Rally’s
http://www.rallys.com 

I drive by a Rally’s on my way to work every morning and for the past few months, I’ve seen signs outside of the location advertising their new entries into the fast food market with their semi-upscale (for a fast food place) Cold Creations dessert line.  I went out to dinner at another place recently and on my way home, I was looking for something simple for dessert that wouldn’t require me stopping at Dairy Queen or one of the specialty ice cream shoppes (think Cold Stone Creamery, etc.), so I decided I’d spin by Rally’s and try out one of the desserts that I’d seen on my drive by so many times.  I like Rally’s, especially the fries, but it’s not exactly the first place I think of when I think dessert, so this was quite a step outside the box for me.

What I Got:  Apple Pie Layered Sundae; $3.69.

First impression as I pulled up to the menu board was that it was incredible how expensive these Cold Creations were.  I expected something similar to a McDonald’s sundae in the $2.00-$3.00 range, but when I saw the Rally’s sundaes pushing the four dollar mark, I was kind of taken aback.  That said, I was still willing to try and when they handed me my sundae, I understood the price because this sundae was exceptionally large.  So large, in fact, that Rally’s served it with two spoons in case you want to share it with someone, but since we all know that I’m a hog and a glutton, there would be no sharing here (plus, there was no one else with me).

After they handed this to me and I made note of the size of the entire sundae, I more closely inspected this sundae and was reminded of how I am always amused of how fast food restaurants take their ingredients on hand and just re-purpose them to make a “hot, new offering”.  Taco Bell does this all the time and when you look at this sundae, it’s exactly what Rally’s did as well.  There’s nothing wrong with it and in fact, if you can keep doing it without backlash, it’s actually ingenious.

They took one of their standard fried apple pies, split it in half, warmed it up and then put it as the base of the sundae.  On top of that, they put a couple scoops of ice cream and then topped that with whipped cream and a cherry.  On top of the entire creation, they added in a drizzle of caramel and a sprinkle of cinnamon.  I’m guessing they had all of those on hand, so this “new” creation is actually a thing of genius, because I doubt anything here is new at all.  And yes, I’m aware that “nice” restaurants do this too, but I just seem to notice it more from fast food joints.

Anyway, when I took my first heaping spoonful, I’ve got to say that I was quite impressed by this.   What made it so impressive was the simple step of heating up the apple pie, because the warm apple pie turned this basically into Apple Pie a la mode and when you think of it that way, it was delicious.  The apple pie was just a standard thing, but when re-purposed as an upscale dessert, it just all worked well in perfect harmony.  The ice cream wasn’t particularly wonderful or tasty, but it was definitely a semi-creamy version of vanilla and when you mix the “heat” of the cinnamon with the sweetness of the caramel drizzle, it made for a great combination on its own. Adding the apple pie and whipped cream to the mix just topped it all off and made this a solid dessert.

Would I Buy It Again?  I’m not going to make many special trips to Rally’s for desserts, but if I’m ever in the neighborhood of one and looking for something other than (or in addition to) their delicious fries, I would definitely buy this one again.  It’s a simple, yet tasty fast food spin on an American classic and with that, Rally’s has got a winner here.

-IndianapolisEater

Steak ‘n Shake
http://steaknshake.com/

A couple of weeks ago, I was reading my Facebook news feed and I saw a post by my brother noting how he had just had a great lunch at Steak ‘n Shake and topped it all off with a Nutter Butter milkshake.  In case you didn’t know and you probably don’t unless you’ve read my review of the Dairy Queen Nutter Butter Blizzard that I did last year, I feel that Nutter Butter cookies are the most underrated cookie that there is.  In my mind, they are better than Oreo cookies. I know a lot of people don’t feel that way, but that’s just my opinion.  Anyway, after reading my brother’s post and having no prior knowledge that these existed, I knew I HAD to get my hands on one of these as soon as possible to give it a shot and compare it to the Dairy Queen Blizzard version.  I know milk shakes are different from Blizzards in some respects, so it’s only a loose comparison.

You may wonder why I’d put of a review of something like a milk shake, but since I’ve put up plenty of reviews of ice cream places, yogurt places, milk shakes, Blizzards, McFlurrys, etc. around here, meaning that me reviewing one of Steak ‘n Shake’s newest milk shake offerings shouldn’t come as that big of a surprise, so here we go…

What I Got:  Regular Nutter Butter Milk Shake; $3.49.

This is a “premium” milk shake (as opposed to chocolate, vanilla, etc.), so this one costs a bit more than a standard milk shake.  I was willing to pay the price for Nutter Butter though, so as this seemingly gigantic, ice cold glass of milk shake arrived at my table, I was anxious to dive in.

As you can see the top of the milk shake is littered with ground up Nutter Butter cookie bits piled on top of whipped cream.  Underneath the whipped cream is milk and vanilla ice cream.  All of this is topped by a cherry and frankly, I’m not quite sure why I’m describing how a milk shake is built.  What I should be talking about is the taste and honestly, I was majorly let down.  The Nutter Butter dusting that you see on top is the only Nutter Butter in the entire milk shake.  There’s nothing mixed in the shake, there’s nothing at the bottom of the shake, there is just nothing.  All this really consists of is a vanilla shake with a tiny bit of Nutter Butter on top.  I was expecting a mix of Nutter Butter throughout the glass, but instead, all I got was a tease at the top and that tease was clearly not enough to give this a strong Nutter Butter taste, even after I mixed all the cookie bits in myself.  What a letdown.  The vanilla part of the shake was fine, but really, there’s not a whole lot for me to say here…it tasted like a thick vanilla milkshake.  What faint amount of Nutter Butter I did get was nice, but there just wasn’t enough.

Would I Buy It Again?  NO, not unless they allow you to basically order it with more Nutter Butter stuff on top (and maybe they do).  Frankly, I was mad and disappointed after this and the fact that my waitress hyped this up in my mind talking about how good it was when I ordered it made me even more upset.  The whole idea of this milk shake is so much better than how Steak ‘n Shake delivers it.  This is a failure on all ends and the only reason I bother to bring this review to this blog is so that you readers out there don’t make the same mistake I did and waste your money on an inferior product.  If you still want to try it yourself, see if they’ll let you order it with an extra heaping amount of cookie bits so you don’t end up as disappointed as I did.  I’m not going to risk it though and I’ll just steer clear of ever trying to order this again.  Chalk this one up to another case (recurring theme) of the enjoyment of a ice cream-related product directly correlating to the person that made it and not necessarily the product itself (perhaps).

I like Steak ‘n Shake in general, just not this milk shake as it was served to me.  Too bad.  Now, if only Dairy Queen would bring back their Blizzard version, I would be in heaven.

-IndianapolisEater

Jason’s Deli
4130 East 82nd Street
Indianapolis, Indiana  46250
http://www.jasonsdeli.com

Jason’s is still relatively new to the capital city and I was slow to try it.  The menu online was kind of boring, so I decided to wait for a while.   I was going to the Nordstrom Rack to find some sweet threads for cheap and I can’t shop for anything on an empty stomach, so I had to make a pit stop.  Plus, they have free ice cream.  The only thing better than free ice cream is free love.  Depending on who’s giving the love, I might even take ice cream.

What I Ate: Half New York Yankee and salad bar.  Cost, with a soda was around $9.00

Anytime that I want a salad bar, my body is begging for some greens.  The salad bar was pretty decent looking.   I didn’t get the all you can eat option, so I loaded it up with the one trip that I had.   The bread was horrible and quickly discarded.  The produce was relatively fresh, but the ingredients seemed pretty cheap.  Bacon and cheese were definitely lacking in quality and I didn’t like the Italian dressing.   I didn’t hate it, but I would never come here for the salad bar alone.

I had to get past the idea that the sandwich is called the New York Yankee, as it is named after the most BS baseball team ever.   I see my Google stats and I don’t think that I am losing any fans saying that.    The New York Yankee is made up of hot corned beef, pastrami, Swiss cheese and mustard or mayonnaise, all served on rye bread.  The rye and the meat were the quality that I would expect from a chain.  It didn’t offend me, but definitely not the real good stuff.  I prefer for the cheese to be a little melty, but that was not the case here.   The good news about this sandwich is…huge!  This was a half sandwich and I could barely knock it down after my salad.

After my meal, I decided to gorge myself and make a kick ass root beer float with the free ice cream.  Well played and it hit the spot.

Would I Buy It Again?   Sure, why not?    I didn’t love what I had, but I didn’t hate it.   Considering that I had a salad, huge sandwich, chips, pickle and a root beer float for under $10, I thought it was a good value.    I like to think about what I would compare it to and if you like McAlister’s, Paradise or Panera, you will probably be fond of Jason’s.   However, at Paradise, you get an awesome cookie and here you get ice cream.  Kind of a toss up.

-wibia

Dairy Queen
http://www.dairyqueen.com

Every October, Dairy Queen releases the Pumpkin Pie Blizzard as their Blizzard of the Month.  Ever since I started loving ice cream again about eighteen months ago, this one has been high on my to-do list, but I’ve never had a chance to grab it and try it.  If you read this blog or read my Ben & Jerry’s Pumpkin Cheesecake ice cream review at CrazyFoodDude.com (if you haven’t checked it out yet, do so!) from this past Friday, you’ll know that I’m a HUGE fan of Pumpkin flavored ice cream, especially that from Culver’s (technically, theirs is custard).  So, after a long delay, I was finally able to try this to this one out and was excited to do so.  I’ve read positive reviews before (On Second Scoop), so I had high expectations for this one.

What I Got:  Pumpkin Pie Blizzard (medium); $4.02.

Dairy Queen describes this one as  ”pumpkin pie blended with creamy vanilla soft serve and crowned with whipped topping and nutmeg” and I can confirm that was at least the case visually.  What they didn’t mention in that description, although you can see them in the picture, is that there are also pie crust pieces mixed in as well.  All in all, they delivered everything they promised from a description standpoint.

On the other hand, the taste was a different story.  First, I didn’t taste hardly any nutmeg at all, which is not a bad thing because I’m not the world’s biggest fan of nutmeg.  Still, it would have been nice to have tasted it in the Blizzard so that I at least felt like I was eating a pumpkin pie.  The pumpkin pie crust pieces were mixed in too and while there weren’t a lot of them, they were at least sufficient.

Where this Blizzard failed, in my mind, is the pumpkin flavoring.  It just wasn’t strong enough.  It felt like I was eating vanilla soft serve with only a faint amount of pumpkin pie flavoring added in.  Dairy Queen’s vanilla soft serve is fine ordinarily, but if I am going to eat something pumpkin flavored, I want the flavoring to be strong like it is at Culver’s.  This was definitely not the case with this one and it was very disappointing.

Would I Buy It Again?  No.  Honestly, this was boring and nearly flavorless in my mind.  I posted on my Twitter feed that I didn’t like this one and some followers responded that I was nuts, so maybe I just got a bad Blizzard, but I’m not going to risk that again by buying this a second time.  So, in this case, I think I owe someone an apology:  Culver’s, I apologize for “cheating” on you and trying someone else’s pumpkin treat.  I’ll never do it again!

By the way, you’ve only got until the 31st to try this out before it goes away again, so if you want to try it yourself to see if I am right or if I just got a bad Blizzard, you better do so quickly!

-IndianapolisEater

Update:  Thanks to a reader, I have been informed that Thursday, August 11th is Miracle Treat Day at Dairy Queen.  They’ll be donating at least $1 for each Blizzard sold to your local Children’s Miracle Network Hospital.  So, if you are looking to try this Blizzard (or get any Blizzard for that matter), Thursday is the day to do it!  Thanks Indy Grub Review for the heads-up!

Dairy Queen
http://www.dairyqueen.com

You may or may not know this, but Dairy Queen has a Blizzard of the Month that they feature each month.  This Blizzard of the Month is one that is not ordinarily on their Blizzard menu and in the past has featured Blizzard flavors such as Girl Scout Tagalong cookie (a personal favorite), Mint Oreo, German Chocolate, Caramel Toffee Cookie, etc.  If you are ever curious what the treat for the month is, you can visit Dairy Queen’s website where they have a special page setup for the Blizzard of the Month.

Most months, the Blizzard of the Month doesn’t really interest me because Dairy Queen is not at the top of my frozen treat list.  But, when I saw that this month’s Blizzard of the Month was the Nutter Butter Blizzard, I knew I absolutely had to give it a shot because not only do I LOVE Nutter Butter cookies, but I also saw a glowing review of the Blizzard at On Second Scoop‘s website (awesome site, by the way and I would highly recommend it if you are an ice cream lover like me).  In my opinion, Nutter Butter cookies are one of the most underrated cookies that exists and they don’t get the publicity or notoriety that they deserve.  They aren’t as popular/mainstream as Oreos or Chips Ahoy, but in my mind, they are just as good, if not better.

Dissertation on cookies aside, off I went to Dairy Queen…

What I Got:  Nutter Butter Blizzard (medium); $3.69.

Dairy Queen describes this Blizzard as “NUTTER BUTTER® cookies pieces and NUTTER BUTTER® peanut butter crème filling blended with creamy vanilla soft serve.”  

Well, as you can see in both of my pictures (especially the close-up), there was definitely vanilla soft serve in there and there were definitely Nutter Butter cookie pieces (a lot of them, actually).  As for the peanut butter crème filling, you can clearly see that swirled in as well in both of the pictures.

In terms of taste, this was just as dreamy as I could have expected it would be.  It had a strong peanut butter taste and a lot of crunch because of the amount of Nutter Butter cookies that they mixed in there.  I could have gotten lucky in how they prepared mine, but if they make them all with this amount of cookies, you are going to be in luck because I had Nutter Butter in every single bite and as a lover of those cookies, I could not have been more delighted.  The vanilla soft serve was as you’d expect it would be (and always is), but the strong peanut butter taste of the cookies made this one a big winner.

Would I Buy It Again?  Oh yeah, definitely.  I’ll be getting it at least one or two more times this month, which is pretty incredible since as I stated earlier, I’m not a frequent Dairy Queen fan.  What I’m hoping is that this Blizzard does so well that they decided to keep it on the regular menu, because if they do, I’ll start hitting Dairy Queen a lot more often than I do (probably only about half dozen times a year).

That said, if you don’t like peanut butter and/or Nutter Butter cookies, then you aren’t going to like this Blizzard.  Keep that in mind.

FYI, Dairy Queen will also make a Nutter Butter Blizzard cake as well.  Does anyone have a birthday coming up where they want to get one of these and invite me to the party?  :)

-IndianapolisEater

McDonald’s
http://www.mcdonalds.com/

I have a confession to make:  over the past year or so, I have become an ice cream junky and/or freak.  After going most of my life having kind of an apathetic attitude toward ice cream and not really liking or disliking it, I can now not get enough of it and would eat it before, during and after every single meal that I eat if I could.  Thankfully, I’ve managed to discipline myself to indulge in large servings of it only two to three times a week now, so I consider that a small “victory.”  Based on me being a junky now though, I have a feeling that you are going to start seeing a lot more of these ice cream treat reviews from me.  Consider yourself warned (ha!).

I primarily get my ice cream treats from either Culver’s, Ritter’s, Cold Stone Creamery, Handel’s or Dairy Queen, but recently I’ve seen a lot of reviews about McDonald’s newest McFlurry offering:  the Rolo McFlurry.  The reviews haven’t exactly been glowing and despite the fact that I’ve had past negative experiences with McFlurrys, I was intrigued enough by the thought of a long forgotten candy (at least in my mind) being included in a limited time offering, so I made the leap.

For those of you that don’t remember what a Rolo is or need a refresher, it’s a chocolate candy with a caramel center or as Hershey’s describes it, “For the classic combination of chewy caramel and milk chocolate, grab a roll of ROLO chocolate covered caramels!”

What I Got:  Small Rolo McFlurry; $2.39.

One of the main complaints of McFlurrys by both me and the previous reviewers is that McDonald’s doesn’t always do a good job of mixing their McFlurrys and you always end up with all of your mix-ins in the top of the McFlurry and then the bottom of the McFlurry is just their basic yet tasty, in my opinion, soft serve vanilla ice cream.  To avoid this, I specifically asked when ordering for them to make sure to do a good job mixing mine.  Whether they actually paid attention to that request or it was just a product of good fortune, I actually ended up with a well-mixed McFlurry that had Rolo candy pieces throughout the treat.

What also made it nice was that the Rolo pieces were broken up and there were bits of chocolate interspersed with streams of gooey caramel throughout my entire McFlurry.  Since chocolate and caramel are two of my three favorite candy flavors (peanut butter being the other), this combination mixed with the tasty McDonald’s vanilla soft serve ice cream was heavenly.  My only complaint was that after a minute or two, the caramel starts to harden and that makes it slighly sticky and difficult to eat, so eat it fast and watch out for the brain freeze!

Would I Buy It Again?  Absolutely.  McDonald’s isn’t always my first choice for an ice cream treat (more like my fifth or later, depending on what is available) and this treat is a limited time offering, so I may not be able to get another one for a quite a while, but if I’m in a place where McDonald’s is my only option, I will certainly not hesitate to order this one.

In case you are interested and don’t want to take my positive word on this treat as the final word, here’s the negative/lukewarm reviews that have been done by the other blogs:

*Foodbeast
*The Impulsive Buy
*On Second Scoop
*Brand Eating
*FATGUYFOODBLOG (the most positive; his was loaded with Rolos and mixed well)
*BevNerd (another semi-positive one)

Basically, just like all McFlurry offerings, it all boils down to how well your McFlurry gets mixed.  This happens with Blizzards, etc. as well (although seemingly less often than the McFlurry), so buyer beware!

-IndianapolisEater

Yogi Frozen Yogurt
12660 East 126th Street
Fishers, Indiana 46038
http://www.yogifrozenyogurt.com/

I’ve been on a big ice cream kick recently and in an effort to mix it up, I’ve been trying frozen yogurt places as well since they are supposedly more “healthy”.  I’ve never been a big frozen yogurt guy because I often times find the yogurt too icy and I don’t like the fact that it lacks creaminess like ice cream has.

Last week, I went to Huddles Frozen Yogurt (sorry, no review) and was very impressed with both the cake batter flavor (it somehow had a rich creaminess to it and did not have that dreaded icy taste) and the fact that it was a build-it-yourself type of place where you take whatever flavor of frozen yogurt you like and then build your own sundae using the available toppings.  Once you have your sundae built, they then weigh your creation and charge you based on the weight.  Since Huddles is a slight hike from where I live, I started looking around to see if there were any places like this closer to me and I came across Yogi.  Yogi is similar to Huddles in the fact that they have ten flavors of frozen yogurt that rotate daily, but differs in the fact that they have over fifty toppings (I would guess Huddles is in the twenties)!  When I found that out, I knew I had to go and continue my commitment to gluttony!

What I Got:  Build-your-own Sundae, $0.39 per ounce.  My cost:  $8.51 (LOL).

When I first got into Yogi, it kind of surprised me in its spartan decor.  I guess I expected something with displays and advertising everywhere like you would see in a Baskin-Robbins or similar frozen treat-type shop, but Yogi was very clean, simple and everything was modeled in either lime green or magenta/pink.  On my way to the register, I was overcome by the toppings bar and the fact that there were two of them.  The toppings bar included your normal candy add-ons, cereal-type add-ons, nuts, cookies, brownies, waffle cone pieces, fruits, flavored syrups, whipped cream, hot fudge, chocolate chips, wafers, cake pieces, cookie dough, etc.  Basically, it would take me forever to list all of them but needless to say, I was in heaven.  Just past the toppings bars were the frozen yogurt machines with eight(ish) different flavors of frozen yogurt including Cake Batter, Lime, Strawberry, Vanilla, Chocolate, Peanut Butter, etc. (those are the only ones I can remember).

Since I had just finished a 2.5 hour workout and was feeling particularly gluttonous, I went to work on my creation.  For my base, I chose a mixture of Cake Batter yogurt (to compare to Huddles) and then Peanut Butter flavor as well.  Unfortunately, both flavors had that dready icy texture that I dislike about frozen yogurt and the actual strength of the taste of the yogurt (compared to what it was supposed to taste like) was very faint.  Since I was already in the shop though, I figured I’d make up for it in toppings.  And since this was gluttony at its best, I’ll give my toppings (the ones I can remember) their own paragraph:

Crushed Oreo cookies, Chocolate Chip Cookie, Chocolate Chips, Almonds, Cashews, Peanuts, Granola, Reese’s Pieces, Peanut M&M’s, Waffle Pieces, Cookie Dough, Hot Fudge, Peanut Butter Syrup, Crushed Heath bar, Crushed Snickers bar and well, I think that might be it minus one or two.  Here’s what the monstrocity looked like, although the syrup/fudge hides most of the toppings…

Would I Buy It Again?  One more chance. I want to see if the other varities of yogurt lack the distinct strong flavor and/or have the icy texture of these two yogurts I tried.  While being able to build my own sundae can be both liberating and amusing, it kind of loses its appeal if the yogurt underneath lacks any flavor.  On a funny sidenote, I was told by the girl working the register (those are her legs in the picture) that my sundae was the second or third biggest sundae that had ever sold.  LOL, I’m so proud and so is my mother.

FYI, Brent from Random Dude Eats Random Food just did a review on this place this past weekend as well (I think he’s following me around) and pretty much had the exact same sentiments as me.

As another FYI, I saw on their Facebook page that Yogi is opening a second Fishers location at 116th & Allisonvill Road in the strip shopping center behind Marsh (the one with the Domino’s Pizza and Subway).  They hope to open that location in July.

-IndianapolisEater

Recess

4907 North College Avenue
Indianapolis, IN 46205
http://www.recessindy.com

Recess has received very few mentions on this blog because quite simply, I have yet to go.  There was a lot of anticipation around the opening and I usually try to make opening night, however they have been open for 5+ months and I have yet to pass through the doors.

The menu changes daily and the average price is around $40-$50 for a already established three-to-four course meal.  On Monday nights, they have special events that stray slightly off course from their fine dinning roots.  For instance, Mexican night, Picnic, etc.

When I heard they were having a fast food night, I had to give it a try.  After all, I thought that it was somewhat of a reflection of this blog, some fast food and some fine dinning.  The premise was to take signature dishes form fast food places and put the Recess spin on them.  For instance, McRib = BBQ Pork Belly.  Get it?  Cute.

What I Ate:  Long John Silver’s.  Fried fish and Hush Puppies; $10.  I also ordred a to go order of KFC fried chicken, biscuit, cole slaw and mashed potatoes and gravy; $10.

Let me first explain my expectations:

1.  This food would be better than the fast food counterpart.

2.  The food should be in the top 20% of similar dishes that I have had.

3.  For $10, there would be generally enough to eat for a light meal.

Really dark inside…  The LJS

I love fish and chips and will admit that I hit up LJS about two-to-three times a year to get my fix outside of normal orders at restaurants.  This version was two small pieces of fish and two hush puppies.  I found the hush puppies to be dry and bland.  The fish was moist, however the breading didn’t stick to the fish and it fell off all in one piece.  This is usually from not drying out the fish before frying it and I can’t imagine that they skipped this part, however the proof is in the pudding here.

The KFC dish was equally disappointing.  When I think of KFC, I think of a bucket of chicken, pulling out the leg Fred Flintstone style and having a bite.  Recess’ interpretation is that KFC is known for chicken fingers.  I was confused by this.  There were two chicken fingers that were laid on top of the mashed potatoes and gravy which made them soggy.  I like the flavor of the breading, but couldn’t get over the gloopy mess that was in front of me.  The cole slaw was super acidic and I didn’t care for it.  The biscuit was dry and there wasn’t enough gravy there to sop it up with the biscuit.

They tossed in a dessert for everyone that was there, which was a little “DQ” ice cream sundae.  Ice cream with chocolate sauce, butterscotch and nuts.  This was the best thing of the meal, however it melted in three seconds.  You would think that they would keep the ice cream dish cold, but I thinked they grabbed mine straight from the dishwasher station because my bowl was warm, and of course the ice cream was going to melt.  Fail.

Service also had their issues.  I ordered my meal thinking that one order would be enough food and I was wrong.  The same server explained the evening and let them know that you should order two-to-three items if you would like a full meal.  That would’ve been nice to know.  Also, I specifically asked for my KFC order to be separated (so those chicken tenders didn’t suffer the same fate) and when I got home and opened the box, they didn’t accommodate my request.

Would I Buy It Again? I am torn here. I enjoy their creativity and what they are doing, but this meal was a catastrophe from top to bottom.

Then again, what if a fast food place tried fine dining, I am sure that would suck too.

Poor service lead to inaccurate expectations of the evening and I would’ve probably preferred the fast food version of what they made.  I will try Recess again on a normal night to prove my initial impression right or wrong.

To be fair, they are critically acclaimed and worth a try so you can formulate you own opinion, here are some more favorable reviews:

-wibia