Review: Euphoria – Devour Downtown
Author: WIBIA | Filed under: Food Reviews, Location: Indianapolis, IN
Euphoria
337 W. 11th St.
Indianapolis, IN
It pains me to write this review because of how much I want to promote and support Independent Restaurants in Indianapolis, but I can’t compromise the truth. Cooking is truly an art, and with art there are some artists that you will enjoy and others…I will stand in front of their work and say… I just don’t get it.
Brad Grate has quite the pedigree. Chef at Union Square Cafe in NYC, and Executive Chef here at Puck’s in Indy. The pork chop at Puck’s was lights out so I was encouraged that Brad could shine outside of the Puck’s Menu.
Devour Downtown is a promo that is run twice a year, summer and winter. 3 courses, $30. I looked at the menus on line and thought that Eupnoria’s was the most attractive. I knew my choices going in:
Starter:
Lobster Gazpacho
Lobster Heirloom Tomatoes, Cucumber, Spanish Olive Oil
Main:
Roasted Chicken
Organic 1/2 chx, Maitake Mushrooms, Creamy Polenta, Black Truffle-Fines Herbes Jus
Dessert:
Chocolate Cake “Capuccino”
Molten Chocolate Cake, Espresso Bean, Mocha-Brown Sugar Creme Fraiche
Great looking menu in possible one of Indy’s best settings. Sounds good right? Wrong, very wrong.
The Lobster Gazpacho was extremely oily, you can see drops of it on the pic. Very few lobster chunks and the tomatoes were pretty tart. The consistency was chunky and I didn’t like this at all. Btw, the starters arrived at our table 40+ minutes after we did, which is odd because it is just dumping this out of a container and garnishing. I am into slow food, but geez.
Roasted Chicken arrived at our table. The sauce had a film over the top like you would see at Golden Corral when no one tried the vegetable soup in the last 2 hours. Just trying to paint the picture folks. Regardless, it looks like it was sitting for a while. First bite, luke warm, sent it back.
When it returned, of course it was blazing hot like it was some type of joke from the kitchen. I had to sit around for a few minutes to let it cool down. The sauce was rich, but the chicken now basically cooked twice, was overdone and lacked any crispiness. However my first cold bite was overdone as well. There were a ton of Maitake mushrooms and I have to admit they were pretty good and cooked well. The polenta was saturated with the sauce from the chicken, I didn’t like polenta here. No trace of a truffle flavor. I should’ve sent this back to start from square one, but the meter was ticking on the babysitter and my wife was finished with her entree.
Dessert was of course next. The brownie and the cup were blazing hot. The Sugar Creme Fraiche melted to the consistency of milk and there was an odd flavor that I couldn’t place. Either way, two bites and I was done.
Brownie
Tags: Devour Downtown, Euphoria
Good timing. I was there with a group of people this past Saturday night. We did get the amuse bouche, and you should be happy you didn’t. It was an oyster that was not good. All of us enjoy oysters and we all thought that they tasted VERY fishy. When I mentioned it to the waiter, his response was, “Well West Coast oysters are known to be briny”. While I agreed with him that they are briny compared to east coast, there is a big difference between briny and fishy. For the rest of the food, it was decent. They have completely changed the Devour downtown menu so none of the items you mentioned were listed. I had a Tom Kha Gai soup to start that was lacking any spice. Tom Kha Gai (a thai soup) usually has a nice kick to it, and this had none. It wasn’t bad, just lacked the normal spice that would have made it excellent. All six of us thought the mains were good (I had a short rib papparadelle pasta that was very tasty), but the desserts were lacking. They were all fine, but nothing stood out. Overall, our experience was much better than yours, other than the oyster experience. Not rushing to go back, but we all certainly enjoyed it. Plus, it is a nicer environment than most of the restaurants in Indy, despite the lack of parking.