Cook’s Pizza
14300 Mundy Drive #700
Noblesville, Indiana 46060
http://mycookspizza.com/

I’ve recently moved after spending close to a decade in the same place, so as part of my move, I’ve been exploring the restaurants in my area.  One of those places is a local pizza joint called Cook’s Pizza.  They were established in 1971, but being that the strip shopping center that they are in has definitely not been around since 1971, it’s definitely not their original location.  Anyway, a craving for pizza (and a recommendation from a friend) let me to give them a shot on a recent Sunday Night.

What I Got:  Medium Margarita Mani pizza; $12.00.

What better thing to order from a pizza joint with an American sounding name than a classic Margarita pizza, right?  LOL.  Anyway, joking aside, Cook’s Margarita Mani was described as being topped with basil, tomato, mozzarella and garlic (obviously the crust and tomato sauce are included as well) and I can confirm all those were there, although I was a bit disappointed by the lack of garlic and the basil was a bit more diced up than I would have expected.  That said, I was impressed with the amount of freshly diced tomatoes that were spread throughout (you can see some big chunks in my picture).  There was a lot more crust here than I expected, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

When I took my first bite, I wasn’t particularly impressed.  Don’t get me wrong, that’s not a bad thing, but nothing about this pizza made my socks want to jump off my feet.  The sauce, while thick and hearty, was not particularly sweet at all and since I love tomato sauces to trend toward the sweet side, that was slightly disappointing.  The garlic and basil, while somewhat noticeable when you got a piece in your bite, was mostly bland through the pizza.   The two things that were better than average and not bland with this pizza were the crust, the cheese and the diced tomatoes.  The crust was soft and spongy and that was kind of fun to chew through.  After I flipped it over, I noticed that it seemed to have just a slight dusting of pepper in it too, so that brought a little flavor that I wasn’t expecting as well.  It’s spongy quality also made it great for dipping as well, which was kind of fun.

Now, to the other better than average part…the cheese.  This cheese congealed in a way that made it almost creamy and made it delicious.  A lot of times, especially at fast pizza places (Papa John’s, etc.), the cheese can get oily, salty and just plain gross.  Cook’s mozzarella did not do that and I certainly appreciated it.  In fact, it was the cheese that made this entire pizza for me because I very much enjoyed it.  The last part that made this pizza better than boring were the diced tomatoes and I can’t say that I’d had that on a lot of pizzas in my life and it brought a level of freshness to the pizza that I don’t typically see.  Combining those three components together saved this pizza from a life of mediocrity.

Would I Buy It Again?  Yes, I would.  While it was only slightly above average pizza in the grand scheme of life, it was certainly better than a typical delivery joint.  There are some things that I wish were different about this pizza, but the performance of this was good enough that I’m willing to order from Cook’s again to see if perhaps I can find a better pizza.  If I can’t do that, I at least know that this Margarita Mani will do just fine.

-IndianapolisEater

Granite City Food & Brewery Company
150 West 96th Street
Indianapolis, Indiana  46260
http://www.gcfb.net/

Granite City was an early entry on our blog and then we revisited at brunch and now we are coming back around full circle to dinner.   I live dangerously close to Granite City and it quickly has become my “I have nothing in the fridge that I want, so why not?” choice for dinner.

Every time that I go, I have a similar opinion.  Not great, but not bad.   I feel the same way about their beer.   However, they are not unlike any other restaurants that they do have a few standouts:

*The Sunday Brunch is the best buffet in town.

*The Two Pull is a rather solid beer.  Their seasonal beers are good too.

If you play it right, it’s not a bad deal.   The Mug Club is 10% off food and a they have 24 ounce beer for $4.50.  If they have gift cards at Costco, you can get an extra 20% off ($100 for $80).

That is where the story ends.   They have a new menu that is a few months old that scaled down their previously huge menu.  I like the new one a good deal better.

What I Ate:   The Overlake (pic above), $9.59 and the Crispy Shrimp Taco trio, $13.95.

The Overlake is bacon, tomato, Turkey, garlic aioli and monterey jack on grilled wheat.   It sounds great and it wasn’t bad, but the problem is the bread.  The bottom piece comes out with the consistency of a used sponge that sits by your sink.   This is the case with their Reuben as well.  The bacon was excellent, and I really would’ve liked this sandwich except for the bun.   They should just toast it instead of grilling it, which will be my request next time.

Their fries are the skinny type that are cold by the time they hit your table.  I have had many orders of fries here and they need to figure out a way to keep them hotter or get thicker fries.

The Crispy Shrimp Taco was downright bad.   The shrimp were very small and the Oriental glaze reminded me of something that I would get at Panda Express.  The quality was far below normal Granite City standards.   Honestly, it was so bad that I don’t want to continue to think about it.  Readers, don’t order it.   Granite City, pull it off your menu.

Would I Buy It Again?  Yes to Granite City and hell no to tacos.    Like I said, there are a few winners here and overall, the food is good.  The brunch is a no brainer.  $15, 10% off  makes$13.50 and then 20% more with the gift cards and you are paying $10.80.   There is not a better deal for brunch in the city.  Otherwise, just set your expectations correctly.  Don’t expect a gourmet meal.   Think Cheesecake Factory with smaller portions/menu and beer instead of cheesecake.

-wibia

Buttitta’s Pizzeria
12664 East 116th Street
Fishers, Indiana 46037
http://www.buttittaspizzeria.com

I was sitting at home like a loser on a recent Saturday night wondering what I was going to have for dinner and one of my dork friends kept texting me about how he was going to have an awesome night of eating Ale Emporium pizza and wings at his house since his wife was out of town and he was at home watching their infant daughter.  After thinking about it for a while, his pizza and wings dinner started to make me hungry for the same thing, so I decided I had to get my hands on some as well.  Since I wanted something that was not a chain and also something that was from a place I had never been, I was led to Buttitta’s Pizzeria.  Buttitta’s is a small family-owned shop that replaced a previous pizza place in the same location and their specialty is thin crust, New York-style pizza.  Their tagline is “Real Italian, by Real Italians!”  With that kind of tagline, you’ve got to be intrigued, right?  So, I ended up going to their store (they do have in store dining for about 40-50 people, by the way) and ended up ordering up some pizza and wings from their moderately diverse (for a pizzeria) menu.  When I was leaving with my carryout, one of the servers asked me if this was my first time visiting and I said it was and she said that I was going to love it.  With that ringing endorsement (there was also a decent crowd dining in the store), I was anxious to get home and try it out.

What I Got:  Individual (10″) Fungi Pizza; $11.95, as well as 15 chicken wings; $10.50 ($0.70 each).

Let’s start with the pizza first.  I was feeling frisky, so I went with one of their gourmet pizzas called the “Fungi.”  The Fungi is made up of mushrooms, sausage, onion, garlic olive oil and mozzarella cheese and when I saw those first two ingredients, I knew I had to have it because those are my two favorite pizza ingredients.  Unfortunately, what I didn’t realize when I ordered because my reading comprehension skills are obviously lacking is that the garlic olive oil is actually the “sauce” for this pizza.  That’s right, this pizza does not have tomato sauce.  Oops.  When I opened up the box, I’ve got to say that I was very disappointed that there was no tomato sauce, but since this was caused by my own stupidity, I’ve got no one to blame for this but myself.  That said, the pizza did smell DELICIOUS and once I got past the lack of tomato sauce, it wasn’t that bad.  The ingredients that were on the pizza were delicious and the sausage and garlic provided a nice spice and kick to the flavor.  The crust itself was thin, flavorful and flexible like  you would expect a New York-style pizza to be.  Unfortunately, the lack of tomato sauce ruined this one for me and I didn’t like it.   That one’s on me though and not Buttita’s, because everything was executed exactly like they said it would be.  It was just a matter of personal taste.  By the way, a 10″ individual pizza (I question that measurement) is not a good sized pizza for someone that is a fairly decent eater like myself.  It almost felt like I was eating a small appetizer.  Just another disappointment that I had to chalk up.

Next up was the chicken wings and as you can tell from the picture, these are some healthy sized wings so that was a major positive.  They’re also baked as opposed to fried wings.  There’s also no breading on these as it’s just the crispy skin, so I suppose that makes them “healthier” when you compare them to a lot of wings that you get at other places.  They are also seasoned with what I believe to have been garlic and Italian herb seasoning, but I could be mistaken as the flavoring was not powerful enough for me to discern their flavor.  What got me on these though was that they offer several dipping sauces on the side (I chose honey and sweet barbecue sauce; FYI, the sweet barbecue sauce tasted exactly like Sweet Baby Ray’s), but the wings themselves are served “naked”.  I was definitely not expecting that, but again, my lack of reading comprehension skills probably screwed me over on that one.   Regardless, these large wings were tender, meaty and flavorful, so that was very welcome and an excellent taste for my meal.  Also, since these were baked, they weren’t greasy like you might expect from chicken wings (that’s not grease in the picture, it’s one of honey dipping sauces that I spilled), so that was a nice change of pace.  All in all, I wouldn’t rate these wings as being as good as the Ale Emporium’s wings, but they are pretty darn good and definitely better than most places, especially anything you are going to get from a chain delivery place.

Would I Buy It Again?  Have you ever gone to a place that you just know is good but you ordered the wrong thing and didn’t like what you had?  That’s what happened to me at Buttitta’s.  I didn’t like the pizza that I had and the wings were fine, but I just know that if I ordered a more traditional pizza, I’d definitely have a better experience and for that, I’ll say that I’m going to give it another shot before I issue a final yes/no answer.  I have a feeling that this may turn out to be a yes, but I don’t want to say anything official until I actually find out.  That said, judging by the cult like following that it had from its guests and servers, I would definitely say that you should give it a shot and see what you think of it yourself.

-IndianapolisEater

Pizza Hut/Wing Street
http://www.pizzahut.com

The Super Bowl is approaching (in Indianapolis!) and every year I see a story about how the night of the Super Bowl is the busiest nights of the year for pizza delivery businesses.  Along those lines, there is no better pairing with pizza than chicken wings, so while watching football this past Sunday, I decided to try out one of Pizza Hut’s non-traditional wings offerings from their co-branded Wing Street business.  For those of you lucky enough to have a Pizza Hut that has a Wing Street location in it (not all Pizza Huts do), they have several flavors outside of your normal hot, mild, barbecue, etc., so I went with…

What I Got:  14 piece Garlic Parmesan Crunchy Bone-In Wings; $9.99.

As you can see when opening the box, these wings have breading and are not your normal fried wings in that they are just covered in sauce and that’s it.  If you look a little closer, you can see that these things are sitting in a absurdly deep and disgusting pool of butter, so obviously butter is the chosen method of delivering the garlic and Parmesan flavors into the wings.  They are then dusted with additional garlic and Parmesan seasonings to amp up the flavor even more.

Butter is the primary taste in these wings as well, because that’s the majority of what you taste as you bite into these.  Unfortunately, because there is so much butter, the “crunchy” aspect of the wings ends up being lost and the breading on these wings ends up being just a soggy mess.  The soggy mess carries strong flavors of both garlic and Parmesan, but they are so greasy that you are really taking a bath with each wing that you eat.  Honestly, my mouth felt like I had eaten a stick of butter after I’d eaten these things and that is not a good thing.  I don’t necessarily mind the use of butter, but when it is used in this ridiculous amount, it becomes completely unappetizing.  Outside of the negatives of the mushy breading and the dripping butter, the wings did have one thing go positive for them:  they had decent size.  At a lot of these delivery places, you get shorted on the size of the wings and that really, really gets me angry.  In Pizza Hut/Wing Street’s case, that does not happen, so they do get one positive check mark.

Would I Buy It Again?  No, definitely not.  Next time I want this much butter, which will be never, I’ll just go with the alternative and eat a stick of butter.  It’s sad too, because the Garlic Parmesan flavor itself was decent, but the abundance of butter everywhere just ruined the entire package.  If they could find a way to tone down the butter and allow the wings to maintain their crunchy texture, they may have a winner.  Unfortunately here though, they do not.

-IndianapolisEater

Houlihan’s
http://www.houlihans.com/

For one reason or another, Houlihan’s has never really registered to me.  My lasting impression is that it is a jack of all trades, master of none.  I have to admit though, I liked their menu a lot.  Pastas, entrees, salads, burgers etc.  They had small plates menu and even a “frites bar”, where there were five different choices of fries.   The drink menu had a lot of offerings as well with lots of martinis that looked good.  A ton of suff to try, that is for sure.

With all that being said, I got a burger.  It just sounded good at the time.

What I Ate:  Burger 72; $9.95.  Topped with a garlic cream cheese mushroom cap, horseradish, parmesan and watercress.

When delivered, it looked great.  The mushroom cap was adequate at best.  I thought that I would really love this combination, but it didn’t do it for me.   The more burgers that I eat (a ton of them), the more of a purist I become.  The spaces around the musroom cap tasted a little dry (an extra dollop of horseradish sauce could’ve cured that).  The burger was cooked perfectly, the meat tasted fresh and the overall quality was surely there.  Then again, for a $10 burger, it should be.    My problem with the mushroom cap is that it wasn’t crispy enough, so there wasn’t a crunchy texture in there.  I like a little raw red onion usually for a touch of crunch with my burger.

Fries were tasty, I ate all of them.quickly.  Nothing special, but hot and fresh.

Would I Buy It Again?  No to the burger.  Sure to Houlihan’s.  The service was attentive and friendly.  The meal was not bad at all, but I just didn’t fall in love with what I had.   With a menu as large as theirs, I imagine that there are a few favorites that people like.  I was pretty boring and ordered a burger, but I would like to go back and check out a few other things they have to offer.   There was nothing wrong with what I had, this is just a matter of personal prefrence.

-wibia

The Deal Decoder segment brought me to this pizza.   Large pizza with two toppings for $5.99.  I have been on a major pizza kick lately and for $6, I figured why not.  Plus, the new recipe came out in January 2010 (our initial review) and this is my first time trying it.

What I Ate: Large pizza with sausage and pepperoni; $5.99.

On the way home, I noticed a pretty strong garlic smell coming from the box and I was looking forward to giving it a try.  Upon opening the box, it looked like any other chain pizza.  I noticed a few gaps were there appeared to be very little cheese or sauce.  The crust was pretty chewy and I prefer a little more crisp on the bottom.  However, it did appear as if it was cooked to what they intended to do.  I tasted very little sauce, so I can’t really comment on if it added anything to the equation.  The sausage was nothing to talk about and pepperoni was a little bland as well.

What I liked a lot is the garlic seasoning that is around the crust.  It is gluttonously buttery and pretty tasty really.   I know that it was an unnecessary touch, but I thought that it added a lot of flavor to a pretty bland pizza.

Would I Buy It Again?  For $6.00, Sure – only because it is the best $6.00 pizza that I have ever had. Considering that it is only $1.00 more than a Hot ‘N Ready from Little Caesars (keep in mind only one topping on the Hot ‘N Ready), I thought that the Domino’s pizza tasted better and was a better value.  I would also say that it is better than most frozen pizzas at that price point.  Based on taste alone, I like it better than Papa John’s, Jack’s and Hot Box.  This is the first time that I have had a Domino’s pizza in more than a year and it was better than I expected.

-wibia

Magoo’s California Pizza
4919 W 38th St.
Indianapolis, IN
317-293-4411
http://magooscaliforniapizza.com/

In a tweet, on this page (can’t remember when), Kevin from Urban Indy said there was an Indian pizza place on 38th.  I have always thought this was a good idea, as you can take some crustier Nan as the crust and go from there.  Not really the scene at Magoo’s though…

Setting:  I have absolutely no clue what makes Magoo’s a “California Pizza” place.   They have a California flag in the front, check it out:

Otherwise, I am shrugging my shoulders here.  Very straight forward toppings.  The restaurant is pretty big and I counted 76 chairs during my 12 minute wait for the pizza.  The tables were clean, however the floor was pretty messy.   They really need to pay attention to this.  There was a large screen tv, however it was stuck on the dvd menu for a kids movie that I didn’t recognize.  So, no tv, no music and you could hear the kitchen pretty well.  Long story short, this is not a place for date night.

Menu:  Odd ball menu for a pizza place, but then again that is why I was there.  Chicken Tikki Pizza, Chappli Kabab Pizza and a lot of standards.  They even had burgers and fries.  However, at $4.99 for a cheeseburger, I am curious to see how many people order this.   You can get any pizza “spicy” as well as “Indian Style, w/ Ginger.”  Lots of options here. For more information, the menu is online…but know this is not your standard pizza joint.

What I Ate:  Small 10′ Chicken Tikka Pizza $8.99.  Garlic sauce.

I had the choice for red sauce or garlic sauce.  The guy at the counter mentioned how good the garlic sauce is, so I had to give it a shot.  Pizza arrived promptly and packed with toppings.  Produce was fresh.  The onions were raw and added a lot of crunch to the pizza, although I wish they were slightly softer.   The chicken was the star of the show, it reminded me of tandori chicken on a pizza…very tasty.  Actually, probably the best chicken that I have had on a pizza for a long time, if not ever.

I really enjoyed the garlic sauce and there was a lot of it.  However, they should include that it is a garlic cream sauce.  I also was a big fan of the crust, buttery with a little crispiness.  The larger pieces had a nice bend to them, but not even close to NY pizza.  Overall it was a really solid pizza and I would give it an 7.5/10.

Would I Buy It Again?  Yeah, for sure.   A great independent pizza place and I would like to try more off the menu.  A good value as well.  However, I would like to see them ditch their current California branding and keep down the path of doing Indian Pizza fusion.  No one else is doing it and I think that they can do it well.  They need to pay attention to the details of running a restaurant as well.  Clean it up and make it a nice place to enjoy a meal.  Based on the food alone, they have a good amount of potential.

-wibia