Review: Augustino’s
8028 South Emerson Ave.
Indianapolis, IN 46237
http://www.augustinosindy.com

Italian food.  What’s not to like?  Sure there are tons of red-sauce emporiums around but there are also the more adventurous places that can take the world’s second most influential cuisine (Yeah, France at least you are number one at something other than being annoying) to new heights.  I’m easy; I like ‘em both.  Honestly it’s going to take a couple more visits for me to tell you with any certainty where Augustino’s fits.  I’ve had a few of my south-side brethren speak highly of the place so I decided to give it a try for lunch.  The décor is very comfortable and actually felt more fine-dining than strip-mall storefront.

What I had: I read in Indianapolis Monthly that the Italian wedding soup was good so I started with that and shared the Toasted Ravioli appetizer with my wife.

Before I get to those I have got to say something about the bread basket delivered to our table.  It was fantastic.  Hot and crusty with just the right amount of reluctance before giving way to reveal a wonderful spongy interior.  A slather of butter and I was very happy.  The Toasted Ravioli arrived and the too uniform appearance leads me to believe that they are not house-made and rather than toasted in a pan, I’m guessing deep fried.  Nonetheless, they were tasty, half with a beef filling and half with cheese., served with Alfredo and Marina served with a swirl in the same bowl for dipping.  Nice.

A cup of wedding soup was next.  My wife is a former regional manager for a high-end food manufacturer and one of the best things they made was Italian Wedding soup.  I think that Augustino’s is buying this soup. It was good but again, I just didn’t think it was house-made.

For my entree, I ordered the “Supreme Sausage Sandwich.”  If you’ve read more than just a couple of my reviews you know that I am a sausage junkie (Yeah, I just wrote that).  This really is a knife and fork sandwich for a couple reasons:  first, it is piled with sliced sausage coins, peppers, onions and cheese on that awesome bread and is just impossible to pick up and second, it was as hot as the face of the sun.  It was also really good.  I could have used a bit more sausage but that’s just me.  The pepper/onion mix tasted as if it was simmered in the generous marinara giving it a nice spicy bite.  Did I mention this was really good?

Would I Buy It Again?  Sure. The food was really well prepared, attention to detail was evident and it tasted good.  I do want to return for dinner so that I can see what else this kitchen can do.  I can’t remember what I paid for it but it was worth it so who cares?

-Smokin DB

Fazoli’s
http://fazolis.com/

For those of you that are longtime readers of the blog (I mean a REALLY LONG time) or have been bored and checked out the review archives, you may remember that Fazoli’s was one of the first reviews that I did on the site.  In that review, I basically divorced myself from Fazoli’s and implied that I was never going back and I had held to that statement until recently when I was overtaken by a craving for Italian food.  I didn’t feel like making it myself and I didn’t feel like going to a more expensive place and spending $10+ for a meal, so that left me with Fazoli’s or nothing.  I can’t say I was fired up about it, but since I was really craving Italian food, I took the plunge.  I get Fazoli’s ads in the mail all the time, so I decided to try out one of their new featured offerings from the ad.

What I Got:  Pizza Baked Spaghetti; $3.99.  Comes with two garlic breadsticks.

Fazoli’s Pizza Baked Spaghetti is spaghetti (obviously), marinara sauce, Italian sausage, pepperoni and mozzarella cheese all baked in an oven so that the cheese melts on top just like a pizza.  It’s not brain surgery, but something at a fast Italian joint never should be.

In terms of taste, this actually wasn’t bad.  Had it not been for the nice addition of the spice of the Italian sausage, I would have said that this was just bland and boring.  Instead, the sausage moved it from a “C” letter grade to a “C+” letter grade in my book.  They were a little skimpy on the sauce (I prefer a ton of sauce; for most people, the amount of sauce was probably just right), but the rest of the toppings were plentiful.  These cheese was melted perfectly, and the pepperoni was nice and crispy…it was almost as if I was actually eating a pizza.  Hey, wait, maybe that’s why it’s called “Pizza Baked Spaghetti”?  Wow, those Fazoli’s people sure are crafty!

Anyway, the portion size was pretty solid as well.  It wasn’t enough to fill me up, but as we know from this blog, I am a ridiculous eater when it comes to portion sizes.  For any ordinary person, this and a couple of breadsticks would definitely do the trick.

Would I Buy It Again?  I would actually.  Fazoli’s didn’t re-invent the wheel with this and they rarely do, but this Pizza Baked Spaghetti is a nice little fill if you have a craving for Italian food.  It’s tasty enough and when you are only paying a relative pittance at $3.99, you get a winner.

They also have two other varieties in their “Pizza Baked” line that consist of ravioli and lasagna (you can also get them “upsized” with more and different meats for additional $1), so I may give them a shot if I’m in the mood for fast Italian again.

-IndianapolisEater

Shebella’s Pizza & Deli
7035 East 96th Street
Indianapolis, Indiana  46250
http://www.shebellas.com/

For what seemed like an eternity, I had been driving by this place on my way to and from work seeing a Coming Soon sign.  Finally on June 17th, Shebella’s opened for business announcing that they had a daily pizza, pasta and salad buffet in addition to their regular menu.  Within a week after their opening, I was feeling particularly gluttonous, so I decided to give it a shot and what better way than a buffet is there to try out a variety of foods at new restaurant?

Based on my horrid experience at Luca Pizza, I tried to time up this visit around the dinner rush so that I would not have any problems with the buffet not being replenished.  Despite this, Shebella’s still had problems keeping the buffet stocked and the food warm, but I’ll give them a pass on that one since they had only been open a week at the time and they specifically told me that they learned a lot that night and were going to implement changes.

What I Got:  Pizza, Pasta and Salad Buffet $7.99.

I tried as much as I possibly could in order to do a variety of tasting of their sizeable menu, so let’s start with the pizza:

I should have put up a sugar packet as a frame of reference, but these pieces of pizza were cut small like your traditional buffet pizza cuts.  On the buffet, they had the common pizzas like cheese, pepperoni, pepperoni/sausage, supreme pizza, as well as my hated Hawaiian pizza.  Later, they also threw out a dessert pizza consisting of cherry topping and icing  (didn’t try it) and as far as taste was concerned, this wasn’t all that great.  Don’t get me wrong, it was edible enough and the sauce used was tantalizingly sweet, but the crust was spongy/soft and the cheese was just one gelatinous, glue-like mess.  Honestly, this tasted like school cafeteria pizza and that’s not a compliment.

Also on the buffet were multiple kinds of pasta ranging from tri-color rotini to fettucini to macaroni and cheese to cheese ravioli.  To compliment your pastas, they also had meatballs and two kinds of pasta sauces (marinara and alfredo; didn’t try any of the alfredo because I am a marinara junky).

First on my plate was the fettucini topped with marinara sauce and also macaroni and cheese.  Taste wise, it would appear that they used the same sweet marinara sauce as they did for the pizza and I already said that I was a fan of that.  The macaroni and cheese was exceptionally cheesy and gooey, but mostly bland.  If they wanted to make this a little better, they should start using sharper/stronger cheeses.  The meatballs also suffered from the same affliction:  blandness.  They lacked any real flavor other than chewy meat (they were tender).  If they mixed in some extra Italian spices like garlic, basil, etc., they may have winners here because they were sizeable.

Next on the pasta adventure was the stuffed ravioli and yes, more meatballs (I’ve had a meatball craving recently and even though these were bland, I kept eating them).

I will say that the ravioli was the best out of all the pastas that I tried.  It needed to be cooked a little longer so that the cheese would melt a little better, but all in all these were pretty solid tasting.  They were stuffed with ricotta cheese and then baked in the aforementioned sweet marinara sauce.  Like most everything on the buffet, they could have used a little bit more Italian flavoring to give them some kick, but these like I said, not a bad taste at all.  Also, each of these ravioli shells were quite large.

Finally, let’s take a look a the breadsticks and salad bar (they also had two soups available).

The breadsticks were just standard breadsticks although they were dusted with garlic butter and parmesan cheese and I found that to be a good thing as I liked these breadsticks.  I didn’t try any, but they also had nacho cheese sauce available as a dipping sauce for the breadsticks.

As for the salad bar, it was stocked with your general collection of salad toppings, macaroni salads, pasta salads, fruits, puddings, etc.  In terms of selection on the salad bar, I will say that Shebella’s did a good job here because they had just about everything that you would ordinarily want on a salad bar and everything was fresh.  This may seem like somewhat of blasphemy, but I would say that their salad bar was nearly as good as the Ruby Tuesday salad bar (the king of all salad bars).

Would I Buy It Again? Well, if you are asking about the Pizza, Pasta and Salad buffet, I would say no.  Everything here was edible and the price wasn’t too bad, but it wasn’t good enough to make me want it again.

As far as future visits to Shebella’s, I’m still undecided.  I would definitely stay away from the pizza and pasta items on the menu, but since this place is also a deli (not a true deli like Shapiro’s and the like, more like a pre-made sandwich kind of place), I will admit that I’m kind of intrigued by some of the sandwiches on the menu, so I may try one of those in the future.

Still this is a locally owned business with a staff that was obviously trying their best by putting a lot of work and pride into what they were doing, so that alone may be enough to get me to go in and give the sandwiches and this place one more shot.

-IndianapolisEater