Devour Downtown Catch Up

This post is terribly out of order. It's from Devour Downtown last summer. So I'll just put up pics and note a few things that I still remember...

St. Elmo's Steakhouse

I was really underwhelmed by St. Elmo's. Maybe it was all the hype, but I just didn't think it was that good. Peterson's is still my favorite place for steak, but I even liked Ruth's Chris better. I was also surprised by the atmosphere. It was very loud and seemed very casual. I guess I just expected more. I do have to say, our service was fantastic. Very attentive, especially when we were just ordering off the Devour Downtown menu.

127 S. Illinois

Indianapolis, IN 46225

www.stelmos.com

Iaria's

I am still trying to find Italian as good as what I had in Boston...Iaria's was just fine. Ok in pasta, but great in salad dressings! They actually make them in house and taste fantastic! I tried both their house Italian and Bleu Cheese. Both were really really good. I highly recommend NOT skipping the salad here just for the dressing.

317 S. College Ave.

Indianapolis, IN 46202

www.iaraisrestaurant.com

Iozzo's Garden of Italy

Still not as good as Boston, but is probably one of the best in Indy. The inside and atmosphere is really nice. A little crowded, but not cramped. The ravioli isn't made in house, but the sauce and filling were very good. The only disappointing part was the cannoli dessert. I was expecting a big, flakier cannoli, but what we got instead was a bit weak. 

946 S. Meridian St.

Indianapolis, IN 46225

www.iozzos.com

Dunaway's

This place is so hit or miss for me. Sometimes it's good, and other times it's eh. This time was eh. The worst part was the cheesecake. It was overcooked and had a hard browned top. Definitely the worst cheesecake I have ever had. My eh experiences are always so disappointing because I love that Dunaway's is in the old Oxygen building, that you can eat on the roof, and how cool the bar looks. 

351 S. East St.

Indianapolis, IN 46204

www.dunaways.com

Adobo Bar & Grill

Really good! When I used to go to Adobo on the northside, I thought the only highlights were the guacamole and margarita. Now that they're downtown, it seems like they got a major makeover! The restaurant is a really cool looking place that I hear hosts salsa. And I thought the travelling mariachi band was a fun addition to the atmosphere. I'll go here again. Plus, they had ceviche! Not bad!

110 E. Washington St.

Indianapolis, IN 46204

www.adobogrill.com/indianapolis

Sam's Gyros

Mike and I were in the mood for some gyros. Normally, we really like to go to Canal Bistro, but neither of us wanted to get dressed to sit down somewhere. Instead, we ordered carry out from Sam's Gyros. I'll be honest, I wasn't super excited because I remember the last time we got food from here, I was pretty disappointed. I had ordered a lamb dinner dish with potatoes, and I remember it being dry and without a lot of flavor. So you'll understand how amazed I was by how delicious our gyro platter was!

The portion was HUGE! You could easily split this with someone, or save half for later. I had every intention of saving half for later, but was unsuccessful. I ate every bite! The lamb meat was so juicy and flavorful. I could not stop. It also came with this wonderfully creamy cucumber sauce. It was cool, refreshing, and really went well with the perfectly seasoned meat. I could have drank the stuff. This has become my go to place for carry out gyros.

The Broad Ripple location is currently going to an expansion so the restaurant looks like a giant construction area. I can't say how the service is if you eat there, but carry out was good. The girl was really nice and everything was pretty quick even though it looked like she was the only one there. I usually get a little annoyed with people don't ask for your name with carry out orders, but we didn't have any problems. They must not get a lot of carry out orders.

The Info

Sam's Gyros

5404 N. College Ave.

Indianapolis, IN 

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sams-Gyros/100872579957722

Millersville Cafe Market

May 17th kicked off the Millersville Cafe Market. This is an event that will happen every 3rd Thursday of the month until September from 5pm - 8pm. It's located in the parking area of Emerson Way Shops, just north of Fall Creek Parkway. It's right by the Fall Creek Trail so Mike and I rode our bikes to the event. It was really nice to be able to do that!

So we were drawn to this event because Bier Brewery (our favorite brewery in Indy!) sent out a newsletter about Moveable Feast having sausages cooked in Bier beer. That was definitely something we could NOT pass up. And we ended up trying a lot more. This night featured NY Pizza Slice, Circle City Spuds and Grub, and a bunch of other vendors. (See the list here!) We decided to just try Moveable Feast, 3 in 1 Restaurant, Ivey Spice, and Garrett's Bar-B-Q.

Moveable Feast

So I know this looks boring, but I just wanted to try this as plain as possible so I could really taste the sausage. I didn't want to ruin it with a bunch of toppings like I did at Food Truck fest. Anyway, this was really tasty. A must for me with sausages is that the casing has to snap as soon as I bite into it. This sausage definitely did. It was super juicy, and you could actually taste the beer! I have it in my head that they used the Kolsch to cook this in, but I could be mistaken. Either way it was delicious. I should have asked if they made the sausage in house. I also really liked that they gave you a wheat bun. I felt less guilty about eating every bite. :-)

I took home a copy of their menu which looks pretty tasty. The only thing I was disappointed by was their hours. They are only open Monday through Friday and close at 4. Since I don't work close, it's very unlikely I'll get to try this place at their location. I asked them if they do or will have a dinner night like once a month, but they said no. :-( Maybe, I'll just take a day off and then go... ;-)

The Info

Moveable Feast

5741 E. 71st St. 

Indianapolis, IN 46220

 http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1473084801#!/pages/Movable-Feast/366201438010

@indyfeast

3 in 1 Restaurant

So this place is CLOSED and only does events. Fortunately, their website is very up to date with where they'll be and it looks like they have lots of events planned!

If you know me, then you know I LOOOOOOOOVE tamales. Most of the tamales in Mexican restaurants in Indy have been a huge complaint of mine! I don't know why I continue to order them when I know I'm going to be disappointed. Anyway, this tamale did not disappoint! There were 2 choices: chicken or pork. We went with pork. It came out plain, and I topped it with tomatillo salsa and cheese. The texture was a little soft, but I think that's just from being stored in a warmer. I forgave the texture because it tasted so good! The corn was sweet and the pork was flavorful. I'm glad I added the salsa and cheese. All the flavors came together really nicely! I also tried a pupusa. I'd never had one of those, but it was basically like a stuffed pocket. It tasted like the same dough used to make corn tortillas. It was stuffed with cheese and chicken. We topped it with a red sauce and slaw. This time I probably could have done without the toppings, but the slaw texture was a nice balance. I will get food here again!

The Info
3 in 1 Restaurant
3in1restaurant.com

Ivey Spice

So by the time we were ready to try Ivey Spice, they only had 1 thing on their menu: the beef patty. This was fortunate because I probably wouldn't have tried this. I know it doesn't look super appetizing in the picture, but it was actually very good. The best way I can describe it was that it was very comforting. 

The guy didn't know what this dough was, but it tasted like biscuit dough stuffed with beef and some sort of salty (good salty!) gravy. I don't know. It wasn't amazing, but there was something very comforting about it! Like something I would have had as a kid. (Well, not me since I only really ate Korean food...) Online research shows that they mostly do catering and concessions, but looks like they're going to soon open a carry out location. Next time you see Ivey Spice, give them a try!

The Info

Ivey Spice

2158 N. Central Ave. (address on website)

Indianapolis, IN 46205

iveyspice.com

Garrett's Bar-B-Q

This was all right. We ordered the pulled pork sandwich. It had good smokey flavor, and it was moist, but not juicy enough. Luckily the sauces were good because we used a lot of it. I really liked mixing the hot and sweet. I liked that they gave a lot of meat and that there were not any huge chunks of fat. 

Pappy's in St. Louis is my standard for bbq. So because of that this was just all right, but compared to King's? This was great! I'm really happy to see more and more bbq options around town other than King's. Have you tried Garrett's before? What did you get there that you liked?

The Info

Garrett's Bar-B-Q

5502 Emerson Way

Indianapolis, IN 46226

www.garrettssmokehousebarbeque.com

So next 3rd Thursday (June 21) check out the Millersville Cafe Market! Not only will you get some really great food, you can buy from the vendors and listen to the band!

http://millersvillecafemarket.org

Twitter

So I finally gave in and got a Twitter! So...follow me!

Follow @FeedMyFoodBaby

Mmm...Food Trucks! Part 3

Ok...NOW I'm finally concluding my food truck post. I'm continuing the list form.

5. Mable on the Move
This food truck was all about bringing you "high quality, made from scratch, honest, natural food". I decided to steer away the healthy salads and soup and went for the grass feed, all beef, organic hot dogs.

They offered sauerkraut. I normally only put sauerkraut on brats, but I thought maybe they knew something I didn't. I also added banana peppers and a bit of ketchup. I skipped the mustard (bleh!) and relish. I didn't think the hot dog was bad! It was pretty good actually. While I liked the bun since it had seeds on it, I would have preferred a smaller bun. All that bread was too much. Mike didn't think this hot dog was special. He doesn't say it, but I know he uses ball park franks as his standard. If you're going to charge more, it better taste better. I think I made a mistake this time with my topping choices. I would order this again, but with ketchup only. And next time, I will try out their salads and soups. I've heard good things about them.

The Rating

The Info
Mable on the Move
www.mableonthemove.com

6. Spice Box
Can you believe there are multiple Indian food trucks in Indianapolis? P couldn't! I really wanted to try everything on the menu, but we decided to just try the spice wrap with the green (hot) sauce. The Spice Wrap has marinated chicken and onions wrapped in a roti. Roti is an Indian flat bread. I didn't notice that at first, but P pointed out the fact that they were using that instead of just a tortilla. I thought this was really good. I thought the flavors tasted fairly authentic, and it was easy to eat since it was a wrap. Pretty perfect for food from a truck. I probably won't seek out Spice Box because I'm a piggy and rather stuff myself with a buffet, but if it's there I will definitely stop by!

The Rating

The Info

Spice Box.

www.spiceboxindy.com

7. Byrnes Grilled Pizza

So if you read Serious Eats, the picture of the bottom of the crust was my attempt of being a serious food blog. lol. I think Abby thought I was crazy because she had no idea why I wanted her to lift up the pizza so I could take a picture of the bottom of it. 

Anyway, the one slice of Byrnes Grilled Pizza was some great pizza. The pizza Abby ordered was a specialty pizza with no sauce, cheese, ricotta cheese, tomato, peppers and spinach. Pizza's pretty subjective. The reason why I really liked this pizza was the ratio of toppings to crust. Since I don't care much for bread/crust, I clearly like to taste more of the toppings than crust. Speaking of the crust, it actually wasn't that bad. It was thin, clearly from the pictures. The edges were crispy, and there was a faint taste of char. Even though there was a lot of cheese, nothing was too greasy or caused the thin crust to get soggy. I really liked this pizza. Unfortunately, don't go looking for a daily from Byrnes. They are only available for catering by appointment only. So...if you plan an event and hire Byrnes Grilled Pizza, please send me an invite! ;-)

The Rating

The Info

Byrnes Grilled Pizza

www.byrnespizza.com/

8. Little Eataly

Ok, I think this is the BEST name for an Italian food truck. Little EATaly. It just makes me smile. :-) It's like having a dog named "Beans". Just makes you smile every time you say it. Don't believe me? Just try it. ;-) Beans.

This is actually the 2nd time I've tried Little Eataly. The first was after the Super Bowl. Mike had their meatball sub, and I thought it was really comforting. What I still remember about it is that I thought the sauce was really tasty. It wasn't too thick or thin. It wasn't overly sugary and had a good amount of tomato flavor without tasting like straight tomato sauce. So if you have the opportunity to order this, I would recommend it.

At the Food Truck Festival, P ordered the fried ravioli and Abby ordered some sort of lemon pie. (There's a reason why I don't remember the name. Oh, it's the Italian Oreo per their website.) The fried ravioli tasted pretty good. It was overly greasy or mushy. They gave you a small cup of sauce to dip the ravioli in. That was decent. My favorite part was probably the dusting of parmesan cheese all over. I didn't like Abby's dessert thing. It was dry, and the flavors didn't come out at all. Whatever they were supposed to be. I would not recommend this. 

I really, really want to try their penne a la vodka. Anyone else try this? Did you like it?

The Rating

The Info

Little Eataly

www.littleeataly.com

This FINALLY concludes Mmm...Food Trucks! Thanks for reading! If you're Facebook friends with me then you know that Scratch Truck tweeted a link to my blog! Exciting! But on a side note, I wanted to bring something up. I was very surprised by the number of food trucks (these didn't have tip jars out) that were sooo surprised when I gave them a tip. Is it just me? Even if there isn't a tip jar, I believe you should tip the food trucks. Because even if they are the owners, they provided you a service and product. I don't think the 15-20% rule applies, but the least you can do is give them a dollar. What do you guys think? Maybe I should just ask Siri...