Down by the Creek, Walking on Water

Last Wednesday we went down to McCormick's Creek State Park, which is just west of Bloomington on 46 - and is, in fact, closer to Bloomington than Brown County State Park; and yet for some reason, this was the first time we ventured the other way on 46. We had an incredibly good time, and Jackson did a really great job on the two most rugged trails in the park. (Truth be told, I'm not sure we were actually on the trails so much as we were just wandering back and forth across the actual creek itself - though that was certainly as rugged as the trails would have been.) I took over 200 pictures, though many of them were action shots that were too blurry to use. I managed to cull 25 or so that I thought were worth posting on my photo site.

Rook

Here in week three of a Peddie Family Vacation Trifecta, Amy and I both have the week off at the same time, while Jackson is back at school; and that means lots of opportunities to try new places for lunch. Yesterday we knocked out one of the places that has been near the top of my list for a long time but which was hard to fit in with Jackson in tow, due to the fact that they don’t serve any type of breaded and fried chicken. There was a period there where Jackson was very willing to try new things to eat and managed to develop a taste for things like chips and salsa, hummus, quesadillas, and even broccoli. Unfortunately, that phase seems to have run its course for the time being.

But with him at school, we have the run of the city—and others nearby—and so yesterday afternoon we noshed at Rook, a relatively new Fletcher Place eatery in one of those fancy new mixed-use development deals that are popping up all over town. I can’t think of another place I have been to that uses holes in the drywall as a design element, but that’s the case here, as a “downed power line” pokes through the wall and extends out across the ceiling. You walk up to the counter and order from a lunch menu that consists entirely of bánh mì sandwiches with various fillings that evoke the flavors of Asian street food—Chinese barbecued pork, Indian-spiced tofu, and Thai sour sausage, to name a few. (All of the sandwiches on the lunch menu are $8, and a handful of sides go in the $2-$6 range. A recently-added dinner menu expands the lunch offerings and adds new items, with prices ranging from $6-$12.)

The sandwiches are topped with a delicious sweet and sour cabbage, carrot, and pepper slaw that just barely overpowered the flavor of the Indian-spiced tofu on my sandwich. The balance of flavor in the slaw by itself was impressive, but could have done with something a bit more dynamic in there—a touch of spice from the peppers, maybe; and those pillowy bánh mì rolls, while light and airy, are also not sturdy enough to soak up the moisture from the slaw and the thin coating of some type of mayonnaise that dresses the sandwich. On the other hand, tofu itself is fairly delicate and tends to get lost in the shuffle, especially when it’s added to the menu as an afterthought; and despite the fact that this is a place that serves Asian food, I definitely got the impression that this was a menu calibrated to showcase the hardier proteins favored by carnivores.

Also, because this is an Ed Rudisell joint, like Black Market and Siam Square, you may have a hard time eating economically and also feeling fully sated. We haven’t tried Black Market yet, but Siam Square is one of the best restaurants in Indianapolis, even if the portions seem a little bit anemic for the price. The same can be said for most of the restaurants in the Martha Hoover empire, but they are minor quibbles in both cases. Rudisell and Hoover are doing some of the best restaurants in the city. Rook is a nice addition, but it doesn’t hit the back-alley vibe it’s shooting for—in much the same way that Café Patachou doesn’t hit the “student union for adults” vibe it claims to be shooting for. I’m not quite sure that it gets to the level of pretension in either case (though I am closer to sure about Hoover’s M.O. than about Rudisell’s), because I think the efforts are genuine—they just seem to wind up being a little bit fancier than they aim to be.

719 Virginia Avenue
759-5828
www.rookindy.com

A Wheel of Fate, A Game of Chance (#2)

I almost didn’t go to Tin Comet this afternoon. Once I shook the cobwebs loose and got the writing to start working for me, it really started working. I figured out a scene in which I wanted one of the characters to talk about the scene in The Godfather when Luca Brasi is garrotted, and how that scene is sanitized compared to what would really happen when someone is garrotted (for example, early scenes in either Eastern Promises or No Country for Old Men); and I wanted to keep it going, even though I had limited time due to hitting the snooze button way too many times (again).

But a nip into a great coffee shop can do wonders for your day, even when your day is already humming along quite nicely. To wit: on the chalkboard behind the counter at Tin Comet this afternoon was writ the following: Happy Birthday Mario Puzo. Yes, and Matt was talking to a customer at the counter, a pretty woman with pixie hair and a gypsy skirt, who might well have been Francesca, from the carnivel troupe in Clockwork Angels. I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but I heard Francesca say that she liked some person’s writing, and Matt asked if she was a writer too—and for just a minute I could see through the looking glass to a place where writing is important to people.

Tin Comet Coffee Opens

Tin Comet Coffee has opened for business at 2119 East 10th Street, here in Indianapolis. Their first day of business was this past Saturday, and the only reason I knew about it was because of Facebook—which does, yes, make me sad. I’ve been keeping an eye on their real website, as well as driving by the storefront, hoping to catch some information on their opening the old-fashioned way—but it was not to be. I just happened to Google them the other night at the old juke joint, and the first hit was a Facebook page I didn’t even know they had. Therein lay the information, and due to a bit of scheduling good luck, I was able to stop in on opening day, wish them well, and get a hot cuppa to go.

I feel like I’ve been wandering in the desert, vis-à-vis coffee, since Lazy Daze closed. We have lots of fine indie coffee shops in the metro area, but I was doubly lucky to have Lazy Daze because 1) it was close, and 2) it was the best. There are some newbies that I haven’t tried yet, like the pour-over thing happening at Bee Coffee Roasters in Pan Am Plaza, as well as Foundry Provisions, up near where Herron used to be; but I’ve been to most of the veteran coffee shops in the metro, including Monon Coffee Company, Funkyard, Strange Brew, Calvin Fletcher’s, Cups, South Bend Chocolate Company, Hubbard & Cravens, and Yogülatté. I also found myself inside the evil coffee shop at Washington and Audubon after Lazy Daze closed, out of sheer desperation sometimes.

None of those places holds a candle to Lazy Daze, and the evil coffee shop is the only one close enough to walk to (but of course, they burn their beans, which fucks up the way you taste coffee and makes you think that correctly roasted coffee is weak). And while some of those other places have their points of interest—proximity to the village for Monon, the giant fish tanks and Holiday Grogg roast at Strange Brew, the art on the walls and the improbable rack of $2 CDs (and gelato) at Funkyard, the yogurt and proximity to Mass Ave and the rest of downtown at Yogülatté—none of them have the warm quirkiness that Lazy Daze had, which was dirty in a good way (like Lady Gaga or Drew Barrymore) and seemed to have grown straight up out of the roots of Irvington. I imagine that I am a little bit biased because I live in Irvington and have been connected to it, in one way or another, for all of my life; but they were firing on all cylinders at Lazy Daze, and Irvington is that much more drab and empty that they are gone.

Also, their coffee was the best. Strange Brew was second in that department, but that one is way down on Smith Valley Road, damn near out to 37. There’s just no way to justify going that far out of my way for a cup of coffee. They close at noon on Sunday, too, which eliminates them from consideration if we happen to be out and about on the south side on my day off. About the only time I get down there is on my way to or from Bloomington—and even then, I have to consider whether I will want to get coffee at Runcible Spoon, which is nearly as good as Lazy Daze was (including, and perhaps especially, dirty in a good way), but which is, in point of fact, in Bloomington.

Now comes Tin Comet, in St. Clair Place on the near east side. It’s not dirty, in either a good or bad way, but rather clean and bright—which is exactly what 10th Street needs as it inches its beautification ever further east, toward the very rotten stretch between Rural Street and Sherman Drive. It’s not close enough to walk to, but it’s just down the street from Jackson’s school, and is very easy to access on my way downtown. Jackson and I popped in today on our way downtown—my fourth visit in the five days they’ve been open. I’m a little bit biased toward Tin Comet because I am acquainted with the proprietors, one of whom was the finest barista Lazy Daze ever had; but the ambience is wonderfully eclectic, in the very best sense of that word—the music you hear playing when you walk in is coming from a living, breathing turntable, spinning those black circles—and the coffee is awfully good, too. I’ve only had the espresso drinks, but will get around to trying the drip coffee at some point. (And I’m hoping that maybe they’ll tweak that espresso machine to make the shots a bit stronger, too.)

There is life on the East Side! Get out to the Comet, people!

2119 East 10th Street
420-1025
tincomet.com

Random Jackson Pictures #1

Having now been heckled by two different family members for not posting photos of Jackson as often as others would like, and being possessed of a bit more free time these next couple of weeks, due to Jackson's being on fall break, I thought I'd have a go at doing this somewhat more regularly. So here is a picture of Jackson negotiating pizza.

Grain of Sand

I bought the new Stephen King novel at Barnes & Noble on Tuesday evening. I walked from the old juke joint over to the Barnes-that-used-to-be-a-Borders and got the book for 30% off its list price of $30. I was on the fence for a little while about whether I wanted to get the book at Barnes & Noble for a substantial discount or whether I wanted to support the local indie shop and get it for full price at Indy Reads Books. I stopped buying CDs at Best Buy (and related discount-offering corporate chains) years ago, but I can’t seem to kick the habit of buying books at...I hate to say Barnes & Noble here, but Borders is gone, and they ain’t coming back, so I guess I’m sort of stuck. I suppose I could drive way the hell out to Trader’s Point and shop at Books-A-Million, but I don’t like to be reminded that it’s possible to be a corporate chain bookstore and suck more than Barnes & Noble. Also, the selection of literary magazines at Books-A-Million is Darwin-awful. So I guess what I am really trying to say is that my name is John, and I have a problem. I can’t stop buying books at the least-offensive chain bookstore in the metro area, simply because there is no indie alternative here in Indianapolis. If I want new Stephen King the day it comes out, I. Have. No. Choice.

And yes, the correct next question is, “Do you really need that new Stephen King book the day it comes out?” If I am so excited about said new book that I plan to sit down and start reading it that same day, first chance I get, then the answer to the question is yes. But I’m still working on Roger Ebert’s Movie Yearbook 2004, and earlier this week, on the Tuesday in question, I was awfully close to the end of a new book of stories by Tom Perrotta, as well as about halfway through a book of poems I had high hopes for, but which is turning out to be way less metaphorical than I was hoping it would be. I wanted to be through with the Tom Perrotta and the book of poems, and a few days further along in the Ebert, before I set my sights on the new Stephen King. So, in point of fact, the correct—realistic—answer to the question is no. I did not need that new Stephen King book the day it came out.

Does it matter that I have been buying new Stephen King the day it comes out since early 1996? It might matter a little bit, but only if that sentence were true—and it’s not. I’ve had some misses in there. I’m not entirely sure what all of them are, but I never bought a new Dark Tower book the day it came out. The Colorado Kid had been remaindered by the time I got around to ponying up the couple of bucks needed to bring that one into the fold. I picked up a copy of Black House at some point, but that was also years after it came out. But I’ve been there on release day for most of them—and I even used to put aside whatever else I was reading at the time, so that I could start that new Stephen King book that very night, after I was through writing for the day. I kept going on those other books I was reading instead of jumping right into Doctor Sleep because I do, in fact, have a problem: I can’t stop checking books out of the library, and I spent a whole lot of years after college spending time and money buying a whole lot of books that I was interested in at the time, but then never read, and am now no longer interested in.

So no, I wasn’t going to lose that set of steak knives if I didn’t get that copy of Doctor Sleep on Tuesday. And yet I had to go over there, had to get it that day, and had to get it for that 30% discount—a whopping $9 off; and while that ain’t nothing, I am certainly not in the position where that $9 is going to make or break me. (If I were in that kind of position, of course, I would not even be considering the options for buying a hardcover copy of the new Stephen King book. If I were in that kind of position, I would, at best, put it on hold at the library and wait my turn for a copy. The hold list was, I think, at 277 on Tuesday. It probably got to just over 300 for a short while, because it’s down to 272 now, and there are a couple dozen books waiting to be picked up.) So why not spend the extra money that I’m not really going to miss, and do the local indie bookstore a solid by waiting a few days for them to get it and then buying a copy from them?

Well, that’s the $64,000 question, folks; and it’s been bothering me since Tuesday. It bothers me every time I look over at the shelf and see the copy of that Stephen King book, the one I haven’t started reading yet, the one that I won’t start reading until I finish a book about growing up in Jersey City that I just started last night—two full days after I bought the Stephen King book that I just had to have. I have no problem making charitable contributions to non-profits that I find valuable. I usually spend between $100 and $200 every year on some combination of donations and subscriptions to literary magazines (which are a kind of donation)—and if I had really given this Doctor Sleep thing some serious thought, I would have thought of the extra $9 I would have spent on the new Stephen King as a donation of sorts to the local indie bookstore where I made the purchase.

(And actually, you know what? I completely forgot about Big Hat Books in Broad Ripple. Indy Reads Books and Bookmamas are the two stores I think of immediately when I think of local indie bookstores—but both of those places deal primarily in used books. Big Hat Books, on the other hand, sells mostly [or maybe only, I really don’t go in there often enough] new books. So does Book Corner, but that’s all the way down in Bloomington. Much as I like Broad Ripple, I just don’t get up there all that often. But we’re going to check out Open Streets on Sunday, and that will put us within striking distance of Big Hat...which means that I’m probably going to have to stop in just to see if they have it, and to see if they have any kind of discount on it. And while neither Big Hat Books nor Book Corner are non-profits, they are both local indie places that are deserving of support—and Indy Reads Books most certainly is a non-profit.)

The release of a new Stephen King book is the only time I even think of rushing out to the bookstore to get a new book right away. (Generally speaking, I’ve been trying to buy fewer books while I read some of the ones I have bought over the years and don’t really need or want anymore. When there is a new release that I want to read, I rely on the library. There is often a wait involved with that, especially if the book is very popular—but as I mentioned earlier, I’m pretty much always in the middle of at least one book, and usually two or three. It’s not at all off-putting to watch the hold queue and make time for a new book when my spot in the queue comes up.) And even someone as prolific as Stephen King rarely has more than two new books out in a year. Publishers have always been wary of putting out more than one book a year, even by the most popular authors; and it would stand to reason that, in this depressed book-buying economy, those publishers are at least as wary as they’ve always been about glutting the market with multiple books by the same author.

Part of the reason for writing this lengthy missive was the hope that I would feel chastened for yet again doing my part to perpetuate the corporate price wars over new bestsellers; and in that respect I believe that I have succeeded. I will be reminded of it every time I look at my copy of Doctor Sleep, and I am sure that it will be on my mind when the next Stephen King release date rolls around. I should have thought of all of this years ago—after all, it’s been years since I bought a new CD anywhere other than Luna, and that pattern change hasn’t resulted in any lasting damage. It’s a little bit easier to justify an extra couple of bucks for a new CD than upwards of ten bucks for a book—but, again, not starving here. (Joke will be on me, of course. Dude will retire now that he’s gone and written his first-ever sequel.)

The other part of the reason for writing this lengthy missive (and for including this non-sequitur of a final paragraph) is to get back into the swing of writing a lot of words in relatively short bursts of time. November is nearly upon me, and that means National Novel Writing Month, when you have to bang out close to 1700 words a day to stay on pace. I have not been anywhere close to that kind of output since, well...last November—and this is my third stab at writing about this admittedly first-world problem that has been bothering me for the last couple of days. I wandered around some of the main points in the first two drafts before I figured out what I really wanted to say—which was the part about being chastened—but ultimately got it out of my system. (And as for part two, this little piece clocks in at 1749 words and took me a little over an hour to write.)

Deep Thoughts #96 - Special Topical Modern Day Warrior Edition

It never even occurred to me that anyone would want to karaoke to “Tom Sawyer.” But Venus Williams is into it, and Stone Temple Pilots, too.

Lazy Daze Coffee House is Still Closed

Lazy Daze Coffee House is still closed. I didn’t necessarily expect that the baristas would open it back up again by the end of June, which was one rumor that I had heard. That would have been ideal, but it probably would have been an enormous task, in terms of both money and work, to say nothing of whatever legal hurdles they might have had to clear in order to resume operating a business that had been forcibly closed by the Internal Revenue Service only about six weeks earlier.

Then there was a post by the owner of Lazy Daze on the coffee shop’s Facebook page. (Did you know there were public Facebook pages, where you can sometimes get the wayward bit of information without actually having to join the collective?) That came one month ago to the day, oddly enough, and indicated that a planned liquidation sale had been cancelled because someone had approached the owner about buying all of the assets and re-opening Lazy Daze, though perhaps not in its original location. (What there was not was any mention of why Lazy Daze closed in the first place. I would have thought that someone who would take such obvious pride and credit for the renaissance of the Irvington business district would also have the courage to explain why such a beloved and vital part of said Irvington business district would be so suddenly taken from us; but I would have been wrong.)

(Of course, there may be all kinds of things floating around on the non-public Facebook pages, but I won’t get to know about those rumors and innuendoes. I’m not joining Facebook just to find out if the best coffee shop ever is going to re-open. And information posted on non-public Facebook pages doesn’t count as real information.)

And speaking of best coffee shop ever, there is supposedly going to be a new contestant for that title opening on 10th Street before long. Tin Comet Coffee is painted on the paper covering the windows at 2119 East 10th Street, and I’m hoping that one of these days when I drive by, the paper will be gone and an OPEN sign will be lit up. Tin Comet will be owned and operated in part by one of the baristas who used to sling the hooch at Lazy Daze; and while their product probably won’t taste exactly like the coffee at Lazy Daze (which I miss terribly), the quality of their espresso drinks will be second to none, because the former Lazy Daze barista in question was also the best of the Lazy Daze baristas.

The only problem with Tin Comet coffee is that I won’t be able to approach it on foot from the east. Actually, the truth is that I won’t be willing to approach it on foot from the east, at least not at first. It’s nearly three miles from my house, and most of that is due west along Michigan Street or 10th Street. I consider myself an intrepid walker, but hoofing it along Michigan Street or 10th Street, between Emerson Avenue and Rural Street, might be a bridge too far. Those are some of the sketchiest stretches in the whole city, and even though part of that stretch, the bit along 10th Street at the very end where, perhaps unsurprisingly, the new coffee shop is eventually going to be, is working on getting better, it isn’t all the way there yet.

Approaching from the west, however, is another matter entirely. Jackson’s school is less than half a mile from the new coffee shop, directly along 10th Street—passing Woodruff Place as you go. Beyond Jackson’s school, just a little bit further west, you connect with the Cultural Trail and curve around down Mass Ave. Just writing this post has gotten me psyched up about making this week’s Wednesday downtown walk a quest to check out the new coffee shop, even if they aren’t open. Yogülatté is open, and I can get a non-chain coffee from there and walk out to Tin Comet and see what’s what.

(I’m also curious to see how many page views I get with this post. My previous post about Lazy Daze closing generated over 100 page views, which I think is the most of any blog I have ever posted. I’m sort of hoping that if someone stumbles across this post and knows something about when or if Lazy Daze might re-open, they might be inclined to comment. And for that reason, I am, for the first time in a long time, opening up the comments to those anonymous posters who are not registered with Blogger. Just please sack up and identify yourself in the body of the comment, if you aren’t a Blogger person.)

Byzantium

After I watched Byzantium a couple of weeks ago, I talked to some people on my way out, and tried to describe what I thought of the film—which was that it was quite good, but that the third act was something of a mess. But messy how? I had a hard time with that, and at the time could not come up with anything better than that there was a shift in tone that seemed inconsistent with what had come before. It was not quite as though the film had gone off the rails, but it was close. Or, at least, that was as close as I could come at that moment to getting at what I meant. I sat down to write about the film, but understood almost immediately that the answer was not in the offing; and I was less motivated than I often am to write about film, knowing full well that there is practically no audience for an elaborately written, moderately challenging film about female vampires who use adaptive thumbnails instead of fangs to puncture the necks of their victims when it is time to feed.

I let it go, thinking consciously that I would just skip writing about this one. My subconscious, however, had other designs. And so it was, a week or so after I saw Byzantium, that I was talking to Ryan about films in general, and about how the company we sell our labor to for a pittance doesn’t give a frog’s fat ass* about film because they’re all about the Benjamins. (And this is a company that is owned by a gajillionaire.) Instead of being a place with some art house credibility, we play The Lone Ranger, anything from Pixar except the one about the girl (because that would be sort of progressive), and anything Warner Brothers tells us to play. Things like Byzantium and Ginger & Rosa play for a week and are gone before anyone knows it. I mentioned, off the cuff, that notwithstanding the sensationalism of Byzantium (quite a lot of blood, Gemma Arterton in a dizzying array of bustiers, and—oh yes—all that blood), it was also a remarkable film because of the thoughtful, meticulous way it unspooled its story.

There are more vampire stories out there than you can shake a stick at, but actual vampire lore is something else altogether. Byzantium opens with two girls on the run, and the pieces of the story are revealed as the progress of the action requires them. This is the reverse of what is too often seen in explosion-laden summer blockbuster joints by Michael Bay (or Jerry Bruckheimer, or Roland Emmerich, and on and on): A flimsy story of good versus evil, or of convicts on a cargo plane, or of aliens coming to take over the world in spaceships that blot out the sky exists only to prop up (however unsteadily) a series of set pieces designed to thrill. In Byantium, the action on screen cannot exist without its backstory; and the only bits of story that we get are the ones that we need to make sense of what is currently taking place. During that talk with Ryan, I realized that the problem with Byzantium was the way that it abandoned its meticulous storytelling, in the thid act, for a far more conventional action film climax.

I’m also not sure that it could have been avoided. A central element of the vampire lore employed in the film is that the creatures are not coffin-bound during the daylight hours. They walk and talk amongst the regulars, and this blurs the line between human and vampire, a theme treated extensively throughout the film by screenwriter Moira Buffini, who adapts her own stage play, A Vampire Story. Vampires, like Mafiosi, are often played as romantic, with a healthy dollop of classical Greek tragedy; but also as separate, distinct from those not like themselves in ways that, once done, cannot be undone. This distinction, in part, fuels the fascination we have with vampires and the Mafia. When Buffini turns that distinction just slightly, she presents characters that are able to experience and respond to human nature more fully than vampires that can only come out at night.

It would be a cheap plot contrivance if not for the fully articulated backstory that provides a genesis myth, conflict, motive, and pursuit. This history defines these vampires as distinct from others of their kind, which confers credibility upon their being daytrippers. That, however, is all you’re going to get from me. I already feel like I might have given away too much, but films like this can’t be talked about for very long without getting deep into the details. One last thing I should mention is the casting of the leads, Gemma Arterton as Clara and Saoirse Ronan as Clara’s younger sister Eleanor. Though the younger, Eleanor is perhaps the wiser of the two, played by Ronan with a stoicism colored ever so gently by an existential fear that comes from living in the shadow of her older sister. Clara is far more lusty and exuberant than Eleanor, a sensual role that is right in Arterton’s wheelhouse.

She is either extremely comfortable using her sexuality as an expression of power, or enjoys playing characters who use their sexuality as an expression of power. I suppose it’s also possible that she’s being exploited for that sexuality by the Hollywood system...but take a second and see if you can name three things Byzantium has in common with the Hollywood system. I’ll even go ahead and give you the two brand-name stars. Now you only have to come up with one thing that this film has in common with the typical cookie-cutter films produced by Hollywood. And just to throw a little monkey into the wrench, Arterton also stars in another current release, the geriatric funeral dirge cum love song, Unfinished Song. If she has been typecast so far as the buxom seductress with few qualms about taking off her clothes, then her role there as the choir teacher should go some of the way toward altering that perception.

*—July 29, 2013, was the 30th anniversary of the release of National Lampoon's Vacation.

First Day of School

Here's a new segment we're going to try here in the ol' Blog-O-Rama: First day of school pictures. Amy asked me to snap a shot of Jackson yesterday on his first day as a first grader, because her mother always liked to take pictures of her and her brothers on their first day of school. That reminded me of the way I have been posting pictures of Jackson on each of his birthdays, so I thought I'd try the same thing with his first day of school pictures.

2012 - Kindergarten

2013 - First Grade

Deep Thoughts #95

It may yet be corrected by the crack Indianapolis Star proofreading staff, but when I accessed this story, the hashtag read #togodbethegory.

The Training Wheels Come Off

This is Jackson executing his "sharp turns" around the fountain in the Circle Park.

One of Those Wayward Jackson Photo Updates

Also, a token blog post for July, since I almost never blog anymore. These are random shots of Jackson when we were out and about, and some pictures from his birthday party at the park, and swimming at Aunt Jenny's house in Russiaville. I have a few pictures from Cedar Point from this past weekend, and those may get posted at some point - but of course you know by this point not to hold your breath.

Delicia

Jolene Ketzenberger recently put together a list of 50 restaurants that you should try in order to get a solid representative sampling of the culinary delights on offer in this flyover metropolis of ours. Unfortunately, you have to go to the Indianapolis Star website in order to find the article. Amy and I compared notes on the list, and we’ve been, together, to about half of the restaurants; and each of us have been to a couple of the places without the other one. For reasons passing understanding, Delicia is not on her list, even though Ms. Ketzenberger wrote about this new Latin American restaurant almost two months before her list was printed.

What is perhaps stranger about Delicia not being on her list is some of the other places that are, including two in particular that rub me the wrong way. The first is Scotty’s Brewhouse, which might have local roots, but is nothing more than your run-of-the-mill bar and grill, even if it is a little heavier on burgers than most bar and grill places—which typically do a little of this and a little of that, to appeal to as many potential customers as possible, rather than express any kind of personality of their own. The list has a few dive diners, which are totally acceptable; but Scotty’s is the only chain-like bar-and-grill type place listed. If the list really needed a higher-end local burger place, Bru Burger would have been the better choice. I have eaten at both places (the downtown location of Scotty’s), and there is nothing that Scotty’s does that Bru Burger does not do better.

The other one that rubs me the wrong way is Pizzology, though I haven’t eaten there. It’s not the food that bothers me about that one—it’s the location. Pizzology is in Carmel. I’m starting to warm up to some parts of Carmel, particularly along the Monon Trail and in the Arts & Design district; and I understand that everybody loves Neal Brown. You can’t spend too much time reading about food in Indianapolis—or near Indianapolis, I suppose is more correct—without hearing something about Mr. Brown, to do either with his fancy Neapolitan pizza place in Carmel, or with his fancy libations bar in downtown Indianapolis. The Libertine is on Ms. Ketzenberger’s list, and that’s a-okay. Last time I checked, 38 East Washington Street is in Marion County. 13190 Hazel Dell Parkway is in Hamilton County. I don’t really care if it’s near Indianapolis or not—it doesn’t belong on a list of 50 places that give you a true taste of Indianapolis. Plus, if Neapolitan pizza is part of what you need to try to get a taste of Indianapolis, there’s always Napolese, which is...let me check...yeah, it’s on the list.

Now, having said all of that, scratch either of those two undeserving places, and add Delicia to the list. This recently-opened Latin American restaurant in SoBro (in a former Movie Gallery space) is doing a lot right in just the couple of months that it’s been open. We stopped in on a Thursday evening a couple of weeks ago, and were seated right away. It was our fake anniversary, so Amy opted for a glass of wine (the house sangria), and I tried a Fountain Square Brewery Workingman’s Pilsner, which was as bright and playful as a whimsical ale (with perhaps just a touch of citrus in there), and just as crisp and clean as an upright pilsner. And it was cold, too. Sometimes in the delay between the beer being poured and then brought to the table, some of the chill has a chance escape into the ether. That was not the case here.

We tried the Salsa Trio for an appetizer, which consisted of salsa fresca, sikil pak, and tomatillo, served with tortilla chips. The salsa fresca was a roasted tomato affair on the mild side, but very full flavored and rich. The tomatillo, we had been warned by our server, was on the spicy side. I didn’t find it to be all that spicy, and neither did Amy—and she’s pretty sensitive to heat in food. Instead, it was a very fresh, bright, and green (yes, that can be a valid adjective for the flavor of food), a solid counterpoint to the earthy red salsa. Then there was the sikil pak, which was more of a dip than a salsa, made from roasted pumpkin seeds. This one was rich and creamy, not spicy, deeply satisfying, and entirely unexpected.

For the entrées, I had the Ancho Peach Pork—pork medallions with ancho-peach glaze, white mashed sweet potatoes, and roasted vegetables; and Amy had the Tamal Corn Cakes—tamal cakes with barbacoa beef, pico de gallo, cilantro-lime crema, and queso fresco. Unfortunately, this long past when we ate at Delicia, I don’t recall what I thought of the Tamal Corn Cakes, although I seem to remember thinking they didn’t taste quite as good as they sounded on the menu. The Ancho Peach Pork, however, was excellent. The pork medallions were as close to melt-in-your-mouth tender as anything I’ve ever eaten. The ancho-peach glaze might have been a little heavy on the peach, and a little heavy in general. It almost, but not quite, overpowered the flavor of the very tender pork. White mashed sweet potates were another unexpected delight—sweet and creamy, and also oddly mysterious in a way that regular mashed potatoes just aren’t.

We were beginning to lament the fact that we hadn’t been to a restaurant that really knocked us out since we ate at Bluebeard last year, but Delicia came awfully close; and there is absolutely no question that we will be back. The only question is how long we’ll manage to wait before that return trip. (The menu can be found on their Facebook, but you’ll have to find that link on the magic internets yourself. I only provide links to real webpages.)

5215 North College Avenue
925-0677

Ralston's Drafthouse

It is perhaps inauspicious when you elect to dine al fresco and then have a bird deposit the remnants of its own dinner on your head just before your put-upon-looking server brings out the silverware wrapped in a paper napkin. Things are not getting better when, several minutes after taking your order, said put-upon-looking server comes back out and says, “I’m sorry, I forgot what you guys ordered.” To her credit, however, she remembered the second time, and the food was correct when it came out. I also got to experience northern-style German potato salad—I think. I wasn’t even aware that there was such a thing. I had to go home and Google potato salad and its German variants in order to determine that what they brought out to me was not, in fact, a mistake.

I’m not sure I even had high hopes for Ralston’s Drafthouse, the new, uh...I’m not even sure what you call it. I guess the answer would be brewpub. The new brewpub on Mass Ave, in the space that formerly housed Agio, before the recession forced Chef to pull up stakes and move on. We never ate at Agio, but after it closed, it seemed to remain frozen in time for quite awhile. I’d walk by, and I could see the tables set for dinner, with folded napkins and polished silverware, like they had fully expected to open for business the next day—only they never did. I’m not sure Ralston’s Drafthouse is an improvement over the spooky image of a restaurant all set for a service that would never happen.

The menu is heavy on flatbreads and salads, with a few run of the mill appetizers and a few appetizers that are, admittedly, not to be found on most other menus—a fried brie stick, fried pumpkin ravioli, and masala bean dip, with garbanzo beans, ginger, cilantro, and masala curry mix. In retrospect, I should maybe have gone for one or two of the appetizers. When I scanned the beer list, I told Amy that I wanted to come back sometime to try the Sun King Popcorn Pilsner, a brew that I thought they had prepared exclusively for sale at Indianapolis Indians games. I was unable to sample one on Tuesday when we had lunch, because I had to show up at the old juke joint later on. I have heard that there are places where you can drink while you’re at work, but an ultra-corporate fake art house is not one of those places.

I had the Perfect Personal Pepperoni and Peppadew Pizza. I don't remember the exact name, and it’s not on the menu they currently have posted online. There was definitely some P alliteration, though. It consisted of “old world” pepperoni, peppadew peppers, and fresh mozzarella cheese, except that what was actually on it was plain-old part-skim mozzarella—again, I think. There wasn’t much of it, so I had a hard time telling exactly what it was. As far I could tell, the only thing that made the pepperoni “old world” was that it wasn’t cut into that perfectly spherical, ultra-thin shape that’s usually associated with pepperoni. The peppadews more closely resembled sweet bell peppers than their spicier cousins.

Amy had the Ralston’s Recession Burger, which was little more than a regular hamburger with shredded potatoes mixed into the patty—supposedly. I tried one bite, and would not have guessed that it contained anything resembling a potato if I had not read the menu. As burgers go, though, it tasted pretty good. Each meal at Ralston’s comes with one side. Amy had the Lemon Champagne Cucumber Slaw, which you probably could not have paid me to try. I opted for the Fried Rosemary Potatoes, except that they were out of them. I wound up with the German potato salad instead, and was surprised when it came out cold and creamy, rather than warm and vinegary, like every other German potato salad I had ever had. Cold and creamy is apparently how they do it in northern Germany, as opposed to the southerners, who like warm and vinegar.

Ralston’s Drathouse managed to underwhelm even low expectations—so unless Sun King starts distributing the Popcorn Pilsner in cans to local liquor stores, it looks like I’ll have to make it back to Victory Field sometime to try one.

ralstonsdrafthouse.com
634 Massachusetts Avenue
493-1143

Jackson es de 6 Años

Yesterday at school, Jackson's teachers and classmates sang "Happy Birthday" to him in both Spanish and English; and then Jackson sang both versions for us in the car on the way home.

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

Bakersfield Mass Ave

Open just a few months in the Mass Ave space formerly occupied by Bazbeaux Pizza, Bakersfield does not do a whole lot of things; but what it does, it does reasonably well, claiming inspiration from the Bakersfield, California, music scene of the 50s and 60s, and presenting a take on Mexican street food that goes heavy on the trendy fusion tacos that have popped up in food trucks all over the country. The menu consists of eight varieties of tacos, two salads, two sandwiches, and a handful of appetizers. The drinks menu doesn’t overshadow the food here quite as much as it does at The Ball & Biscuit or The Libertine, but Bakersfield has clearly taken a cue from those popular establishments, with probably a healthy dash of Fountain Square’s Revolucion thrown into the mix for good measure.

They start you out with two squirt bottles of salsa—one green tomatillo with a bit of avocado, the other roasted tomatillo with what I think must have been a hint of chipotle or habanero, though without much in the way of the spicy punch you might expect from those peppers. We sampled the chips and guacamole, and used the salsas liberally with the appetizer. Both were delicious, though just a bit too thick for a squirt bottles (the roasted tomatillo one especially). The guacamole was very thick and very heavy on the avocado, mixed up with just a bit of onion and lime juice, along with an herb that I think might have been Mexican oregano—an unusual but not unappealing addition that helps to distinguish this otherwise pedestrian guacamole from others of its ilk.

Amy and I each ordered two tacos, and they came out on a communal plate, served open faced with wedges of lime—the better to show off the handsome presentation of their innards. Amy had the Pastor and the Molé, and I had the Huitlacoche and the Rajas. Even though our server had described the four-inch corn tortillas the tacos are served in, I was still surprised by how small they were when they came to the table. They can easily go down in two bites, and I would imagine that there are some hardy, hungry souls out there who could take one out in just one bite. The first one I tried was the Rajas, with poblano, fresno, and bell peppers, ejotes (green beans, and yes, I had to Google it to figure that out), chihuahua and fresco cheeses, and cilantro. If you think that sounds like a lot to have going on in something you can make disappear in two bites, you’re right. The Huitlacoche consisted of corn truffles, roasted poblano, corn, onion, cotija cheese, and cilantro.

What I ate certainly tasted good, but most of the individual flavors got lost in the shuffle. At $3 or $4 per taco, sans the beans and/or rice you are probably used to getting at other taco places, there’s a reasonable likelihood of going away hungry here—or of dropping twenty bucks on lunch. Maybe they hope that you’ll fail to notice if you drink enough of the $2 PBR drafts. I’m not sure what my answer to the all-important “would you go back?” question would be. I would probably need to try the aforementioned Revolucion and an Asian-inspired taco joint in Broad Ripple called La Chinita Poblana before I could say for sure; but even if Bakersfield were the best of the three, I can’t really imagine wanting to spend that much money on so little food a second time.

www.bakersfieldmassave.com
334 Massachusetts Avenue
635-6962

Lazy Daze Coffee House Has Closed

One of my favorite Lazy Daze-related memories is of Jackson riding his little Cars tricycle down the sidewalk, going about as fast as his little four-year-old legs could pedal. When he got near the door, he turned hard and just kept on riding, right over the threshold and into the coffee shop. Yes, probably a million horrible things could have happened—the door might have been closed, someone might have been exiting at that exact moment, with a cup of hot coffee in their hand, whatever. But nothing like that happened. Jackson just sailed on into the coffee shop like he owned the place, or like he was king of the world.

And nobody batted an eye. That’s the difference between a great little neighborhood place where you get to know everyone, and a corporate place that shall not be named. I don’t know why Lazy Daze closed, and I may never know why Lazy Daze closed; but regardless of why, the fact remains that the best little coffee shop in Indianapolis is now beyond the veil. There will be something missing now when I take my walks around Irvington, when Amy and Jackson and I go for a walk after dinner so Jackson can ride his bike—and especially when the leaves turn and Irvington comes alive in the fall.

The good folks at Khao San Road are hosting a benefit party for the baristas who unexpectedly lost their jobs—from 9am to 9pm this Saturday, May 25, 2013. It seems as though the details can be found both here and here—so if you’re into the whole Facebook thing, you can probably, like, like it and stuff. Of course, showing up is always better than just clicking a button, so maybe I’ll see you there on Saturday.

Jackson Races the Cheetah Yet Again

We're pretty sure he's getting closer to winning this race. Another year or two of training, and he'll have it.

Save The Good Earth!

Got an e-mail this morning from the Good Earth, with a link to an online petition opposing a new development in Broad Ripple that would plunk a Whole Foods (or something like it - big and corporate and chain) down along the canal, not too far from the Good Earth itself. This is a bad idea in every respect. In the first place, the Broad Ripple area already has a Fresh Market, at 54th and College. Technically, that's not the same as a Whole Foods, but in real terms, they're pretty much identical. The village proper also already has the Good Earth, which is a great local business that would be threatened by the opening of a Whole Foods in the area.

Second, the project would be paid for with tax-increment financing that is supposed to be used for infrastructure and other improvements - not new development. I could be reading that wrong - legalese is not my strong suit; but even if I'm reading it wrong, and the letter of the law (if certainly not the spirit) supports new development, I'm not sure that any of that is needed more in Broad Ripple Village than it is in places like, say, the Meadows. Of course, it's way sexier to build shiny new things in rich white neighborhoods than it is to fix the broken and crumbling things in poor black neighborhoods. That's how politicians get elected and the people they "represent" get fucked. But whatever. Here's the link to the online petition again. Stop corporate welfare!