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

Granite City Food & Brewery
150 West 96th Street
Indianapolis, Indiana 46290
http://www.gcfb.net/

Every now and then you just feel like eating a huge meal and being fat.  That feeling happens to me more than I’d like, but I try to control it by limiting myself to no more than two giant meals a month.  If I didn’t do that, well, we’ve been there before.

Anyway, I was experiencing one of those moments a while back and that led me to Granite City Food & Brewery for their Sunday Brunch.  I’ve been before and didn’t do a review, but since I’ve told so many friends about this offline, I figured that it was time to share with my blog friends as well.  FYI, WIBIA has been there before to review their non-brunch food items and has been there for brunch as well.

What I Got:  Sunday Brunch; $14.99.

Here’s a link to the menu their brunch offerings on their site, so I’ll spare listing them all out and just hit what I got and took photos of.

When you first arrive, they bring out a plate of caramel rolls and that’s what you see in the picture in the top of this post.  They bring one roll per person and these things are about as big as your head.  If you know anything about nutrition at all, you know that cinnamon rolls are just about the unhealthiest thing in the world, so when you are getting a giant cinnamon roll dripping with warm caramel sauce to start your meal, well, you might as well throw your calorie counts out the window for the day and/or week.  In terms of taste, these things are soft, sweet, gooey and basically the most sinful  and delicious thing you could ever eat in your entire life.  Frankly, you could stop after this and be okay, but I had to get my money’s worth in this meal!

After gorging myself on a caramel roll, plate #1 was a stop at the make-your-own Eggs Benedict station with assorted meats, cheeses and vegetables and as you can see above, I was definitely not shy about my creation.  They have a cook working there that will construct everything to your liking, so I chose a mixing of just about everything they had on the line (by the way, that’s a sausage patty under the poached egg).  Ha!  Unfortunately, while it looks delicious, it really wasn’t all that great.  The hollandaise sauce was flat and since this was a make-your-own station, a lot of the food had been sitting for a while so it wasn’t fresh/crunchy.  It’s too bad too, because when done right, Eggs Benedict is awesome.

Plate #2 wasn’t exactly healthy either.  From top in clockwise direction, you’ve got hickory smoked bacon, biscuits and sausage gravy and then baked reggiano hash browns.  Let’s start with the bacon and I’ll use one word to describe it:  delicious.  First of all, it’s extremely thick and that is awesome.  Secondly, it straddles the line between being too soft and being too crunchy…in other words, perfectly cooked.  The peppery kick from the seasoning added a nice bounce to the bacon and frankly, I can’t say enough good things about it.  Unfortunately, that’s not the case with the biscuits and sausage gravy.  The biscuit was pretty standard, but the gravy was pretty weird.  First of all, it could have used more flour because it wasn’t particularly thick.  Secondly, it had more of a yellow-ish color instead of your traditional white coloring and that was not something that I would ordinarily expect.  As you can see in the picture, there’s also little specs of red and green in the gravy and that comes from the pepper and herb seasoning that they put into the gravy and I can honestly say, I was not a fan.  Peppery and spicy sausage gravy is something I don’t mind…I prefer it in fact, but that is usually a black pepper heat.  The spice in this gravy was more of a red pepper flake spice and zingy (nice word) and I was not a fan of that.  Granite City gets points for trying to be different here, but it just didn’t work.  The last item on the plate is the baked reggiano hash browns and once again, one word describes these:  delicious.  The reggiano makes these things thick and creamy and also adds a nice salty bite to the mix in general.  It also makes them creamy and when you add in the fact that these were baked to add some crunch, you get a bit of heaven.  If I had the recipe for these, I would seriously make them at least once a week because these are the best hash browns that I’ve ever had in my life.

Plate #3 brought one of my favorite foods in the world, prime rib.  In addition to that, in clockwise fashion again, we had garlic mashed potatoes, more baked reggiano hash browns and some salad.  Let’s start with the prime rib…all I can say is that I had such high expectations and left so disappointed.  First of all, as you can see above, they carve it paper thin and that is just ridiculous since this is a buffet and you can have them add more and more prime rib until you get enough.  What a joke.  Dissertation aside, the problem with thinly slicing prime rib is that it ends up with no juices and that affects your product and honestly, the roasts that they are using for their prime rib roast are not particularly high quality anyway.  It lacked flavor and when combining that with thinly slicing it, it really makes this a loser and a huge disappointment in my mind.  The garlic mashed potatoes were good, but there’s not much of a point wasting a lot of time on them.  They were creamy and had a nice garlic kick and I appreciated that.  Outside of that, there’s not a whole lot to say.  I’ve already covered the hash brown, so I’ll just say that there’s a reason they made it to the second plate.  As for the salad, I had to be healthy at some point, right?  LOL.  On a side note, if you manage to sneak up to the carving station while the carver is away, you can cut yourself your own piece of beef so that can get a little extra juice/thickness and not get the shaft like you would from the regular carver.

The Sunday Brunch also had a make-your-own station for waffles and French Toast (the slices are absurdly thick) as well, so you can hit those as well (I have on other trips for the brunch) and the toppings for those include, various jams, syrups, whipped creams, candy toppings (chips, Heath bars, M&M’s, etc.) and it’s definitely a good thing to have for kids or the little kid hiding inside of you.  They also have various other items on their buffet such as sausage links (enormous), pastas, vegetables, pastries, fruits, soups, etc.  Basically, if you attempted to try some of everything, there is no doubt you’d gain fifteen pounds before you exited.

Would I Buy It Again?  Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.  At $14.99 for a lot high quality food, you really are getting one of the best brunch buffet options that I’ve ever seen (keep in mind that I’ve never been to Las Vegas).  The prime rib may be substandard at best, but the quality of everything else more than makes up for the low quality beef.  Heck, I might even spend $14.99 just to eat one of those sinful caramel rolls again.  Dear lord, I’m drooling on my keyboard now…

FYI, Granite City also offers a Saturday brunch with some different menu items.  It’s more of a stripped down version of Sunday’s and I think it costs less too.  Saturday’s brunch menu has a make-your-own omelet station and that is the primary attraction.  All you need to know though is that they have the caramel rolls and the hash browns on Saturday too, so you’d be more than set no matter what day you choose.

-IndianapolisEater

N’awlins Creole Café
1118 N State Road
Avon, IN 46123
http://www.nawlinscreolecafe.com

I enjoy Cajun/Creole food quite a bit and am always looking for a new place to go.  I stopped by N’awlins Creole Café based on the recommendation of a trusted friend and I was really looking forward to this.  It was all-you-can-eat catfish night for $13.99 and I was tempted to give that a try, but I decided to stick to one of the standard menu items.

What I Ate:  Crawfish Etouffee; $9.99.  It is served with a side (I choose mac and cheese) and a salad.

The salad was straight iceberg with cheese and a slice of tomato.  I tried their ranch dressing and to be honest, I could make this at home and I really didn’t see how this fit into the meal.  Nothing special here, so let’s move on.

When I ordered the etoufee, they asked me on a scale of one to ten how spicy I would like it and I said six.  The crawfish etouffee was a sneaky heat on the back end of the bite.  There wasn’t a lot of flavor going on here and the consistency was thinner than I like it.  The etouffee was served over a bed of rice that was under cooked.  A few pieces stuck in my molars.

The Mac and Cheese was better, but still off.  It needed salt and was cooked too long and the noodles did not hold their shape.  My dining partner got the Jambalaya and I found that to be bland as well.  Service was also hit and miss.  It was slow enough to cash out that after about ten minutes, I asked the server to bring my check.  My water was empty most of the time as well.

Would I Buy It Again?  No and it pains me to say it.  This could be a cool place, but between the inattentive service and lackluster meal, the only reason that I would go back is that they are an independent in a city of chains.

-wibia

Brewster’s Italian Cafe
11 West Merchant Street
New Buffalo, MI 49117
http://www.brewstersitaliancafe.com

Brewster’s is a small Italian Café in New Buffalo, Michigan located just north of the Indiana border a couple of blocks off of Lake Michigan.  Although New Buffalo gets dumped on with lake effect snow all winter long, it is a summer hotspot for summer vacationers and the Chicago crowd escaping the city.  The menu at Brewster’s changes every day for both lunch and dinner making each visit a unique experience.  This local owned café is a small establishment with a small indoor dining room along with tables beside the kitchen so you can watch all of the action.  During the summer, there is a private shaded patio that with the cool Lake Michigan breeze gives visitors an opportunity to dine and enjoy the environment.  The bar has a large beer selection including local brews from Michigan and a wine selection that gives diners plenty of choices.

Along with a la carte choices, which I list the individual prices of each menu item I reviewed below, you can choose the Dinner for Two if you are on a date. Dinner for Two includes smaller portions but provides a salad, pizza, entrée, and desert for $32.99.  Some entree items such as the shrimp my wife and I chose add an additional charge of up to $6 and an additional $1.50 for the specialty pizza making our diner $40.49.  I have copied the Dinner For Two description from their website below:

DINNER FOR TWO     $32.99

You each begin with a House Salad, then you’ll split a pizza, followed by your choice of one of this evening’s Entrees.  Cookies and coffee are included for Dessert  $32.99
(Please add 1 for the Classico,3 for the Chicken and 6 for the Carne or Fruitta Di Mare)

What We Got:

Gazpacho; $3.99:  Gazpacho is a raw tomato-based Spanish/Portuguese soup primarily served during the summer since it is served cold and there is a more abundant variety of seasonal vegetables to choose from.  The Gazpacho is not part of the Dinner For Two but was actually my favorite dish of the whole night.  The soup was acidic and bold, yet refreshing on this hot summer day.  The teaspoon of sour cream added a base to balance the acidity.  I am hoping our readers can point me to some Indianapolis area restaurants that serve a good Gazpacho.

House Salad:  The salad was simple with spinach leaves, a few croutons, shredded cheese (probably parmesan) and a homemade Italian dressing that works well.  The salad is nothing special but gets the job done.

Pizza with Crispy Pancetta, Baby Spinach and Scallions on a Gorgonzola Base; $11.99.

The pizza was very rich and we only ate half of it but enjoyed our choice.  The crust at Brewster’s appears to be made in a wood burning oven giving it that nice crisp finish.  I did not see a wood burning stove in the kitchen but appreciated the effort.  Although I enjoyed this pizza, I would probably save the $1.50 and choose one of their more basic pizzas leaving you with more room for your entrée and dessert.

Tiger Shrimp, Brussels Sprouts, Broccolini and a Carrot & Bacon Sofritto; $23.99:  I always have a high appreciation of Italian cooking that does not include pasta.  This dish was cooked with butter and the addition of a small amount of bacon grease giving it a rich and salty flavor.  Many people hate Brussel Sprouts but I say they just haven’t had them prepared correctly.  The sprouts in this dish were fresh and did not include the water or mushiness of thawed sprouts.  Cooked on the grill, they maintained the firmness but had unbelievable flavor.  Ingredients were proportional but the six shrimp was a disappointment for two people sharing a meal.

Dessert.  Cookie and Coffee:

I had the white macadamia nut and my wife went with the oatmeal raisin.  These might be made in house, but if I remember correctly, I think a local bakery brings them in.  Regardless, they are good cookies to go along with Brewster’s own coffee.  The coffee has a nice kick to it but not overly bold like you find at some coffee houses.  Although it is not on the menu, you can ask to buy a pound of the coffee ground or whole bean for $10 if you ask.

Would I It Again?  Yes, without a doubt.  This was my second visit to Brewster’s in a year and both times I walked away impressed and completely satisfied.  On this visit, I sat next to the kitchen and watched the operation.  The kitchen was spotless and organized.  There was a visible head chef in charge and the kitchen ran smoothly with three chefs under his direction. Yes, the chef uses a clean pan for every dish he makes and at many places, they do not do this and you end up getting food that has flavors from another dish that should not be there.  Service is outstanding in that drinks were constantly full, the table was never empty of food including the in house mad bread and oil and I never felt like anything was pushed on me by the server.  The environment is local with the smallness of the restaurant, and the Bell’s Oberon Ale Kalamazoo, MI that I drank.  If you are ever headed to Northwest Indiana or through that area of Michigan, stop by and get some great authentic Italian food for dinner or even one of their homemade deli sandwiches or frittatas for lunch.

Can a reader recommend a Gazpacho that comes close to matching theirs in the Indianapolis area?

-EatHSE

Sam’s Gyros
8922 East 96th Street
Fishers, Indiana  46037

This was my second visit to Sam’s Gyros.  In my previous visit, I reviewed the Gyros Plate and was amazed by the amount of tasty food that you received with your order.  On this visit, I was feeling like something a little lighter, so…

What I Got:  Large Gyros Salad; $8.50.

The Gyros Salad is their normal Greek Salad topped with tender pieces of Gyros.  Just as a starting point, the Greek Salad is lettuce topped with tomatoes, sprinkled oregano, feta cheese and Sam’s own special Greek dressing.  All salads are served with a side of pita bread and cucumber sauce.

As you can see from my picture, they certainly don’t skimp on the “large” size salad.  When I received this, I was as surprised by its size as I was in my initial review of the Gyros Plate.  For a salad, this was a large amount of food.  When you added in the healthy size serving of pita bread that came with the salad, you had a hearty meal.  So, my desire to have a “light” meal went out the window once I got this and thought, “oh well, I’ll live.”

As for taste, this was delicious.  The cool lettuce mixed with the salty feta cheese and the tart taste of their special Greek dressing all complimented each other perfectly.  When you added in the perfectly tender (and plentiful) gyros meat, you had an outstanding salad.

The pita bread was also warm, soft and doughy and while the cucumber sauce was a little bland, this was all a great mix to add to the salad.  It even got to the point where I had so much pita bread that I ran out of cucumber sauce and I started making mini-gyros with my pita bread and salad toppings.  Mmm…it was awesome.

Would I Buy It Again?  Oh heck yes.  $8.50 seems like a lot to spend on a salad (at least for me, but that’s how much one costs in a normal chain restaurant), but when you consider the portion sizes and the fact that you get a truck load of pita bread with it, this is a fantastic deal.  It’s not really a “light” meal, but it is somewhat healthier than the Gyros Plate.  Give it a shot and you won’t regret it.

FYI, Sam’s now has a third location at 7534 North Shadeland Avenue (closed on Sundays), so business is apparently going well and that is a good thing because they certainly deserve it with their tasty food.

-IndianapolisEater

Ruth’s Keystone Cafe
3443 E 86th St
Indianapolis, IN 46240
http://www.ruthscafe.com

I rarely go out to breakfast.   Why?   Because it is so easy to make at home.  Plus, I am usually pretty happy with the basics, so I don’t need to pay $5.00 for two eggs and toast!  Ruth’s was closed for a little while and when it re-opened I added it to the list and finally got around to it.

They have a pretty standard breakfast menu with omelets, egg scrambles, pancakes, etc.   They had a few sandwiches, hence:

What I Ate:  Brie LT $8.00.  Sourdough, bacon, brie, lettuce and saffron aioli.  Served with chips and a salad.

Okay, I am well aware that this is not normal breakfast fare, but it sounded good.  The sandwich was pretty tasty at first bite.  There was a thin layer of bacon and I could’ve used more.  However, there was a ton of  the saffron aioli and with the richness of the brie, I didn’t think that the sandwich even needed the extra fat.  There was a lot of brie on here and this really should’ve been sold as a panini as it was made on a panini press.  The sourdough was pretty tasty as well.

The salad was just greens with their viniagrette and some raw white onion.  I tasted more oil than anything, nothing happening here.   The chips were straight out of the bag, but I liked them a lot.  They tasted like Cape Cod brand, but that’s just a guess though.

Would I Buy It Again?   Yes, but I would not order the Brie LT again. The service was exceptional and I enjoyed the place.  My wife ordered an egg scramble and I liked that.  It was pretty busy, so I will assume that there are some real winners on the menu.

-wibia

Outback Steakhouse
3454 W 86th St
Indianapolis, IN 46268
http://www.outbacksteakhouse.com

I usually stay away from places like Outback Steakhouse just because reviewing them is so boring.   Everyone knows what the place is about, Bloomin’ Onion, etc.   However, I got an e-mail from the manager from my closest Outback and said that he loves the blog and that he would like to be reviewed.  He went on talking about how the vast majority of what they serve is made in house, etc.  This is my first e-mail from a manager of a chain asking me to come in, so I was suspicious.

I actually had Outback twice in the last month and I will just push them together in one review.

What I Ate: First visit, Prime Rib, 12 0z $18.95.  Second visit, Ribeye 12 oz $18.00.  You get a choice of two sides so I decided to vary my salads.

House Salad with Ranch Dressing: 

This was a pretty big starter salad.  I liked the ranch dressing, the croutons were pretty good, tomatoes were ripe…nothing to complain about here.

Bleu Cheese Wedge:

Sorry about the bogus picture, it was really dark.   Ripe tomatoes, red onion, bacon and bleu cheese crumbles.  I liked this quite a bit as well.  This would easily rival a $6.00 salad that you would get at the prime steakhouses in town.  It was huge too.  Hmm…

Ribeye Steak:

It was a little past medium rare, but not enough to send it back.  The ribeye was a very lean for a ribeye and I liked the flavor quite a bit.  Outback uses Choice grade (the same as Sullivan’s), so it is a good quality steak.  The sweet potato is always a favorite of mine and this did not disappoint.

The prime rib (not pictured) was actually my favorite.  It was a little bland as I like a salty crusty edge to it, but it was pretty good.  There is not a lot that I can say here, it is a standard cut of meat done really well.

Would I Buy It Again?  A very enthaustic YES!  You really don’t know how bad I wanted to slam them after the manager e-mailed telling me how great it is.  I say that only because my last five visits to other Outbacks were pretty bad.  This particular location is worth trying though.  

The service is exceptional, I mean really top notch (Mandy was particularly awesome.  We were greeted quickly with well paced meals and very friendly service.  Plus, I sent back the kid’s chicken and the manager was over in about thirty seconds making sure everything is okay and then we were comped a free app for that.  Totally unnecessary, but a nice touch.

This location really has their ducks in a row.  I figured out why the manager e-mailed me…because he gives a damn and is proud of his restaurant…and he should be.

-wibia

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