>Harvest – St Louis

by Mark on September 14, 2010 in bread pudding, Harvest, rabbit confit, St Louis with No comments

>1059 S Big Bend Blvd, St Louis, Missouri 63117

BREAD PUDDING! BREAD PUDDING! GET THE BREAD PUDDING!

The reviews everywhere are accurate…this chef owned restaurant continues to have a great reputation. Apart from the dated decor (home store sphagnum moss, tacky silk flowers and twinkle lights hanging from the ceiling, a cheap color palette taken from Olive Garden! and even a website that looks old and prissy) the food was way above average. Highlights are the rabbit confit (clean and fresh) and the Bread Pudding which is the best on the planet (I’M NOT KIDDING).

Harvest on Urbanspoon

>Istanbul Cafe – Indianapolis

by Mark on September 14, 2010 in ezme, indianapolis, Istanbul Cafe, Turkish food, veal liver with No comments

>1450 West 86th Street (86th and Ditch), Indianapolis, IN 46260, (317) 876-9810

Delicious. Affordable. Its the fresh ingredient, fine food version of the other Greek and Turkish restaurants in the area. Carefully prepared Basmati rice and delicious sauteed vegetables accompany most items and are as carefully prepared as the entrees. I don’t know why Mediterranean food in this country has usually been translated into cheap, low value “food” but Istanbul Cafe is the exception.

While some of the items have been spiced-down for Hoosier tastes (lentil soup, tilapia, dolmathes)…the servers can help you navigate some full-flavored traditional selections (ezme, veal liver, doner kebab). The menu has a nice selection of vegetarian options, the bar is full and the wine list is large.

Istanbul Cafe on Urbanspoon

>My New Favorite Treat – Persian Saffron Brittle

by Mark on September 7, 2010 in Fard Candy Company, Saffron Brittle, Sohan Ghom with 2 Comments

>

Sometimes I get so excited about a new food infatuation that I feel compelled to tell the world.

This time around it’s a Persian delicacy called “Sohan Ghom” or Saffron Brittle. It’s a skilled and secretive undertaking trying to locate recipes for this biscuit type brittle made with pistachios, cardamom and saffron. It’s not too sweet, not too hard, buttery, slightly bitter brittle that has a soft hay-like smell and a melt in your mouth richness. I can’t get enough of it!

The city of Qom (or Ghom) in Iran has been famous since antiquity for its Sohan and exports of the dessert from the region can be found in various international and middle eastern grocery stores in town. The Fard Candy company in California also uses these traditional recipes in their versions available for sale online here.

>The Tamale Place – Indianapolis

by Mark on August 22, 2010 in atole, elote, indianapolis, Masa, Pozole, Tamales, The Tamale Place with 1 Comment

>

Indianapolis, Indiana


THE TAMALE GETS A MAKEOVER

The Tamale Place owners Angela Green and Vladimir Ronces opened a new location this week for their Mexican feel good tamale store. More precisely, they shut the doors on the original location and moved everything into a freshly built-out space just 500 feet to the east! Located in the strip near the corner of Rockville and Lynhurst roads, the new location looks like a clean and tidy retail front with a lots of elbow room for making their huge tamales.

Get there early or be disappointed. The tamale selection changes daily and the early bird gets to pick. People come for the large menu of various mild, spicy, vegetarian and dessert tamales though large tortas, tacos and seasonal favorites (pozole and atole in winter and fresh elote in summer) round out the menu. Know for their great tasting fresh masa and corn tortillas, the take home sized bag of tortilla chips are thick and crunchy favorites.

The current menu is available on their website and includes traditional favorites such as poblano and cheese, pork in red sauce and chicken in mole as well as delicious new favorites such as thin cigar sized pork and beef Cubans, medium red pork Recession Tamales and dessert tamales of pineapple and raisin, pumpkin or chocolate.

The Tamale Place is known for serving up big tamales with generous amounts of meat. Too much meat if you ask me. My Hot and Spicy pork (which was neither hot nor spicy mind you) and my Chicken Verde had way too much meat on them to appreciate the masa… hey guys…I’m in it for the corn taste too!

My favorite are the smaller Cuban tamales. They’re succulent, the right mix of meat to masa and are perfectly tasty. The Poblano and Cheese are also wonderful and gain from the moisture and salt of the cheese. The Chipotle Beef were ok…a little under-seasoned but moist. The Lil’ Red Sweetie dessert tamales made me chuckle as I bit into the yummy bright red colored sugar and masa cake.

Congrats on the move guys. The new digs are nice. I hope this means business is booming and that we might see a few more of you popping up around town.

Tamales for world peace.

Tamale Place on Urbanspoon

>Pigs In The Mud – Indianapolis

by Mark on August 15, 2010 in Chocolate Bacon, indianapolis, State Fair, Vosges Chocolate with No comments

>

Indianapolis, Indiana

HERE PIGGY PIGGY!

Cooked bacon dipped in dark chocolate, frozen, gathered on a plate and sprinkled with confectioners sugar. DELISH! I’ve followed and wallowed in the bacon and chocolate trend over the last few years (Vosges Chocolate Mo’s bar, bacon and chocolate cupcakes, bacon chocolate chip cookies and chocolate covered pork cracklins to name a few) and its finally come to fruition as the best selling food item at everyman’s event, the Great Indiana State Fair. Can I get an Amen?

>Machu Picchu Peruvian Restaurant – Indianapolis

by Mark on August 10, 2010 in Aji, Choros a la Chalaca, indianapolis, Lomo Saltado, Machu Picchu, Papa Rellena, Peruvian with No comments

>Indianapolis, Indiana

GOOD ALL YEAR ROUND

It’s a hot humid summer day and of course I’m in the mood for a big bowl of steamy soup and a large hearty hot meal, right? I don’t understand it myself, but none the less I knew just where to go.

In winter I find myself tucking-in for a satisfying hot lunch at Machu Picchu Peruvian restaurant on west 38th street at least once a week. They always have large hearty lunch specials and…well…frankly, I’m addicted to their white buttered bread and Aji dipping sauce (peppers, egg, oil, cilantro and green onions…though I can’t get them to give me the exact recipe).

The $6.99 lunch special is almost always a large soup followed with a main of meat, starch and salad. The soups traditionally range from chicken, beef, barley, bean or seasonal corn. The starches are almost always rice, potatoes or yucca (or a combination of two or more…they love their carbs) and the salads are most often a twist on a salsa criolla with onions and tomatoes, cilantro or greens or maybe beets and shredded root vegetables.

Machu Picchu has always been on my favorites list for it’s good tasting quick lunchtime service. Here are a few of their menu selections that keep me coming back for more;


Choros a la Chalaca – Peruvian style Mussels on the half shell ceviched with lime, red onion, aji and rocoto peppers, corn kernels and cilantro.

Yuquitas a la Huancaína – Fried yucca sticks with creamy cheese sauce (think of it as “chips” with gravy or fries with mayonaise, etc).

Lomo Saltado – Peruvian stir fry with beef tenderloin, onion, tomatoes, french fries (mixed in) and cilantro served with white rice.

Papa Rellena – fried potato ball stuffed with minced beef heart  – HUGE portion and delicious  (think of it as rösti with minced wienerschnitzel or tater tots with meatballs).

And to top it all off make sure you order an Inca Cola (or get a 2 liter to go). I’m usually not a pop or cola fan but the lemon verbena zing of the bright yellow drink makes me smile.

$6.99 Lunch Special – Chicken and onion herb vegetable soup, fried pork
with red onion and beet salad,  fried yucca and white rice

Machu Picchu on Urbanspoon

"On Time" Chinese Dim Sum Restaurant – Indianapolis, Indiana

by Mark on July 31, 2010 in Dim Sum, indianapolis, restaurant review with 1 Comment

“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.”

Minced Shrimp stuffed green peppers and Fried Turnip Cake

On Time Seafood Restaurant on Urbanspoon

>TaTa Cuban Cafe

by Mark on July 19, 2010 in cuban bread, cuban sandwich, cubano, indianapolis, TaTa's Cuban Cafe with 7 Comments

>Indianapolis, Indiana

“THE CUBANO IS BACK”

Miami ruined me. A great Cuban sandwich is something you’d think could be made just about anywhere … but for some reason that’s just not the case. Perhaps it’s the Cuban bread, readily available and freshly baked down there but strangely elusive outside the state. Maybe its just a matter of not being able to buy the right “La Plancha” to correctly grill it? No matter what the strange mix of missing factors always seem to be, it added up to relegating my Cubano excitement to trips to south Florida.

Having given up, it was startling to see the “El Guaso” Cubano set down in front of me today at TaTa Cuban Cafe. It seemed to be just right … or close enough to just right to make me a believer once again. I’d eaten here lots…ordered this sandwich in fact more than a few times, but today it was so damn close to what is considered beautiful latin sandwich perfection that it compelled me to sound the alarm. Hot, moist, steamed and compressed…the right bread (minus the palm frond trench down the center but perfectly without the chew inside) The right amount of cheese and a beautiful Mojo sauce on the side … and only a few blocks east of the circle!

I don’t know what happened and I don’t care but I’m putting TaTa’s back on my map.

Tata Cuban Cafe on Urbanspoon

>Circle City Sweets – Indianapolis

by Mark on July 3, 2010 in Circle City Sweets, french macaron, indianapolis, Macaroons with 8 Comments

>Indianapolis, Indiana

“HELLO…MY NAME IS MARK AND I’M A MACARON ADDICT”

Anyone who knows me knows I’ll sell my soul for a French Macaron. I’ve chased them down in Paris, London, Rome, Zurich, LA, New York, Chicago and any chance I can find them I scarf them down (See earlier posts on this blog from Pierre Hermé in Paris and Paulette’s in Los Angeles). As special gifts I even have friends make them for me (please keep them coming) and when in a new city one of the first searches I do on my iphone map is for “French Macarons.”

A few months ago my iphone told me there was a cache of French Macarons just a few miles from me in the City Market. I went berserk, told everybody, went to the market and voila…nothing! Just the same old cookie dealer with a few tired American coconut macaroons. hmmph!

Then guess what happened? Technology WAS in fact faster than life and there WERE French Macarons hiding at the City Market after all, under a new vendor “Circle City Sweets.” I pounced on the place, scanned the display cases full of tarts, cakes, cookies…did I just see a financier in Indianapolis? …and something almost the shape of a Canelé…my GOD…they have Beignets on Thursday mornings once a month!?! But…alas…where were the colorful mounds of macarons stacked to perfection?

They were, as it turns out, in the freezer…[car tires screeching to a halt]…and only in three different flavors…[sound of bomb destroying planet].

I kept my head up, ordered a stack along with a few chef recommended house favorites and went on my way trying to figure out exactly how long frozen almond flour takes to defrost. It turns out it takes about 20 minutes…which also turned out to be the perfect amount of time for the clear plastic tube they were stacked in to collect their frozen condensation and damage the cargo. COME ON!

Chocolate – Good bite and chew, full flavored, not as rich as it could be but finished round in the mouth. I’ll buy again.
Raspberry – Bad color, terrible chew (wet from the tube), good strong flavor punch but finished overly sweet. No thanks.
Pistachio – Horrid color, great bite and chew, nice flavor, finished soft with a nice nut meat after taste. I’ll take two please.

I’m happy enough to have a local fix and the rest of what I tried from baker/owner Cindy Hawkins was far superior to anything else in the general area…but French Macarons are not something to take lightly. They can’t be made in ugly colors (there is a story that Ladurée took 115 batches to get the color right for their jasmine mango macaroon) nor frozen fresh … and they can’t be sold in plastic tubes like an impulse item at the grocery store. They need delicate attention and should be elevated as the best example of what a classic baker can do.

I’ll keep showing up at Circle City Sweets whenever my addiction rears its ugly head and ignore some of the artistry I have in my head for comparison. It just doesn’t feel good to have to do so.

Circle City Sweets on Urbanspoon

>Locally Grown Gardens – Indianapolis

by Mark on May 31, 2010 in Bubble Up, Hog Roast, indianapolis, Locally Grown Gardens, Roast Hog Open Sandwich, Ron Harris with 2 Comments

>Indianapolis, Indiana

BEST PIG IN TOWN

Any place with a hand painted sign sitting out front that says “Hog Roast Daily” is vying for my affection…add then a artist sensibility to merchandising locally grown greens, vegetables, herbs, boutique honeys, butters and gourmet food items, a row of delicious looking pies, a refrigerator stuffed with vintage and boutique colas (Indian Bubble Up, Jamaican Koala Champagne, Victorian Lemonade,) and a seasonal menu of beautifully crafted food…I’M IN LOVE!

Locally Grown Gardens is located in a small service station building facing 54th street, but just like it’s products, the space is beautifully simple. Out front a few cushioned winged back chairs, several small low tables and two sturdy picnic tables are scattered between clumps of potted flowers and herb plants for sale. There is a small out-of-the-sun dinning area inside with a large harvest table and library with books on cooking, ingredients and gardening.


A large blackboard at the back of the store announces what’s in season and what’s on the small menu. The Roast Hog Open Sandwich (roasted on-site out back) is the best pork I’ve had anywhere in town…anywhere in years for that matter and I can’t stop thinking about it! I’m all about eating pig and it was even more succulent than the pig roasts I’ve romanticized from my childhood. I have a feeling Chef Ron Harris that we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other this summer. The home made BBQ sauce was warm, sweet, smoky and tangy.

This is the type of place I’m used to seeing in places like Savannah or Portland…cities where the division between country and city have come together and eateries have formed that boast architecture reclamation, a celebration of a locally grown harvest and a delicious chef-owner perspective on food. These are the places that anchor support for a local slow food community of believers and I’m hoping this town is ready!…and…did I mention the pork?




 Locally Grown Gardens on Urbanspoon

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →