The Peppy Grill: New Life for a Fountain Square Institution

I have no idea how old the ridiculously tiny Peppy Grill, 1034 Virginia Avenue in Indy, really is.  When I came here 23 years ago it had been owned by Jerry Wyman and later his ex-wife Mary for many many years, and they ran a pretty tight ship.  At that time it was one of very few Southside eating establishments that was open all night, so it was a hub of activity in the wee hours, with a mixture of hungry cops, thieves, repo men, drunken night club goers, and early-shift factory workers all sitting down across from each other in order to get some good basic diner food.  (They gave cops a 50% discount except during the hours of 3 to 5 a.m., when the cops were asked not to come in because they frightened away the drunks.  A small bit of corruption, I suppose, but hey, bidness is bidness and ya gotta respect that, y'know?) Alas, at some point Mary retired and sold the place, and thereafter it suffered a long, slow decline as it passed from one lazy or inept owner after another.  The last time I tried to eat there was about 2 years ago, when I sat there for almost 30 minutes without anyone lifting a finger to help me, so I left and never went back.

A Facebook post saying the Peppy was under new management brought me back, however, and on a Saturday morning we journeyed to Fountain Square.  At 10:00 in the morning the place was full of twenty-something hipsters, and if they're the new face of Fountain Square, I'm all for it. Vive La Renaissance!  There was only one waiter and he didn't seem terribly experienced, but he was hustling.  She ordered a Grilled Tenderloin Sandwich along with (so glad they're back!) Sour Cream Fries with Ranch dipping sauce, and I had a Western Omelet.  The service was a little slow, but the waiter guy and the owner, who called herself Grandma Suzy, kept our coffee cup and iced-tea glass filled while we waited.  I dunno what kind of coffee they used, but it was darned good, and the tea seemed to have been brewed rather than poured out of a jug from Sysco.  Since tenderloins are an Indiana tradition, everyone has their own idea about which is the best.  This one was big,  pounded thin and very well browned, which is just the way I like it, and the omelet was chocked full of onions, peppers, and tomatoes, very tasty.  Our total bill was like $23, not too bad for a $$ guy like meself.  The jury's still out on whether this current iteration makes it, but it is still nice to see the Peppy Grill full of semi-satisfied people again, even if they're not gypsies, tramps and thieves!        

Coals Artisan Pizza-- Best in the Derby City?

I've been told that Coals Artisan Pizza, 3730 Frankfort Avenue in Louisville, KY (or is it in St. Matthews? It's certainly close to downtown St.M) in the upscale shopping complex that has grown up around the old Vogue Theatre, is the closest to true New York style pizza you'll get in that fair city.  I dunno if that's true, since Louisville has a LOT of pizza places, but I do know I love Coals' pizza even if it isn't "Louisville Style", which as I understand it is the piling on of toppings without any extra cheese or sauce. (Bearno's is supposed to be a good example of Louisville style, which I always loved.  There was a Bearno's here in downtown Indy for awhile but I believe it has closed).  

Coals has a coal-fired brick oven that supposedly operates at almost 1000 degrees, which produces a delicious toasty, crispy crust in about four minutes.  It's thicker than the cracker-thin crust you get at Donato's or with Pizza Hut's Thin 'n Crispy, yet it is every bit as toasty and crisp.  The array of gourmet toppings you can get in both red and white pizza is quite varied, and several combinations of toppings are named after Louisville neighborhoods.  We had lunch there and I had the Clifton, which is a red pizza with a combination of onions, peppers and cheeses as well as Italian sausage that had me singing its praises, much to the dismay of other diners because I don't sing very well.  Some of the user reviews in TripAdvisor said this place is pricey, but the lunch deal was really decent-- a 10" personal pizza and a large side salad for $8.95  The salad was extremely fresh, and it was showered with diced cubes of mozzarella cheese.  Some reviews said the tables were too close together, but I didn't find it to be any worse than Cracker Barrel!  The orgasmic climax to this, my dream pizza experience was that they have a FULL BAR!  Woohoo!  What's not to like?  Huh?  Huh?  Mangia!

The Galt House Hotel: A Grand Deal on a Grand Hotel

The Galt House, 144 N. 4th Street in Louisville, KY right on the Ohio River, garners more respect and admiration from me every time we stay there.  It's listed in most directories as a 3.5 star hotel, which baffles me because it has every amenity you could want except for an indoor pool.  The nearby Hyatt is listed as 4 stars, and it is nowhere near as nice the the GH, as far as I'm concerned.  If you're ever planning a weekend visit to the Derby City, the Galt House is really the place to stay.  It is older but impeccably maintained and several areas have recently been renovated.  Because GH caters primarily to business travelers and convention visitors, you can really get a deal there during holiday periods when neither of those groups travel much.  The last time we stayed there was during the week between Christmas and New Year's Day, and this time we checked in on New Year's Day for two days.  Both times, we got a really great price ($53 per day + $13/day in taxes and fees this last time through Priceline.com vs. the advertised price of $114/day) and both times they upgraded us to a suite at no extra charge, which had a sitting room w/TV, a big bedroom with TV, and an elegant glass-door shower big enough for 4 people! The only drawback to being there New Year's Day was that the place seemed virtually empty except for that boy riding his big wheel and the two little twin sisters in matching dresses, whom we passed often in the hallway....  I thought at first we had no warm water, but it turns out there were so few guests that it just took a long time for the hot stuff to be drawn up to our 3rd floor room from the boiler! After running the shower for about ten minutes we finally had all the steamy goodness we needed.  

GH has 2 bars:  Al J's, which is inside the huge glass conservatory which serves as the 3rd floor bridge between the hotel's two towers, and Jockey Silks, an intimate little place on the 2nd floor of the East(?) Tower.  Al J's has a view of downtown and the river, and the bar is actually a saltwater fish tank with several varieties of fish that swim back and forth under your drink.  Jockey Silks is low-ceilinged, wood-paneled, and has an impressive array of Bourbons.  They're not cheap, but they're reasonable considering their convenient location in the hotel.  We always stop in at one or the other for a nightcap before retiring to our room.

There are three restaurants, four if you count Jeff Ruby's Steakhouse, which is not part of the hotel but is directly accessible from it.  Rivue is the $$$$ upscale penthouse restaurant that has relaxing live music and two parts of the dining area that rotate, giving you an alternatiing view of the river and the skyline.  The food there is excellent, too.  The other restaurant is on the Third Floor and is $$ for us cheapskates-- we've never eaten there, but the food looked and smelled delicious as we walked by.  Fnally, there is Thelma's, a 24/7 snack bar in the conservatory next to Al J's, which has coffee, soft drinks, pastries, and sandwiches.  If you go down to Thelma's in the wee hours, you might see an old, only slightly disheveled homeless man sitting in one of the unoccupied chairs tucked away in a corner.  He wears a once-grand trenchcoat and sits quietly, sipping his cup of Thelma's coffee or dozing. They never run him off and he never makes a sound, an unwritten charitable agreement between them, a mark of true Southern Hospitality.  God bless y'all!.

The Country Diner: True to Its Name.

The Country Diner is on SR 11 in Walesboro, IN, between Seymour and Columbus.  That is, I think it's in Walesboro, 'cause that's the last "Entering" town sign we saw on our way northbound before arriving there on our way back on January 3rd from a New Year's Day trip to Louisville.  (Hey, if Word don't call it a run-on sentence, it ain't one!)  It's a little yellow-tan concrete block building kind of in the middle of nowhere. We'd been hungry ever since leaving the Derby City, but every one of the little independent places I'd looked for on the way were either closed for good or didn't open until later in the day (I was especially peeved that Youa-Carry-Outa in Sellersburg wasn't open for lunch. What better lunch could you have than Chinese food prepared by redneck white people?)  

The Country Diner was thus a welcome little tropical island in the middle of miles of frozen countryside suffering record low (-15) temps, at least we thought it would be. After parking our truck in the lot with all the other trucks and SUV's (not a single car to be seen), however, we discovered the concrete block walls were not well insulated, as everyone in there huddled at their tables still wearing their heavy coats. I sighed a bit, thinking I would see my breath hang in the air; I didn't, but I still felt cold.  "Coffee, STAT!"  I cried, but the 19 to 21 year-old Norma Jean Baker lookalike waitress only smiled blankly.  When the coffee did come, though, it was quite good.  We suddenly discovered that in sitting down at the one open table in the place (which was the longest one in the room) we were poaching on the local Liars' Bench, because a really old guy came in and sat right down with us, looking at me as if we were Native American warriors and he expected the cavalry to arrive at any moment.  Luckily another small table in the corner opened up, and the waitress smiled with relief when we offered to move. Soon afterwards the cavalry did arrive, in the form of 5 more geezers in Carhartts and gimme caps who proceeded to the Liars' Table and began making all kinds of noise, but it was kind of entertaining to see 6 near-cadavers so animated.

The menu was your basic diner grub:  sandwiches, soup of the day, chili, burgers, and tenderloins with fries or tater tots.  She had a grilled tenderloin and I had a bacon cheeseburger, and though maybe they were nothing special they were quite good, especially since we'd been hungry all morning.  The tenderloin was rather thick, not pounded out paper thin like most places, which made it more like a pork chop sandwich.  The bacon burger was 'way decent, with bacon cooked just beyond limp and meaty so that it was just crispy enough to be good on a sandwich.  The thing that struck me most about the food was it was all so danged fresh-- soft buns, fresh crispy lettuce, just-ripe tomatoes and onions.  Add some grease and salt and you would've had the equivalent of a Five Guys burger....  Oh, yeah, the fries were the big crinkle-cut kind, like twice the size of White Castle fries, so they were THE BEST FRIES I've had in a long time. The only bad thing about the place (besides the frigid temp) was that they don't accept credit cards... but they will take checks!  For you younger folk, a check is a piece of paper issued by the bank-- Oh, never mind!  Anyway, I'm telling ya we'll be going back there sometime, y'all!

UPDATE, 02/25/2014:  The check we wrote to the place took 2 and 1/2 weeks to clear our bank in Indy!  I dunno if they wait till they get a bunch of checks before they go to the bank, or the overland stage from Seymour to Induhnaplus failed to stop there in Daleville or what, but I think that's the longest delayed check I've ever gotten from inside the Hoosier State!  It was worth it to have as a souvenir of a fun time, though....

Jonathan Byrd's: A Cafeteria Juggernaut

I hesitate to post anything about Jonathan Byrd's on Sheek Road in Greenwood,  because it is such a giant place it's almost like reviewing a chain,  and almost everyone I know has eaten there at least once, so what's the point, right?  We hadn't been there in ages, because back when I was a Big Eatin' Man, cafeterias were just not cost-effective for me--  I had to eat so many of those ala-carte items to be satisfied that inevitably the price was equal to that of a much fancier restaurant.

Two things have changed, though:  These days I be old, so I don't eat as much, and most cafeterias now have package deals, although not the meat-and-three like they have in the South, but usually an entre and two sides for like $8.99, which fits my $$ sensibilities.  I had the Fried Chicken, which was not the Indiana style to which I'm accustomed-- it had a light sort of partial coating rather than one of  the usual thick, crusty types. It was tasty but not highly seasoned, as is almost all cafeterias' food, I suppose, since they seem to cater to a lot of older folks who are probably on low-salt diets and such, so it was a good thing that I brought along some No-Salt (since I'm subject to the low-sodium torture myself) to flavor things up a bit.  Everything was decent if not outstanding, and we were treated to an almost-deserted cavernous dining room at 2:00 p.m. on a Tuesday.  A bus full of blue-hairs arrived shortly after we did, though, but we never saw them again--I believe they were swallowed up by the banquet room in the back....  There is also a small cafe, JB's, which has things like box lunches and pies to-go and has a drive-through window, too.  All things considered, it was very good even though I rather prefer the more down-home comfort food at Gray Brothers' Cafeteria in Mooresville, but there is the advantage of not having to stand in line forever like you do at GBC.  Heck, I think you could fit all of GBC inside Jonathan Byrd's, so even if there is a wait it likely won't be long. ...Only 9 more years 'till I get the Senior Discount!  Yee-ha!

Milano Inn - Atmosphere or Food: You Decide.

Milano Inn, 231 S. College Avenue, has been in business in the same location since 1934, when Indianapolis' neighborhoods were largely defined by ethnicity.  It was originally on the border between the Italian-Danish and Irish Hill neighborhoods, although both are mere remnants of what they used to be due to downtown office and condo developments having replaced much of the produce terminals and old houses there, thus the Milano sits on a little hill pretty much by itself overlooking the Farm Bureau and Anthem Blue Cross buildings, which is good for us today in that there is ample parking available.

The first floor is all Little Italy decor, heavy dark wood with stained glass windows and a large bar with brass rails.  You can almost imagine two Mob dons having a sit down there to settle their respective organized crime territories, if Indy ever had such operations.  The atmosphere is elegant but cordial and very comfortable.  I must admit I've eaten downstairs only once, and the Italian flavors they served then were more subtle than you might expect: my Fettucine Alfredo was smoother and more creamy than the gloppy-butter stuff you get at Olive Garden.

Most of my visits to the Milano, however,  have been for the lunch buffet laid out upstairs in the 3 connected banquet rooms every weekday between 11:00 and 3:00 (I think).  For $9 you get an outrageous number of entree and side item choices, a salad bar, and a large dessert bar to boot.  If I recall correctly from my visit there yesterday, they had Teriyaki Pork Tenderloin, Fried Chicken, Eggplant Parmesan, Spaghetti with meat or Marinara sauce, Lasagne, Potatoes Au Gratin, Bacon & Chive Mashed Potatoes, green beans, corn, and Baked Potato soup.  It was all delicious, although as I said the flavors are more subtle than some folks might like, but heck, there are salt, pepper, Parmesan cheese, and crushed red pepper shakers available if you feel the need to spice things up. Get there early or late for lunch, because the Eli Lilly Co. and Anthem crowds usually fill up the noon hour.... !Quello che un affare delizioso!  !Mangia!

Angler's Cove - A Surprisingly Good State Park Restaurant.

Angler's Cove is the restaurant inside the Lodge at Greenbo Lake State Resort Park near Greenup, KY.  We stayed there on a little mini-vacation in October, and the lake was absolutely beautiful, nestled in the foothills of the Appalachians and bracketed by trees blazing with fall color.  We ate the free breakfast for guests, and it was quite appetizing, although lacking any meat except for sausage gravy on the biscuits. Someone in the kitchen there really knows his/her way around an egg, serving light n' fluffy cheese omelets one morning and light n' fluffy scrambled eggs the next. 

For dinner the place was a little quiet on a Wednesday night in the off-season, and the young wait staff seemed a little less than professional (the waiter called me "buddy" once, and the hostess was deeply engrossed in her smartphone when we walked in, although she got up immediately and seated us), so I was not expecting the food to be anything to write home about.  I was WRONG, however:  I ordered the Hot Brown, a Kentucky specialty (which originated at the Brown Hotel in Louisville in the 1920's) that typically consists of toast points placed in the bottom of a baking dish, covered with slices of turkey and drowned in Hollandaise sauce, then baked only long enough to brown the Hollandaise, after which two slices each of bacon and tomato are placed on top.  The Angler's Cove version adds thin-sliced country ham on top of the turkey, which vastly enriched the overall flavor of the dish, and I hate to keep using the same adjectives repeatedly, but the Hollandaise sauce was THE lightest and THE fluffiest I've ever had, and I've eaten a lot of Hot Browns, yet another tribute to the kitchen's expertise with eggs....  We ate there one other time and it was decent, but my memory of that  is blotted out by the overwhelming sensory experience of that danged Hot Brown!  Oh,  and the bill was pretty reasonable, too.  I think it was, anyway... especially the price of that danged HOT BROWN!