Hearthstone Coffee House & Pub
8235 E. 116th St.
Fishers, Indiana 46038
http://www.hearthstonecoffee.com

For months in the Fall of 2011, I drove past the Hearthstone location in Fishers and watched its slow transformation. Opening just after this past Christmas, I have been looking forward to it giving Fishers a new local gathering place a try. Their Facebook page is active and there are constantly new photos posted showing this place to be busy in the evenings with live entertainment multiple nights each week along with trivia nights and open mic nights. For St. Patrick’s Day, Jameson shots will be the special with no minors after 4:00 PM. When the Starbuck’s drive through was packed, I decided to stop by and give Hearthstone a try for breakfast.

What I Drank: Large Tanzanian Peaberry Coffee; $2.50.

I like bold “diesel fuel” coffee with enough caffeine to get any sleep-deprived human rolling in the morning and Sumatra at Starbuck’s is usually my choice. I ask what the strongest coffee they had brewed that morning was and the Tanzania was poured for me. At $2.50, it is slightly more expensive than a Venti at Starbucks. However, I would be more than happy to pay that extra any day with the quality of the travel cup their coffee was served in. The container was firm and there was no flex to the lid making you feel like the lid would pop off at any time like a Venti at Starbuck’s. The coffee was bold but smooth and did not have any of that burnt taste you sometimes get from a Starbuck’s. The Tanzania is one of the best cups of black coffee I have had and I will go back for more.

What I Ate: Flatbread Caprese; $2.99.

The Caprese is a toasted flatbread with melted mozzarella, egg white, fresh basil and fresh tomato slice. I am a meat eater but decided to go with the healthier option since I was on my way to work from the gym. The tomato was ripe and fresh and it was toasted just long enough not to make the tomato mushy but still melting the cheese but not allow the egg to get rubbery. I really enjoyed having something different for breakfast that was somewhat healthy.

Would I Buy It Again? Yes. I enjoyed everything that I ordered and the service was friendly and local. Hearthstone fits a unique niche in Fishers providing quality drinks including some interesting specially cocktails, shoots and a wide range of coffee drinks you would find at any other coffee house while offering a limited food menu and keeping the focus to what they do best. Drinks and entertainment. One addition they could provide to their drink menu would be to add and specialize in serving good Irish Coffee. It is one of my favorite drinks and would make it a destination for many people. I sent an email to their owners to see if they offered them and they were just not on the menu or if they would consider adding Irish coffee to the menu. Their website indicates they want feedback and I think it is disappointing that I have not gotten a response. So yes, I would buy it again but will not give it a full endorsement until Irish Coffee hits their menu.

-EatHSE

A few months back, I was in a Subway and saw that they had breakfast items on the menu.  I thought that was interesting because I had never seen that before, but I just figured they had been serving breakfast for a while and didn’t think anything of it.  Apparently, I should have thought something of it because within the past couple of weeks, I’ve seen several articles out there, including this one, that say that Subway is rolling out their breakfast menu nationally on April 5th.  So, I guess Indianapolis is a test market for foods yet again.  Odd.

Anyway, being the dedicated food blogger that I am, I was compelled to try this out and here are my results.

What I Got:  Western Omelet Sandwich Combo (comes with coffee) for $2.50 and the Black Forest Ham Omelet Sandwich for $3.00

First up was the Western Omelet Sandwich.  Subway offers you the opportunity to have the sandwich served on an english muffin, flatbread or their traditional sub rolls.  Since I at least wanted to pretend I was eating something similar to breakfast, I chose to get mine on an english muffin.  The sandwich does include egg omelet and you can get the “omelet” as an egg white omelet or a traditional omelet (using the whole egg).  I chose to be semi-healthy and get the egg white omelet.  Also included on the sandwich was their traditional black forest ham, green peppers, red onions, your choice of cheese (I chose pepper jack) and your option of the other traditional Subway vegetable options (I added a couple slices of tomato).

Basically, just like all Subway sandwiches, they give you the base of the food item and then you build this yourself.  As far as taste was concerned, my english muffin was slightly stale but the eggs were actually not that bad compared to my expecations.  I fully expected them to be rubbery since the SANDWICH ARTIST (so stupid, Subway) just pulled pre-made “omelets” out of a warmer box and threw it onto my muffin but they were somewhat soft and fluffy instead.  Even though I was surprised that the eggs were not awful, they were also not good either.  The melted cheese (they place the muffin in the toaster prior to serving it to you) was nice but everything else on this sucked.

Next up was the Black Forest Ham & Cheese.  Since I wanted to try for some variety, I got this one on flatbread.  Also included on the sandwich was the egg white omelet and I elected to have them add tomato and banana peppers as well.

For this one, I would classify this as an epic failure.  The only thing that made this even remotely resemble breakfast was that it had the omelet on it.  Everything else was just a normal Subway sandwich on a piece of flatbread.  Boring, stupid, tasteless, etc.  I’m not going to waste any more time describing this one because it isn’t worth it.

Would I Buy It Again?  No way.  Unlike WIBIA, I generally like Subway and am not biased against it, but I don’t know why they felt the need to get involved in the breakfast battle with all the fast food joints.  They should seriously re-consider either getting out of the breakfast business by April 6th or completely re-tool what they are offering because this was stuff was just bad.  Not only that, but it was overpriced as well.  If you really want fast food breakfast, stick with McDonald’s, Burger King or Hardee’s where you can get more variety and also better value.

Oh yeah, one more quick note.  Subway serves Seattle’s Best coffee in their restaurants.  It was the first time I’ve had Seattle’s Best coffee and it was just awful.  I have had gas station coffee at Village Pantry or Circle K that was light years better than this.

This meal actually ruined my next few hours because I couldn’t get the taste of the coffee or the crappy Subway breakfast out of my mouth.

-IndianapolisEater