Double blech (I’ve been twice).
Boring…Boring…OMG Boring. Do we really need more mass retail family food places in the midwest? Especially one downtown on Mass Ave!?! What happened here CRU? Mesh and Stonecreek are on target…this place belongs in the far suburbs with a huge stack of high chairs at the door and placemats the kids can draw on … OR … Get a chef.
photos courtesy of funcityfinder.com
108 East Kirkwood, Bloomington, IN 47408 • (877) 440-FARM
ANY CHEF THAT MAKES SPOONS OUT OF COOKIES IS ALL RIGHT BY ME
What a quirky place. It’s one of those wonderful places that knows who it is, where it is and what it’s doing philosophically while backing up the whole thing with deliciously flavorful food and great service. What seems at first sight as a quaint tearoom / antique mall / run-for-the-hills-the-food-here-is-all-about-chicken-salad kinda place quickly gives way to a funky industrial warehouse whimsy that immediately makes me think something interesting is going on here.
FARMBloomington is the socially-conscious, green-minded, locally produced food brain child of Indiana native chef Daniel Orr. The low-brow menu consists of down home comfort foods brought up to culinary scratch with playful ingredients and worldly flavors; Seared scallops with red curried cauliflower and chili vinegar…Waygu beef hamburger with sunny side up duck egg and wasabi mustard…and a customer favorite of minty green pea guacamole. The gourmet pizzas are rustic (and outstanding) as are the FARMfamous Garlic Fries…yes…I said garlic fries.
The FARMbar is also outstanding. A full selection of luxury bourbons and single malts line the indiana small town turned rock and roll bar ledge. The service is friendly and fun and you immediately sense from the diversity and educated tone of the staff and customers that you are in a university town.
Farm Bloomington will serve me well as a nice long drive reward from downtown Indy or a lazy day pit stop on the way back home from Brown County. Sunday nights are reserved for the sous chefs to shine (and give the regular chefs the night off) and the menu and crowds are pared down.
Buying a copy of the FARMfood, the green living book by Chef Orr, I was tickled to see not only a large selection of spice combinations and sauce recipes but also a list of preferred cooking preparations for Hoosier game ranging from Oppossum, Raccoon, Groundhog, Squirrel and Turtle. Hey…keeping local food tradition alive isn’t always pretty (though I bet oppossum is good).
Check out Chef Daniel Orr’s FARMBloomington Blog by clicking here
BEST RESTAURANT IN TOWN
What’s there to say about the food … that it comes from local celebrity chef Greg Hardesty means its thoughtful seasonal food that is beautifully cooked with a interesting point of view. I was so angry at this town after the close of Elements where I first became a monthly fan of his kitchen creations. Now I breathe a little easier knowing there is once again a restaurant in town I don’t have to apologize for and a place I can call my own whenever I need something special.
The single meal concept culinary trend…or should I say culinary reaction… is a deliberate answer to the massive over abundance of choice, forcing fresh and anything you want when you want it tradition this country nurtured through the last 15 years. Its’ the best result of a chef-owned restaurant. Amen to that.
The $52 per person price tag (varies per menu day of course) for a three course meal keeps the quality high and the place mostly filled with business dinners during the week and empty nesters and younger foodies on the weekends.
Great news article link here from IBJ on the restaurants success…great videos of Hardesty talking about the struggles and rewards of this venture….plus a little more info about his upcoming casual next door restaurant Rm. 4 which plans on serving tasty short-order comfort food.
>8110 N College Ave, Indianapolis, IN 46240, (317) 251-2294
“ON TIME” IS DEFINITELY “NOT”
It was surprising to walk into On Time Chinese Restaurant yesterday and see it was just as clean and bright as when it first opened two years ago. It’s a large, open, dim sum food hall type space with a traditional event stage in one corner, booths hugging the walls and large round lazy-susan tables running down the center…all crammed into the almost vacant, slightly decrepit strip mall north of Saraga International Grocery Store just off Lafayette Road.
A regular Friday afternoon lunch and no more than a handful of the fifty or so customers were not Chinese…good for the expectation of authentic Chinese food…but bad for service since it became apparent the key to getting your food served “On Time” was to yell across the restaurant in Mandarin what you wanted next.
After being treated by the hostess like an unwanted guest at a private wedding reception (and actually being frowned at by a male waiter), my pot of green tea turned cold over the next hour as large soup tureens, mounded plates of vegetables and wooden buckets full of rice (all ordered after me by the way) were quickly served onto other tables. At the one hour and five minute mark since ordering it was time to leave. Making my way to the door, the waitress ran up to my table with a small plate of chive dumplings. It was another fifteen minutes until the rest of the order arrived and then only after pulling two servers aside to demand the check.
It was hard ordering dim sum off their menu that had the chance of actually being made on location rather than thawed from the freezers of large Chinese food distributors in New York (not a single fresh vegetable dim sum on their menu by the way). The fried turnip cake and minced shrimp stuffed green peppers (Yeung Ching Jui) were the only items that tasted somewhat fresh from the kitchen. The rice in lotus leaf (Non Moi Gai) is better from the frozen food section in Saraga to boil at home and the pork dumplings (Sui Mai) which are always a traditional highlight of any dim sum meal, were just the right temperature to melt through the table down to the center of the earth. The fried shrimp and pork dumplings were tired and dull and the black bean sauce with the steamed chicken feet came from a bottle.
Weekday Dim sum in this town are far and few between (RIP Yum Yum) and they are all pretty much the same identical mass produced distributor bought giant bag frozen variety…but…at least you can get them other places without the attitude and “On Time.”
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Indianapolis, Indiana
NUMMY YUMMY CHILLA-QUILES!
I’ve finally found a good Mexican breakfast place in this town…in Broad Ripple no less (a village notorious for its repugnant Mexican)…and open in time to fill up on the way to work (opens at 7am everyday including Sunday). Biscuits is located in the strip mall tucked along the east side of the Monon on 62nd, and is full of home spun Mexican comfort food classics (I had fantastic chilaquiles for breakfast with a pico, guac and green salad side, beans and rice for $6.50) and diner food that Denny’s could call home.
This is exactly the type of low budget, locally owned family run diner that sustains food culture. Come on people!…there’s even a counter to sit at with stools.
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Indianapolis, Indiana
JUST LIKE MY GRANDMA’S GAS STATION
This was only the second time I’ve eaten at Maxine’s. The first was to expose a Jewish New Yorker friend now living in Paris to the southern tradition of chicken and waffles… and this time it was out of guilt for living just down the street and not supporting food diversity so close to home.
The family run restaurant is attached to the gas station at the corner of east and Ohio. Yes, that’s right, I said attached to a gas station. It’s somehow fitting in my mind though to have soul comforting casual food tucked in behind a service station. Go figure.
Both times were on a Sunday for lunch and the place was standing room only. Nicely mixed crowd of people looking for a family meal after church, a rest on their way to the colts game or just looking to tuck in to some smooth comfort food.
We started off with fried corn cakes with peach butter…YUM! They were perfect; slightly carmelized yet spongy, warm and rich. I would have been happy getting three orders for my meal and calling it quits.
I had a tall glass of D&K (half lemonade and half sweet tea) which is served on the sweet side of sugar. I ordered mine with regular tea and lemonade instead and was reminded of a wonderful taste from somewhere in my childhood. It’s something I plan on resurrecting in my adult life.
Although I came in for chicken and waffles I ended up ordering the catfish dinner with a side of grits and fried green tomatoes. The dinner came with three large deep fried catfish fillets in a perfectly thin crispy cornmeal coating. None of that muddy catfish taste or sour fry greese taste on these filets. The fish was clean, fresh and its crust seasoned lightly with a few shakes of classic black pepper, salt and cayenne. The fried green tomatoes were excellent and won my heart. Their hot, sweet, garden green taste will bring me back again. The grits unfortunately were nothing special, They were a huge portion mind you, but a nudge in either the savory or sweet direction from the kitchen would have been helpful.
The wait staff and cooks are friendly, smiling and happy to see you. The food is solid southern home cooking and you’re left feeling like you’ve just had a meal at your southern Grandma’s kitchen table…uh…gas station. The food is what it is…fattening, sweet, fried, inexpensive, friendly comfort food that feels good and tastes great.
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Indianapolis, Indiana
MORE PLEASE!
I was dubious…afterall, I have such yawnful food memories tied into that dump of a building that housed the Canary Café for all those years that I wasn’t sure anything culinary could grow out of its ashes. The Saffron Café however seems to be growing like a well tended flower.
The place was packed with people and the wonderful odor of braised meats with garlic and onions made it almost impossible not to say “yum” as you walked up to the entrance. Inside and spilling out onto the patio were large tables full of families with children, small two toppers of otherwise romantic couples, lots of locals and a ton of foreigners looking for something different. We ran into friends from the Philippines, Australia and South Africa and the people at the table next to us were from England and France….all this in the space of my living room!
I ordered a Alhambra beer and started off with plates of Hummus, Zaalouk (a Moroccan style eggplant spread) and Bakoula (a classic spinach spread) served with feta cheese, kalamata olives, tomato, cucumber, artichoke hearts and warm pita. The hummus was beautifully smooth and the Zaalouk perfectly chunky. Good olive oil everywhere and just enough lemon to zing it up. The Zaalouk could have used a splash of chili oil and they were skimpy on the artichoke hearts.
The lamb tagine was perfect home-style cooking. The portion was large and the beautifully braised chunks of leg of lamb floated in a dark unctous gravy with peas, artichoke hearts and pickled lemon. It was wonderful. I devoured every last drop and soaked the beautiful sauce up with hot crusted bread. Chef Sentissi on one of his many rounds through the house was honored with my accolade of the food being “serious home cooking!”
All of the desserts are made on location and while the Tiramisu was ok (I prefer the Sienese style which has a harder custard and a stronger coffee and liquor taste) the baklava was top notch. next time? The Harrira smelled wonderful and the Kafta Kabbab looked delicious.
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Indianapolis, Indiana
