Food Baby Goes East!

As part of a Maine wedding / baseball vacation, my food baby gained about 5 pounds of amazing, amazing food!

The first stop was in Philadelphia where I got to compare the cheesesteaks at Pat's and Geno's. I preferred the meat on Pat's and the bread at Geno's. The smell of Pat's reminded me a bit of White Castle. So if you're not a fan, then you'll hate it!

Obviously in Maine we ate tons of lobster rolls, fried clams, clam chowder, and such. I highly recommend The Lobster Shack in Cape Elizabeth, ME. It was featured on Man vs. Food. It's right on the shore so the view is beautiful!! Doesn't get much better...We also visited Fisherman's Catch in Wells, ME. It was featured as having one of the best lobster rolls on Serious Eats. I preferred the food at The Lobster Shack.

When we were in Boston to see the Red Sox play and tour Fenway ($12 to go on top of the Green Monster?! So worth it!), I knew I wanted Italian. We walked around the North End and just picked a place that looked good and didn't have a long wait. I was not disappointed! The food at Il Villaggio ruined Italian food for me with their pasta made in house. Even though my dish was so basic (pasta, light tomato sauce, shrimp), everything was made so well it was amazing. Mike had a chicken dish with a side of potatoes that was also yum.

Per the suggestion of Serious Eats as the best pre-Fenway spot, we had drinks and a burger at Eastern Standard. We did have some really tasty drinks, but it seemed shwanky for a pre-Fenway spot. Next time I'd rather just find a hole in the wall bar for beers.

After the rain delay, lots of beer during the rain delay, and baseball, we caught a cab to the Dumpling Cafe in  Chinatown to get some SOUP DUMPLINGS! They were no Joe's Shanghai soup dumplings, but they definitely hit the spot. Now I want more...

Before we left Boston, we went to Soulfire that was featured on Meat and Potatoes. Mike loved it. It was a casual barbeque place that played awesome music and serves really good barbeque. It wasn't as good at Pappy's, but you can't beat the atmosphere. Mike and I ate an atrocious amount of food. Their Soulfire Sweet Tea helped it all go down.

After Boston, we made our way down to Washington, D.C. to see the Nationals play. We had lunch with my friend Lena at Matchbox. I got the Shrimp & Grits. It wasn't very good. There was too much liquid. It was like shrimp and grits soup. Eh. Mike and I also shared two pizzas: Fire & Smoke and Sausage and Sundried Tomato. I thought both tasted good, but Mike hated the Fire & Smoke. 

And not that you'd actually subject yourself to a Washington Nationals game just for the food, but these loaded hot dogs deserve a mention. We heard about these hot dogs on Serious Eats, so we stopped at Xtreme Loaded Dawgs and tried The Heater. It had buffalo sauce and was topped with bleu cheese cole slaw. I also tried the Half Smoke from Ben's Chili Bowl. I didn't like it. It gave me serious heartburn, but it probably wasn't just because of the Half Smoke...

The Rating

The Info

Pat's King of Steaks

Where 9th St. crosses Wharton & Passyunk Ave.

Philadelphia, PA 19147

(215) 468-1546

www.patskingofsteaks.com

Geno's Steaks

1219 S. 9th St.

Philadelphia, PA 19147

(215) 389-0659

www.genosteaks.com

Fisherman's Catch

134 Harbor Rd.

Wells, ME 04090

(207) 646-8780

www.fishermanscatchwells.com

The Lobster Shack

225 Two Lights Road (at the end of the road)

Cape Elizabeth, ME 04107

(207) 799-1677

www.lobstershacktwolights.com

Il Villaggio

230 Hanover St.

Boston, MA 02113

(617) 367-2824

www.villaggioboston.com

Eastern Standard

528 Commonwealth Ave.

Kenmore Square

Boston, MA 

(617) 532-9100

www.easternstandardboston.com

Dumpling Cafe

695 Washington St.

Boston, MA 02111

(617) 338-8859

www.dumplingcafe.com

Soulfire

182 Harvard Ave.

Allston, MA 02136

(617) 787-3003

www.soulfirebbq.com

Matchbox

713 H St. NW

Washington D.C. 20001

(202) 289-4441

www.matchbox369.com

Xtreme Loaded Dawgs

Nationals Park

1500 South Capital St., SE

Washington D.C. 20003

washington.nationals.mlb.com

10-01

I tried 10-01 soon after it opened with Abby, Josh, and P. I heard about it from my friend from high school that works as a bartender there. So I highly recommend getting a drink here from Q. He'll treat you well! I also recommend ordering one of these: the cucumber fizz.

This drink contains cucumber vodka, St. Germaine, lemon juice, and soda. It was so refreshing. A great summertime or anytime drink.

10-01 says it puts a culinary twist on comfort foods. I thought that they found success with the comfort food dishes and were just average when they tried to be fancy. To start, Abby ordered the 10-01 mac and cheese. It was a good balance of cheesy and creamy. It wasn't super thick, and it had bacon on top. Thumbs up.

Josh isn't hip to "sharing is caring" so he only lets me try a tiny bit of food. Therefore, I can't really say how much I, personally, liked his dish. He ordered the corn chowder with jalapeno corn bread and the 10-01 barbeque sandwich. The corn chowder was pretty good, but the cornbread was pretty plain. The jalapeno didn't come through enough for flavor or heat. The sandwich was pretty disappointing. My tiny bite didn't have a lot of flavor, and the fries were mushy. I didn't mind that I was only allowed a tiny bite.  Josh didn't seem impressed with his choices either.

P ordered the open faced duck burger. It came with cranberry basil bread pudding and sauteed vegetables. They didn't ask what temperature she wanted her duck cooked, which was unfortunate since it came out very well done. So if they don't ask you, I would recommend just offering that info to them. Since the duck was overcooked it was a little dry. Otherwise, the flavor was nice. I thought this was just ok.

I ordered the pan seared catfish. It came with risotto, buerre blanc sauce, herb tomato coulis (per Wiki, thick sauce pureed and strained from fruits or vegetables), and seasonal veggies. I'm a sucker for risotto, so I had to try this. I had high hopes. I really enjoyed the fish and risotto. They were both cooked well, but then it was overwhelmed by tomato coulis. I just couldn't get over it. Sad.

As usual, I saved the best for last. Abby ordered the best dish - the country fried pork. Not only did it look AMAZING; it tasted AMAZING. Actually it was better than AMAZING. It was very close to perfect. It was wonderfully salty, rich (but not heavy) and so, so comforting. I could have easily eaten the whole thing. Abby only ate half and it took a lot of self control not to eat her other half. DEFINITELY order this!

The Rating

The Info

10-01 Food & Drink

1001 Broad Ripple Ave.

Indianapolis, IN 46220

(317) 253-1001
www.1001fooddrink.com

Santorini Greek Kitchen

I was super excited to try this place for a couple of reasons:
1. I was having a craving for Greek food; specifically saganaki (flaming cheese)!
2. I had the privilege of having lunch with my good friend, Ben, and his girlfriend, Jessica.

Unfortunately, I was so anxious for the saganaki that I completely failed to take a picture before eating all of it. I'm really sorry... Also, this is the first time I'm using my "new" phone, so hopefully the pictures (for the food I take pictures of) turn out ok. Anyway, I really liked the saganaki here. Not only did it taste really good (how could melted goat cheese not?!), but the show was great! The very charismatic waiter came out, lit the dish on fire and yelled OPPA! If you come here, be prepared to hear quite a few OPPAs!

For my entree, I ordered the moussaka platter. I wanted to see how different it was from the moussaka at Canal Bistro. First of all, I thought it looked really good. You could clearly see the layers of potatoes, eggplant and ground beef. It didn't have the smell of cinnamon that Canal Bistro's moussaka did, which was unfortunate since that was one of my favorite things about it. I also thought it had too much of a tomato flavor. But really, the food wasn't bad at all... I just think Canal Bistro has become my new standard for moussaka. :-/

Service was great. The waiter was outgoing, but not over the top, although he did give a business card..? He was attentive and very nice. Can't ask for much else.

The Rating

The Info

Santorini Greek Kitchen

1417 E. Prospect St.

Indianapolis, IN 46203

(317) 917-1117

http://greekkitchen.dine.com/

Euphoria

So if you haven't already heard, Euphoria (the restaurant) is now closed. You can still hire them for their catering services, but the head chef that was there has also left. :-( Because of this, I wasn't sure if I should even post this. Oh well, who am I to deprive you of some awesome pictures?

The food was wonderful.

For appetizers, we ordered stuffed dates served with beets (server's recommendation) and beef carpaccio. LOVED the beef carpaccio. Just liked the stuffed dates. They were too sweet, and the beets didn't add anything.

For entrees, all of us shared the beef short ribs, duck, lamb, and halibut. All of it was great. YUM, YUM, YUM, and YUM.

Oh, and since we were celebrating our very own little Jamie becoming DR. JAMIE, M.D., you know we had to order this. :-) While sipping on this, all I could think about was the Waka Flocka song "No Hands"....completely inappropriate....

The Rating

-It's really too bad that this place is now closed, but if you have an event needing catered, you should consider this place and let me know how it is!

The Info

Euphoria

337 W. 11th St.

Indianapolis, IN 46202

317-955-2389

http://www.creationcafeandeuphoria.com

Agio

UPDATE: So just found out that Agio is now closed. Website was working yesterday, but it is no longer today.

If Vegas wasn't an indication how far behind with blogging I am...I had this meal at Agio the night I saw Zippers of Zoomerville at the Phoenix Theatre. They were showing it in May, just in time for the Indy 500. :-/

This was my 3rd trip to Agio. Each time, I've had the same experience: very polite service; good food; good wine; too quiet atmosphere. The quiet would be good, I guess, if you were on a date, but every time I've gone it was quiet because there weren't very many people. Maybe I've been going at the wrong times. They must get a decent amount of traffic if they've been open this long.

A problem with waiting so long after a meal to blog is that some of the food items are no longer on the menu! (My next blog will reveal another problem.) I ordered a scallop dish that came with cheese ravioli, bacon, and green beans. Loved it. I'm a sucker for scallops - especially 4 of them! I thought they were cooked really well. They were firm, but not too chewy with a little crisp around the edges. Agio doesn't have this dish on the menu anymore, but I'm sure their other scallop dishes will be just as good. :-)

My coworker ordered the wild mushroom ravioli with sauteed red peppers and gorgonzola cream sauce. (Right, Luke? Assuming you even glance at my blog to tell me.) He also got a side of the 4 cheese risotto. I didn't get to try either, but I REALLY wanted to try the risotto. It smelled good. It looked good. He said that it tasted good, so I believe him.

For dessert, we ordered the tiramisu and creme brulee. The creme brulee was all right. I thought it was everything creme brulee was supposed to be. It had a crunchy, sugary topping and creamy custard underneath, but it just wasn't special enough for me. The tiramisu, on the other hand, was fantastic! A great blend of coffee flavors, chocolate, and yummy lady fingers. The extra drizzle of chocolate sauce was a good touch! I would have eaten the whole tiramisu by myself, but instead I had to eat the creme brulee since that's what I ordered. :-/ Oh well...

The Rating

The Info

Agio

635 Massachusetts Ave.

Indianapolis, IN 46204

317-488-0359

www.agiorestaurant.net