caught in a long cobweb hanging from the skylight) wanted to land on The Little Woman, probably because she's so sweet!  :-)

UPADATE 11/25/2012:  I've heard that the place closed down, but haven't been by to see.  One of the rumors was that a local neighborhood group persuaded ABC or Excise or someone to close them, but again, I don't know anything definite....  Boohoo(?)

UPDATE 08/29/2013:  The place is now called Private Reserve, a private club.  The sign out front said they sell annual and short-term memberships, whatever that means.

Motor Inn Truck Stop: A scene from the movie: They Drive By Night!

If you read the post about Dave's Place, you know we went to see my brother-in-law near Delphos in Northwest Ohio a couple weeks ago.  It's a funny kind of region to me, because there are no really big towns nearby, but there is an extensive network of small-to-medium-sized metropoli all about a half-hour's drive from each other, so you end up going to Celina to buy hardware and then to Van Wert to eat, then to Lima to go to the movies and so on, although for extensive shopping trips you might go all the way to that bodacious burg of Ft. Wayne, Indiana.  

Similarly, there is only one Interstate Highway anywhere near the area, I-69 through Ft. Wayne.  In this area the old US Highways are still the predominate routes to travel, with many of them being modern limited-access highways just like the Interstate except for the fancy red, white, and blue signs (and Federal financial support?).  Just as the US routes are still King, independent truck stops are apparently still numerous in the region, of which the Motor Inn Truck Stop, on US 127 at US 33 outside of Mendon, OH, is a prime example,. an ancient but well-maintained small concrete-block building in the middle of a vast ocean of asphalt with a giant canopy for truck and car refueling. The gas-station/convenience store side is old and kind of spartan, reminiscent of the small-town bus stations of my childhood in the 1960's (my Dad was a Greyhound driver, so I saw a lot of 'em).  The dining room, however, is quite modern, and the food draws many local residents as well as truckers and travelers. The service was decent even during the busy after-church rush on Sunday: We had to wait  ten minutes before a table opened up, but when one did they bussed it and had it ready for us in seconds.  The menu was good down-home food that was somewhat different from the menus at the big company truck stops:  I ordered Fried Rabbit, which was the first time I'd ever had that, and yes, Virginia, it does taste sort of like chicken!  The meat all tasted like white meat, though, and it was somewhat more dense than chicken but every bit as tasty.  The green beans were very good, with just enough bacon (and bacon grease?) to make it interesting.  When I started dipping bites of rabbit into the left-over gravy from my wife's plate (her biscuits and gravy were decent but it was white milk gravy instead of the southern-style sausage gravy I crave), the waitress, busy as she was,  brought me a small bowl of gravy of my own without even asking!  It's little touches like that which make me really appreciate Midwestern hospitality.  Ya, you betcha I do!  See www.motorinntruckstop.com  for pitchers....

Dave's Place in Delphos, OH

Dave's Place, on Sterling Road near Delphos, is (yay!) not in a strip mall.  It's not near a major highway.  It's not really a restaurant-- it's my brother-in-law's house.  But it's a great place to be!  Dave and his wife Sandy have all the family over once a year, and the place is great for guests.  They have a 150' x 30' swimming pond (as we passed through the countryside we saw a number of these) with a sandy bottom, a shallow wading area, and a deep part for diving.  There are two big decks and a giant float on which to laze and drift while leisurely guzzling your beer, which is great when ya have great nephew Uriah to act as cabana boy/beer man so you don't have to leave the float except to pee, and not even then for some of us!  (Just kiddin', Dave!)  The whole place is surrounded by corn fields-- there're two neighboring houses about a quarter mile away, but otherwise there aren't any neighbors to be disturbed by your music, or your partygoers, or your gunshots (so Dave should remember that if he ever gets the notion to come home drinkin' with lovin' on his mind....)  Dave is a restaurateur by profession, so naturally he knows how to cook and put out a spread, and OH! the apple pies were DA BOMB!

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!