Good Morning Mama’s Cafe
1001 E. 54th Street
Indianapolis, IN 46220
http://www.goodmorningmamas.com

Good Morning Mama’s is a breakfast and lunch only place owned by the same folks that run Mama Carrolla’s Italian restaurant.  Open just 8:00 a.m.  to 2:30 p.m. Tuesday thru Sunday, this place just has to do it right to stay in business.  We tried to get in on a Sunday morning several weeks ago and the wait was crazy, so we passed.  The opportunity presented itself for a late lunch during the week so my wife and I took it.

Once inside I was surprised that the place is pretty darn big.  With the outside patio seating, Good Morning Mama’s can handle a crowd.  I liked the vibe of a dressed-up old gas station with clean, retro décor.

What I Had:  The Full Boat; $8.99.

I was in the mood for breakfast at nearly 1:00 p.m., so I was happy that breakfast is served all day.  The Full Boat consists of two eggs your way, fried potatoes, biscuit with sausage gravy and choice of meat.  Make mine bacon please.  The eggs were perfectly cooked over-easy and the fried potatoes mixed chunky, crispy planks with soft buttery rounds…nice.  I think there were five or six strips of tasty thinly sliced bacon, not a skimpy strip or two.  The sore spot was on the separate place of biscuits and sausage gravy.  The gravy was fine, sort of standard issue sausage gravy as it was good but not anything outstanding.  The biscuit short-circuited the entire plate by being dry and hard.  Not even the hot gravy could soften this thing.  It was late in the day and that may provide a bit of cover for the stale biscuit, but I am surprised that the cook put this thing out for consumption.  It had to be hard to miss how badly this thing was past due.

Would I Buy It Again?  Yes, with hesitation.  Let’s face it, it should not be a stretch for any professional kitchen to deliver a competent breakfast.  While this breakfast was good, the fact that a biscuit of this vintage made it to my table makes me wonder if they are really paying attention, particularly if you only serve breakfast and lunch.  I’ll give this place another try and report back.

-Smokin DB

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

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

HotBox Pizza
12510 East 116th Street
Fishers, IN 46037-8907
(317) 849-4200
http://www.gethotboxpizza.com/

If you spent any time in Bloomington, you would know that for a while Pizza Express owned the town.  Mostly because of their breadsticks, cheese sauce and super cheap Big Ten Special  (Large one topping, breadsticks and two sodas in plastic cups).  Most of my friends still have the cups somewhere around.  I’m rambling, but note that HotBox and Pizza Express basically have the same food.  HotBox has six locations with five in Indiana and one in Texas.

What I Had: Large BBQ Pizza, Large Sausage, Pepperoni and Mushroom and two orders of breadsticks.  I had a buy one-get one coupon and the total was around $25.  The BBQ chicken was $18.95 for a large alone and breadsticks are $3.99.

I ordered the S,P & M on thin crust.  Wow, this was bad.  I think they were going for low carb, but the taste was really bad.  The sausage pieces were so small, it had the consistency of sand.  The mushrooms were very small and really sparse as well.  There was very little sauce, but the soggy crust couldn’t handle the weight anyway.

The BBQ was ordered on hand tossed crust which I enjoyed more, but it was pretty weak as well.  Very small pieces of of chicken were sparsely scattered throughout the pizza.   The BBQ sauce was too sweet for my liking and the red onion didn’t add anything.   The crust to toppings ratio was flirting with them being pretty cheap.

The breadsticks were okay.  The cheese has to be straight from a can and the breadsticks were really chewy and salty.

Would I Buy It Again?   No.  I’d rather make a Red Baron and get a kick in the nuts as I would feel better than I did after this meal.  Even with the buy one-get one coupon, I didn’t feel as if I got a deal because the toppings were such low quality and very sparse.  Honestly, it is my least favorite pizza in Indianapolis.  No, scratch that…Indiana.  Sorry.

-wibia

Best Bet Breakfast & Lunch
14300 Mundy Drive
Noblesville, Indiana  46060

This place has been around for a couple years now and I have been a few times pre-blog, but this was my first visit since the blog started and I figured that a review was in order.  The place is a little hole in the wall at the end of a strip shopping center and the whole place is done up in a Las Vegas/gambling motif (which is hilarious by the way).

On my prior visits, this place was kind of hit or miss.  My first visit was outstanding, my second visit was awful and my third visit was mediocre, so the real question is if Best Bet is still unpredictable and I still can’t answer that definitively after my most recent visit.

What I Got:  The Flop (playing up the gambling angle); eggs, sausage patties, potatoes and two pancakes.  Also comes with unlimited toast basket.  $7.25

In this visit, I tried hitting all the different varieties of breakfast foods available as I took a trip to the proteins (meats and eggs) and starches (pancakes, bread and potatoes).  In order to make this easy, let’s tackle this by individual menu item.

Eggs:  I got mine scrambled and it was pretty standard stuff.  They offered to make them with cheese (a nice touch), but I declined.  The taste was pretty much what you would expect of scrambled eggs with no real huge positives or negatives.

Sausage patties:  I saw somewhere on the web that Best Bet uses locally grown pork for their sausage and I could definitely taste a freshness here.  I also have to give them kudos for cooking the sausage so that it maintained some sort of tenderness.  That may not seem like a big thing, but I’ve been to far too many breakfast places that serve you sausage patties that are about as hard as a hockey pucks.  My only gripe was that the patties were fairly thin.

Potatoes:  They certainly don’t win any presentation points with these.  When they came to me, you could tell that they just took the potatoes out of a large batch of potato mush on the griddle (I verified this on my way out) with an ice cream scoop and dumped it on the plate.  Despite the lack of visual attractiveness, these actually did taste pretty good.  They were seasoned with a peppery taste and that did a lot for them because potatoes at a lot of places are usually very bland.

Pancakes:  Again, pretty standard stuff here.  I got the buttermilk variety pancakes (blueberry pancakes were an option) and all I can say is that they made them right.  They were perfectly cooked and fluffy.

Would I Buy It Again?  Yes, I would, although I will continue to be leery of their up-and-down nature.  There’s not a ton of non-chain, locally owned breakfast places in the Fishers/Noblesville area, so Best Bet kind of wins by default.  Still, the food on my most recent visit was tasty and it was enough to bring me back.  The price was a bit higher than I would like for breakfast, but when you balance that with the HUGE amount of food that they give you with this order, it actually turns out to be a good deal.

One more thing:  As part of their unlimited toast basket,  Best Bet has these little homemade cinnamon and sugar covered donut balls that they serve you (I have had them on prior visits) and they are delicious.  When they weren’t part of my basket on this past visit, I was very disappointed and asked the server what happened.  Turns out that the donuts are only part of the standard basket on the weekdays.  On the weekends, you have to actually request that they bring them to you.  The good news about that is that they are usually warm and fresh and that is huge.  So, my tip to you is to make sure that you ask your server to bring some out to you.  You will not regret it!

-IndianapolisEater

[Editor's Note:  Thanks to the joys of technology, we were unable to get a picture of this one because of a camera issue after the picture was taken.  Still the review is worthwhile, so we inserted the official promotional photo from Hardee's.]

What I Got: Texas Toast Sausage Breakfast Sandwich $2.09 with a Buy One, Get One Free Coupon

In a previous review, I enjoyed my look at the Hardee’s Monster Biscuit which came in at 710 calories and 51 grams of fat, which made it something you should rarely eat.  After that review, a WIBIA reader e-mailed me and said I should try a Texas Toast Breakfast Sandwich and said that they were so good that they could eat them all day long.  With that ringing endorsement, I had to check it out for myself.

The Texas Toast Breakfast Sandwich can be ordered with sausage, ham or bacon.  The bacon will save you 100 calories versus the sausage sandwich I chose that comes in at 480 calories and 30 grams of fat.  This is just slightly more than my favorite McDonald’s Sausage Egg McMuffin at 450 calories and 22 grams of fat.

Although this sandwich had large sausage patties and a couple of slices of cheese, the real test came down to the bread or toast itself.  Often when I make eggs at home, I sprinkle in some garlic pepper to give it some flavor.  I had the expectation that the Texas Toast would have good base of garlic taste and be softly toasted to make it an ideal complement to the sausage.

Would I Buy It Again?  No.  The toast was hard all the way around the edges making it difficult to bite into.  Not only was the toast lacking the garlic taste I usually enjoy from Texas Toast, but this actually had a burnt taste like it was made in a toaster that had something burning in it.  After I ate a few bites, I ended up tearing off the crust to make the rest of the sandwich edible.   If you are heading to Hardee’s, stick with their freshly made breakfast biscuit sandwiches, which are above average or go for the Monster Biscuit if you have some calories and nearly your whole day of sodium allowance to give.

-EatHSE

Remember this segment?  Yeah, I doubt it.  Last recipe was from IndianapolisEater on February 10th.  Understand that since my son (el diablo) is 9 months old, my pursuit of “the good stuff” is compromised.  Additionally, where I would normally have two hours to cook dinner, I now have 25 minutes and 1 hand.  I know…it was my choice to have a kid, stop yo’ b**chin wibia.

Now, I look for a few shortcuts here and there and ways to add flavor to items that are already in my pantry.  In this case, pasta night to a lot of people looks like this:

Look familiar for pasta night?

Emeril’s sauce is okay and I would give it a 6/10, but it is what I had.  Don’t buy the really cheap canned stuff…spend a few bucks more.  Same goes with the pasta, buy good quality dried pasta.  This is a start, a sad start, but if you add a few things, you might have something to talk about.

Getting warmer...

Ingredients:  L->R  Garlic, Parmigiano Reggiano, Italian Sausage (links), Spanish Onion, Baby Bellas, Sauce, Pasta, Italian Seasoning, Fennel and Red Pepper.

Again, this is quick, easy..cheap and pretty flippin’ good.   The trick is, how you prepare this.  Let me explain.

So take the pork sausage links (4), cut off the casing.  Roll it into a ball like this, and then cover it with the whole fennel, red pepper, and italian seasoning.

TIP:  A lot of times, pork sausage is cheaper than ground pork.  Watch your prices.

Then break it into pieces, something like this…

Two count of olive oil into a pan and drop the balls of sausage in the pan.  Have a big enough pan that they are not sitting on top of each other.  Could you have put all the sausage in at one and then break it apart with a spatula?  Sure, but that is more of a bolognese and not what we are doing here.   After a few minutes, add onion and garlic.   Be careful not to burn the garlic.

After about 10 minutes, it should look like this.  TIP:  the sausage needs to be dark on the outside.  In fact, almost a little burnt.  Don’t stir this a lot, otherwise it will not carmelize.

It's ready

Add the sauce to the pan above (if most of the oil/fat is gone, if not, dump the oil out).  Cook for about 3 minutes until it is warm.  I sautéed the mushrooms in a separate pan with 1 T of butter and a two count of olive oil.  If you time it out correctly, you can cook the mushrooms in the above pot.  Either works just fine.

Add it all together and give it a snow shower of Parmigiano Reggiano on the Microplane and call it dinner.

In future segments, I will teach you how to make all of this from scratch.  This is my version of “Semi-Homemade” from wibia.

Enjoy,

wibia

Chili is a great way to warm up on a cold winter day and last week, we posted a recipe for King David Dogs’ chili recipe.  This week, we have another At Home segment with another chili recipe, but this one has a twist:  it is my recipe!

My recipe has won the chili contest that WIBIA, EatHSE and several of our friends have had the past couple years.  Yep, that’s right, I’ve won with this recipe twice and had rave reviews on it when I’ve brought it out to football tailgates in years past (it’s actually a sore spot for WIBIA that I’ve won both times).  So, what I am saying is that with this recipe, you are guaranteed a flavorful chili that is simple and cheap to make!

FYI, this is a recipe you would want to make a day or two before and let sit in the refrigerator.  Also, you’ll notice one thing about this recipe…no beans!  Beans themselves are great, but they don’t belong in chili, in my opinion.  Without further adieu, here’s the recipe:

Ingredients
[The spice level of this chili recipe tends to be hot, so that is just a warning.]

• 2 pounds hot/spicy ground sausage (if you want to cool the recipe down some, use mild sausage or ground beef)
• 4 cups of tomato juice
• 29 ounces tomato sauce
• 12 ounces tomato paste
• 1 large onion (chopped and diced)
• 1/2 medium-sized green pepper (chopped and diced; seeds removed)
• 1/2 cup of celery (chopped and diced)
• 1/4 cup of chili powder
• 2 teaspoons cumin
• 1 1/2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar (I often use Splenda as a substitute)
• 1/8 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon paprika

Steps

1. Brown ground sausage and drain fat out of skillet.
2. Dump ground sausage in large pot and then cover with all other ingredients and stir.
3. Leave mixture in pot and simmer on LOW for two hours (if it comes to a boil, turn off burner and let the pot simmer with no heat source).
4. Cover and refrigerate overnight.
5. On the day of eating, pull chili pot out of refrigerator and re-heat on LOW for one hour.
6. After one hour, increase temperature of heat source in order to get chili to desired temperature (simmering on LOW will probably get you there).

After you get the chili to your desired eating temperature, serve it up plain, with cheese or whichever way you like it and enjoy.

-IndianapolisEater