Zest! At Night

   I actually didn't even know Zest served dinner because, while I have had quite a few recommendations to go there to eat, they have all been glowing reviews about their brunch.  I am a big fan of brunch, it's actually my favorite meal, and I definitely thought I would make it there for it by now.  But, alas, I was searching Opentable.com for restaurants that I could easily make a reservation for and I saw Zest as an option.  I took a look at their menu and decided we should give it a try.

THe placE


   I didn't spend much time looking around inside because there was plenty of seating outside and the weather was beautiful.  Our reservation wasn't really necessary at 7:30 on Friday, which is good to know for future reference.  We were seated outside on the patio under the shades, which is nice :)  Zest is located in SoBro on 54th, so not as much people traffic to watch as sitting outside in the BR, but I still like it down there.  I would have expected it to be a bit busier, but I think you know as well as I do, there are so many good restaurants in Indy, it's got to be hard to keep busy for dinner!!  There were a decent number of people out there enjoying the summer night over dinner though.  The only think I was kind of disappointed about was that online it was indicated that on Friday nights there would be live jazz.  Now, I know we were there kind of early at 7:30, but we stayed for awhile and there were no signs of jazz happening.  Maybe inside?  But, why would that be?  Outside would be perfect and it would also be great to have something like that at dinner time.  I moved on though and got to enjoying some food, which is what we were there for anyway, right?  Right.

The Food

   For starters, they brought us out this cute little can full o' warm fresh pretzel bread and a french loaf.  Mmmmmm....my favsies.  I am pretty easy to please in the bread department, warm, delicious and fresh, I'm in.  They served it with an olive tapenade, olive oil with sundried tomato and a nice hearty mustard.  Hubs really liked the pretzel bread with the mustard.  I almost didn't get any he liked it so much.  I did want to try it, so I grabbed a bite right before they completely disappeared down his gullet.  The french loaf was pretty to die for and I preferred it in the olive oil anyway.  Nice and simple, and, like I said, my favsies.

My entree

  I had a difficult time deciding what to order, there were a few interesting sounding choices, including one of the specials, which was pork and shrimp skewers over some tasty sounding couscous.  But, I decided to try something off the regular menu for reviewing purposes and I wanted to make sure I was getting a real taste of what a Zest dinner had to offer.  I scored me some Baja Tacos.  And dang, they seriously look good, don't they?!?

   A light cornmeal crusted fish served on corn tortillas with white cheddar and a chipotle slaw.  Now, the chipotle slaw was a push for me, I'm not much on slaw usually, but I trusted the combo.  Something I have been trying to do lately, I figure the chefs know what they are doing!!  And, with this, I really think they did.  It was tangy and fun, not too spicy, but a little kick.  The fish was prepared well and I loved the light breading.  I am also a sucker for a corn tortilla always. 

   My Baja Tacos were served with refried black beans made in house (which when I saw on the menu, may have pushed me to ordering this option...I love some beans).  The beans were topped with an avocado salad.  They were also drizzled with the same chipotle sauce that was on the tacos, which made them taste similar, but brought them together as a meal.  For me, the tacos were really good.  I am very glad I ordered them, but the beans were a bit of a pass.  They were not too tasty, a bit bland and I would have preferred more avocado.  

Hubs' Meal

Hubs has been talking about going to Maxine's chicken and waffles for a few weeks now, so when I saw chicken and waffles on the menu, I directed his eyes there.  He thought this might be a good opportunity to fill that craving, or at least give the whole chicken and waffles thing a try.  They also looked really good.  Zest sure did a good job with their presentation.
  As far as the chicken and waffles went, I think Hubs might not have read the menu closely :)  He was surprised by the white-cheddar scallion waffles at first.  They were topped with a dijon gravy and gralic mashed potatoes.  It looked like the chicken was breaded with the same cornmeal breading as my fish.  Hubs' impression of this was that it was interesting, but he thought maybe a little more gourmet than it needed to be.  You know how sometimes something that is simple and delicious can be made weird if you try too hard to make in gourmet?  That's what he thought.  So, it looked pretty, but it wasn't his favorite.  Looks like he's gonna have to try Maxine's for comparison!!

The wrap


   Overall, I liked Zest.  They had a cool little menu and the specials sounded pretty good too.  It was nice to sit out on the patio, even without the jazz (sad face).  I really liked the tacos, and would totally get them again, but I think Hubs will try something different.  I am still looking forward to trying brunch here...AND I am dying to try the world famous mac and cheese.  I am expecting it to be super good, which sometimes works...if it's super good.  So, here's to high expectations!!  Oh yeah, this place was also featured on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.  I didn't do too much research on that and I haven't seen the episode, but I know some people are really into that, so I thought I mention it (not that you didn't already know :)).  I have no idea what they tried here, I didn't want to taint my personal decision-making.

Recess at ChowDown

   I know that Recess is a very coveted spot to go, and I could see from the posts on the ChowDown page on facebook, that this is a place tons of people were wanting to try out during the event.  It's also very popular with the food bloggers, so needless to say, I have been dying to mange, mange a la Recess.  I thought what better time to do so than during the ChowDown event.  It was pretty crazy getting a reservation here too!  I called the first night of ChowDown to make one, and my options were 5 PM or after 9:15 PM on almost all the night....BUT they did have one reservation for last night at 8:15.  That's still kind of late for a random Wednesday, but we usually eat that late anyway.  We like to pretend we're 22 :)  I've been thinking about it all week, and I didn't even care about having to make the reservation without knowing what would be on the menu!

The Place


   For those of you who don't know about Recess, if there are any of you still out there, it's located on the up and coming corner of 49th Street and College Ave. in SoBro.  It's quite a trendy little joint, but not stuffy, pretty much just how I like it.  They have these cool cafeteria style chairs and roughed up concrete floors.  Some cool art on the walls and very interesting light fixtures fancy up the place.  The thing about Recess is they make it easy for you.  Easy to like the place, easy to order and very, very easy to eat their amazing food.  So let's get on to it, shall we?

The Delectables


   The menu changes every night, you can check online for Chef Hardesty's nightly creations.  Typically, they serve four courses, but the menu was slightly altered for the event and only includes 3 courses for the $30.  If you want to get a feel of how it normally works, they give you the option of adding the extra course in the middle for an additional price.

We got started with salads.  There were two on the menu (easy peasy), so we each got one.  I ordered the tomato salad with vidalia onions, maytag bleu cheese and celery see vinaigrette.  Another thing they make easy is for me to take pictures of their beautiful food.  Beauty aside, this simple tomato salad was really good.  The tomatoes were sweet and complimented well by the maytag bleu cheese.  The cheese was pungent and moldy...and delicious.  The dressing was perfect and the whole thing just lovely.

Hubs thought pretty much the same about his mixed green salad with fennel, basil, parmesan cheese and sherry vinaigrette.  He chowed down! I also loved that this salad was served with a piece of crusty bread...mmmm carbs.  The parmesan was freshly shaved into bog slices on top of the greens and Hubs mentioned that the dressing was also delightful.







We had the option of wine pairings with our meal (2 for the ChowDown and 3 for a regular meal).  We decided that sounded awesome, and I not only was trusting their pairings, but was excited to see what they chose for us.
The salad course was served with a bubbly rose, the Chateau Moncontour Cremant de brut rose to be exact.  I would not usually choose a rose, which is why the idea of a pairing was great.  If it were up to me, I would have missed this!  It was really good...and totally awesome with the salads.  I even scored a picture of Hubs through my bubbly.

After taking a bit of time with the salads and our rose, we were ready to move on to the entree.  We couldn't come to an agreement to both choose something different, so we both got the salmon.  It was a choice between Maine cod accompanied by fingerling potatoes, bacon and swiss chard OR Kodiak red salmon with crushed new potatoes and sugar snap peas served over a brown butter mustard jus.  Ummm...yum.  Yeah, so we got the salmon.

Does this look amazing, or what?  And it totally was.  It was so good.  The salmon came out hot and was cooked perfectly.  It was coated with a crispy and salty topping, and despite my salt aversion, it was so good.  They just get it with the flavors.  The fish over the potatoes, sugar snaps and jus went together like Jenny and Forrest.  I was a little leery about the mustard jus because I am not a huge mustard fan, but it was great for a few reasons.  It was not overwhelming at all, which I think can easily happen with mustard flavored things.  It was also so complimentary to the entire dish.  It calmed the salt flavor and allowed the fish and it's accompaniments to melt right in your mouth.  I have personally never tasted such delicious snap peas by the way.  I know, you may think I am crazy now for raving about snap peas, but these were so fresh and crisp and sweet I want to eat them every day.  On top of this outstanding salmon dish, we were served an 08 Domaine Jean Fournier Cuvee Saint Urbain Marsannay, Bourgonge from France.  Whoa, that was a mouthful, but I wanted you to know the real name in case you ever wanted to find it.  I know I do!  Favorite light bodied red ever.  It was fruity and a little bit dry, but nothing overwhelming.  The perfect red to drink on a warm night.  I'm going to stalk this out and get myself a bottle for home, so good.
  Another nice thing about our first experience at Recess was the timing.  They game us ample time to enjoy our course.  The didn't rush us and let us drink and chat a little before bringing out the dessert.  And bring it, they did.

We enjoyed this tasty treat of buttermilk panna cotta with strawberry compote for our final course of the evening.  After those first two courses, I went into dessert feeling in just the right desert mode.  I don't know if it was that we had fish, or that they were normal sized portions, but I felt great.  Not too full to enjoy my dessert...and I did!  Everything was fresh and exactly what you would expect from seeing this picture and hearing about the rest of our food at Recess.  They didn't do a think wrong, in my opinion.




Accolades  

Places like Recess make me wonder why I spend my money eating out at any other establishments.  Hell, it makes me wonder about the food I eat, in general.  Sure, it's pricey, but instead of eating out every Friday, I could skip one, eat out twice a month at Recess and I'd be content.  I could eat here for the rest of my days.  I expected it to be great food, but I really enjoyed the whole experience.  This is what dining out is all about!!  Hooray for Chef Hardesty for his refreshing take on the food experience and thank you Recess.  Can't wait to go back...totally going to be my birthday dinner, yeah, yeah!

Hoping for a great weekend? Perk Up!

     On the weekends I have a hard time relaxing.  I am always about "doing something."  I don't care what that something is, but I know there are things going on out there, and I want to be a part of it.  I don't know, that's how I've always been, no time for sitting around and missing out, am I right?
     As always, I am looking forward to the weekend and constantly trying to convince someone (mostly Hubs these days :)), to participate in my shenanigans.  This is what we did for a couple hours last weekend, and it was so cool!

   Hubs found this little flea market, Syd and Harper Recycled Style.  They happened to be set up right behind Perk Up here in Broad Ripple.  I thought, what a great idea, flea market, Hubs loves, coffee and something new to try, I love.  We scored.

     If you peek into the back parking lot you can see where they had their little flea market set up.  They had all kinds of cool things to look at and buy.  Some really unique items and some awesome nostalgia pieces, like old school desks (no, really desks that were from a school, and old) and lockers that reminded me of being back in high school.  How cool would it be to have lockers in your house for storage instead of ugly totes?!?  I love it.  Definitely check out their website and see where they will be displaying the goods next.  It's a nice outing for anyone who loves unique decor and interesting people.

     Doesn't this iced coffee look so delicious with the cute little bendy straw?  I cannot resist a beverage with a bendy straw, Perk Up wins my heart with this one.  The coffee was really good too.  I didn't get a picture of the blueberry muffin we grabbed on a whim to split.  We just wanted a little something to eat while we had our coffees.  The muffins are baked on site, and man, they were really good.  Probably the best muffin I've had in a long time.  I wasn't really expecting anything out of the ordinary, it's a muffin, you know, but it was so buttery and decadent.  I love this place.  It's very cute inside, with a nice deck outside that overlooks the Monon.  A great place to sit and relax...if you can.  We didn't sit for too long...there were other things to explore on this beautiful weekend day!!!

Happy weekend, enjoy it!

ChowDown MidTown

Check it out!  I, for one, am super excited about this and really looking forward to it.  If you are a food fanatic like me, you may already have the heads up, but if you missed it...I am letting you know now.  I went to only one restaurant during the Devour Downtown Indianapolis event this winter (I found out about it too late!!).  Luckily, there is another opportunity this summer in August.
What an amazing deal for either event...you get to try a selected menu by the restaurants, posted on the ChowDown website (or on facebook), and get their special 3-course meal for $30 a person.  This is the perfect if there are some restaurants in MidTown you have been wanting to try, but haven't for whatever reason.  It's especially perfect if there are some restaurants you want to try that might cost a little more than you have been wanting to spend...now's the time to go for it.  Or, June 6th-16th in MidTown, at least :)  Chow down, kids!

Re-Taste

My mom and I went to Taste, because I couldn't resist taking her there...it's one of my favorites in Indy so far.  Just wanted to post quickly about our breakfast, the good and the bad...and post some pictures!  You can visit my previous Taste post for more info about the place :)

The food and the pics

We decided on the egg sandwiches and a vanilla latte. My mom ordered the same thing, but one of us got fruit and one got homefries.  I know, we good like that.  Now, here's the good, those dang homefries were bangin'!  They were really, really good.  My perfect homefry actually, crunchy on the outside, squishy on the inside, perfectly salted and totally bite-sized goodness.  We housed 'em.  But, the sammy, unfortunately, wasn't my favorite.  There were a couple of things that troubled me about it.  1.  It was too eggy, with not much flavor...just a ton of egg in your mouth.  2.  A couple of bites resulted in me almost having to spit it out, it was so salty!  3.  They are huge and I don't think an egg sandwich is usually all that reheated...we should've split one for the both of us.  So, overall, not even close to my favorite breakfast sandwich.  The fruit was fine, although the chunks of melon could be a little smaller so I could fit them in my mouth...and I don't really have a small mouth, so they must be big!!

Moving on, and trying to recover from salt saturation, we scored us some vanilla lattes.  I asked to have mine less sweet than they usually make them, because that is typically a good bet for me with lattes.

Check out this awesome looking beverage!  What a cute presentation.  I wanted to say to the waiter, "Um, excuse me, I ordered a LARGE latte."  But, I refrained, because I wasn't sure he would get my random humor...what can you do?  Anyway, not only did this latte look amazing, and have a super yummy little meringue cookie served with it, it TASTED really good.  Maybe the best latte I have had in awhile.  I was happy and redeemed.  I forgot about my sandwich and focused on the perfect, creamy caffeine bomb in front of me.  It made me happy and I drank the whole dang thing, awwww yeah.

The wrap up


Now, I'm not gonna get hasty and condemn Taste for this experience.  Overall, it was good.  Our waiter was super friendly, the whole Taste experience was good.  We loved our lattes, and I don't think my mom had as much of a problem with the salty as I did.  So, maybe I'm crazy...I don't know, I speak what I eat.  At any rate, I'll be going back, for sure.  Still love Taste, just don't love the egg sammies, plenty of other things on that menu!