The Dish
Edited by Julia Spalding
11.13.2007
Quick Bites
Like a Prayer
Are you there, God? It's us,
The Dish. And we just want to say that we love what you've done so far with
Buggs Temple (337 W. 11th St., 735-7960). In the few weeks it's been open, we've already had some memorable dinners, feasting on suckling pig, lamb chops, and smoked trout cakes in a historic 1918 church, dizzy on applewood smoke and coveting the intimate, high-backed booths along the back wall. The dark-paneled bar off to the side, overlooking the canal, is a fine spot for after-work drinks. And (former
Oakleys Bistro) pastry chef
Cindy Hawkins' dessert menu is truly a blessing. Please see that she has plenty of sweet, dense bananas to save her banana tart from mediocrity. And please let our dry cleaner figure out a way to get the smoke smell out of all our work shirts. Amen.
Haute Chocolate
You'll have to wait until January to sample the hard stuff, but
Petite Chou (823 Westfield Blvd., 259-0765) has planned out its
High Chocolate menu (for which owner
Martha Hoover has ordered special service ware from France with wooden handles to froth the chocolate). Highlights include a caramel hot chocolate, malted hot chocolate, and basil-pistachio hot chocolate. Stay tuned for more combinations, as well as interesting dessert pairings. "We're experimenting with flavors," explains Patachou brand manager Christina Pippen.
Beef Shtick
The annual
Tour de Fat is underway at
Bubs Burgers & Ice Cream (210 W. Main St., Carmel, 706-2827). For each of the 12 weeks in winter, the home of the Big Ugly introduces a different specialty burger, creations that range from Week Five's Pastrami Burger to Week Seven's Black-and-Bleu Burger to Week Eleven's Creole Burger. Diners can get a stamp in their Tour de Fat "passport" for each burger they order, and then turn in the passport at the end of the tour for a souvenir T-shirt. Extra-large, we presume.
Succotash
Weber Grill Restaurant (10 N. Illinois St., 636-7600) is staying open on Thanksgiving Day, offering all of its regular menu items as well as a three-course roasted turkey dinner: smoked turkey with grilled sausage stuffing, cranberry sauce, butternut squash soup, and pumpkin cheesecake …
King David Dogs (15 N. Pennsylvania St., 632-3647) celebrates its first anniversary on Wednesday, and (because anyone with an ounce of etiquette knows that the first-year anniversary is
The Fried Potato Anniversary) they're giving away free tater tots or fries with every dog purchase that day …
The Steer-In (5130 E. 10th St.) has reopened, removed "Harold's" from its name, and put up a new sign, but it's still the crazy convertible screeching into the head of a steer … Two new coffeehouses have arrived downtown to boost our caffeine intake:
International Tea & Coffee at 630 Virginia Ave., and
Cognizant Coffee at 1112 E. Prospect Ave.
On Friday, We Ate At …
Vitesse, 50 W. Washington St., 713-5000
Now that its French counterpart
Restaurant du Soleil is merely a memory, it's easy to forget that
Vitesse—the clubby lounge in the lobby of the Conrad downtown with one-time ambitions toward being a tapas bar—is even still open. But the smooth jazz is still cookin' on Friday nights, albeit at conversation-challenging decibels, and the kitchen is still cooking up small plates for late-night crowds who hardly know anything has changed. Stopping in after a Friday night at the symphony, we were happy to discover that the bar serves Lillet, the French aperitif James Bond requested in his martini in
Casino Royale, though it arrived with a dried up slice of orange. A berry "pomtini," however, had a nice balance of Stoli blueberi vodka and pomegranate liqueurs. For snacking, sweet potato chips were only intermittently crispy, and a buttermilk-red pepper dip could have had more zing. But cigar-shaped strips of chicken wrapped in smoky bacon were a hit with a tangy "slaw" of jicama and carrot in apple cider.
Food for Thought
"He was a bold man that first ate an oyster."
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)
The Guiding Bite
A select calendar of food-and-drink events you should know about.
November 13-16
Feeling a little provincial these days?
The Lafayette Square Area Coalition, a group of area business owners dedicated to breathing new life into the Westside commercial neighborhood, invites you to
Taste the Difference at a four-day event similar to
Devour Downtown. Sixteen featured ethnic restaurants, including
Abyssinia (5352 W. 38th St.),
Machu Picchu (5356 W. 38th St.),
Costa Del Sol (3839 Moller Rd.),
El Sol Aztecca (5354 W. 38th St.), and
Udupi Café (4225 Lafayette Rd.), are offering fixed-price lunches and dinners in the $7-to-$15–range. Go ahead. Expand your culinary horizons. It's a small world, after all.
Thursday, November 15The Chatterbox (435 Massachusetts Ave., 636-0584) is throwing its annual
Beaujolais Nouveau Wine Celebration, with George DuBouef Beaujolais Nouveau available for sale by the glass or bottle, and the band
Bleu Django providing a Parisian jazz beat. 6-9 p.m.
Thursday, November 15
If you find yourself on the other side of town that night—when the grape harvest is in and the wine is at its most marketable peak—check out chef
Neal Brown's
Beaujolais Nouveau soiree at
L'Explorateur (6523 Ferguson St., 726-6906). 5:30-7:30 p.m. $20.
Upcoming …Thursday, November 29
During the
Dinner with the Girls event at
A2Z Cafe (4705 E. 96th St.), guests can enjoy a prix fixe dinner of filet mignon, grouper, chicken penne, or three-cheese ravioli while doing some holiday shopping with featured merchants Fishers jewelry designer
Yaprak Yorulmaz and
La Clothiere boutique in Carmel. Tickets are $30, with a portion of the proceeds benefiting Child Advocates. 6:30 p.m. Call 569-9349 for reservations.
Contributors: Megan Fernandez, Terry Kirts If you have a question or a tip for The Dish, or if you'd like to add a name to the newsletter's free subscription list, send an e-mail to TheDish@IndyMonthly.emmis.comFor a subscription to Indianapolis Monthly magazine, visit www.indianapolismonthly.com.