Sunday, January 29, 2012

Lunch on EAting Indy: Papa Roux

The winner of the lunch was @autajay1855. We spun the Urban Spoon app and it chose Yats. We had been there so many times, we used it as a guide and stuck with the Cajun theme and went to Papa Roux. Yats is still on the top of my list for favorite Cajun in the city. This is most likely because it was the first Cajun restaurant I have had so every other restaurant gets compared to Yats. Based on other reviews, one would think that Papa Roux is the epitome of Cajun food in the city. Here is an example of one review on Google: 

"Just the best food ever. Makes you happy the rest of the day" -Ben on March 31, 2011

Well Ben, I will have to disagree with you. It is nowhere near the best food ever. It is pretty average. @autajay1855 and I both got Po Boys ($7.50). I ordered the pulled pork and he got the pulled chicken, both full size sandwiches. If you dine in, you can order unlimited sides and free iced tea. When you want more sides, you just stick this card in the holder and a waitress comes by to take your order. I'm positive we ordered all the sides. The best was the red beans and rice, corn bread, and apple sauce. They were the most flavorful. The red beans and rice were a little on the salty side, but it did not taste cheap like the other sides. The corn bread was moist and I love where there is actual corn kernels in the bread. As for the apple sauce, I haven't had an applesauce that has disappointed me. The etoufee was thick and creamy, so the texture was there.  But it tasted like a can of cream of mushroom soup with hints of garlic and cheese. The tomato creole was kind of a conundrum. It started out sweet, but then it had a lot of heat. I usually like the combo, but it was just confusing. We were split on the bread pudding. I really enjoyed it and I'm not a big bread pudding fan. @autajay1855 thought it was missing something, like it needed more sweetness. I thought it tasted better than the cherry chocolate bread pudding at St. Elmo's. I will have to admit that the full sandwich was huge. I probably should have ordered the half. It is soft French bread with your choice of protein, cole slaw, and "vouxdoux mayo". It is touted as being over one pound of total weight. It sure felt like a pound when I was 3/4 done with the meal. I have never felt so gross and unhealthy after eating a sandwich before. The vouxdoux mayo overpowered the entire sandwich. Each bite tasted like the mayo plus the sauce from the cole slaw. I had to take the sandwich apart to try to taste the pork. The pork did have good smoky flavor and was very tender, but it was lost in the toppings. It would have been a star if it was not accompanied by his friends saturated fat and calories from the slaw and mayo. The bread was pretty disappointing. It was not very crusty and it became soggy throughout the meal. Let me preface my next point by saying, "Thank you", to all of our policemen for protecting and serving our city. Now let me tell you a little story.  There were two cops at the table eating at the table before us. Our waitress said that they ordered SIDES of the vouxdoux mayo and mixed it in with their sides. She said she had never seen anyone eat that much mayo before. I almost took a trip to vomit town when I heard that. By no means am I supporting crime, but if I were some sort of hooligan, I would perform all my mischief on the Eastside. The fuzz there have belly fulls of Papa Roux and vouxdoux mayo, and I would have no problem running away from the Five-0. As noted above, our friend Ben said he felt happy the rest of the day. Well, I felt slow and fat the rest of the day. 

There are aspects of the restaurant that in theory are good, like the unlimited sides and free iced tea. The service was very good and it took them little to no time to bring out our side dishes and refills on our drinks. If you plan on going on the weekend, be prepared to wait for a seat. We had to wait about 20 minutes before we had the chance to sit down.  In the first picture, I attempted to let you gauge how small the dining area is. We were sitting in the back corner of the restaurant and there are about 10 more tables. I saw two strangers sitting together at the two-top tables just so they could eat sooner.  I will make another trip there to try their seafood Po Boys, as they bring in fresh seafood from the gulf. 

For Super Bowl XLVI, Indianapolis has came out with a list of the Super 46 sandwiches. Some restaurants are local, others are a bit of a road trip (Evansville, Fort Wayne, Bloomington, Terre Haute). Papa Roux is on this list for their Po Boy. 

"My favorite animal is the mule. He has the more horse sense than a horse. He knows when to stop EAting -- and he knows when to stop working." - Harry S. Truman


Papa Roux on Urbanspoon

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Thai Cafe

1041 Broad Ripple Avenue

Indianapolis, IN  46220

317-722-1008

Thai Cafe


The last destination to find the best Thai fried rice in Indianapolis led me to Thai Cafe in Broad Ripple. I had been told that this is the best in the City by my roommate and my brother. I had a couple days off during Christmas and JBH and I decided to give it a try. It is located on Broad Ripple Ave in the shopping center across from the high school.

Thai Cafe is bigger than Thai Papaya, but smaller than Sawasdee. The tables are close to each other, but it wasn't crowded enough that you were stacked on top of someone else. The decor is Thai inspired, just like the other restaurants. The service was quick and the wait staff is very friendly. 

Our soup came out within minutes of ordering and the entrees followed soon after. The flavor of the soup was unlike anything I have had in Thai restaurants. I seems like it has a lemongrass base with chili oil on top. The flavor develops as you eat the soup. It starts out mild then then sour, and it has a kick at the end. They also give you the crispy noodles to add to the soup. Those add a nice crunch and a little bit of saltiness. There is also cilantro and Thai basil which add freshness. I ordered the Kao Pad. It is fried rice with your choice of protien with onion, peas, carrots, and egg.  Here the heat levels range from 1 to 5. The first two times I chose 3. The last time, I manned up and ordered a 4. The 3 is how a medium should be. It has definite heat, but not over powering. I think I will stick to the four. It brought the perfect amount of heat. I broke a little bit of a sweat eating it, but it was a healthy burn. The 5 would be a little too much for me. I will have to agree with my brother and roommate and say that this is the best Thai in the city. The entire dish just worked as a whole. The peas and carrots added a little bit of sweetness to an otherwise spicy dish. The egg added texture. The rice was not as greasy as the other restaurants. I can't remember the last time I went to a restaurant 3 times in the span of a month. That is just proof how much I liked the Thai Cafe. I have a feeling that this will become like Yen Ching and the staff will know me by name whenever I come in. Apologies for the lack of pictures on the fried rice. My pictures were wiped clean on my phone and I will have to add the next time I go back. 

"If there hadn't been women, we'd still be squatting in a cave EAting raw meat, because we made civilization in order to impress our girlfriends." -Orson Welles


Thai Cafe on Urbanspoon

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Sawasdee

1222 W. 86th St.
Indianapolis, IN 46254
(317) 844-9451
Round two of my trip to Thailand in the Circle City brought me to lunch at Sawasdee with my high school friends: @MJSki111, @BWL1285, and @MattFerg6. The previous time I had ate there was with my coworkers. I orderd a noodle dish and yarfed at work later that day. Again, it has nothing to do with the restaurant, but rather my weird aversion to Thai noodles. The highlight was during the meal, a young Thai boy jumped out of a closet behind us whilst holding himself, doing the pee pee dance, and then darted for the potty. I can only imagine he was back there in an intense game of Pokemon and couldn't break away until the last second. This time was a little more normal. I was very happy with the service. @MattFerg6 thinks I am too generous of a tipper. If service is good, I always go 20%, just because I appreciate good service as much as good food. Average service is 15%. Anything below average, I would rather speak to the manager, and still tip at least 15%, but let the staff know that I was unhappy with my service.The wait staff was very friendly. Our drinks were never less than half full, and the food came out quickly. This is always a plus during the lunch hour as it takes a little less than 10 minutes to get there from our new office. We were finished with the meal within half an hour, so we had more time to chat before returning to the grind. Sawasdee is the largest of the 3 Thai restauarants I visited. It was also the most crowded. The dining room was split into two when you walk in, and it seems that the right side of the restaurant was much brighter than the entry room. Of the three restaurants, it was also the most decorated. The walls are covered with Thai inspired art, there are statues everywhere, and there is a 3 foot bottle of wine one of the dining rooms. 
Sawasdee offers the most amount of food of the 3 restaurants. You get to choose 2 appetizers from soup, salad, and spring rolls. I went with two spring rolls that come with sweet and sour dipping sauce. If you laid out spring rolls from all three restaurants, I would not be able to tell the difference. It is just nice you get two appetizers and an entree for $6.95. For my entree, I ordered Kao Padd Bai Kra Prow, or the #3 on the lunch menu. I stick to ordering the number next to the entree as it easier. It is Thai fried rice with meat, onions, bell pepper, banana pepper, and Thai basil. In terms of heat level, I requested it medium. Next time I will jump up to hot instead as I did not think that the meal had a lot of heat. The hottest option is "Thai Hot". If winter ever gets to us this year, I'll try Thai Hot to warm up on a cold day. The texture of the rice was pretty sticky and oily. The flavor was great though. There were not as many banana peppers as Thai Papaya, and I like the addition of bell pepper to their dish. It is white onion instead of green onion. I prefer that because the onions soften up during the cooking process and I do not like anything crunchy when I am eating rice. I did like this dish overall better than Thai Papaya mostly because of banana peppers and onions. They also offer you sliced oranges post meal to cleanse your palate. It is a nice refreshing end to your meal. I would go back and order this again. 

In honor of the King's Birthday today:
"After a hard day of basic training, you could EAt a rattlesnake." - Elvis Presley

Sawasdee on Urbanspoon

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Site News

First and foremost, I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season. I also want to congratulate Twitter follower @autajay1855 on being the beneficiary of a lunch on EAting Indy. I was lost in the hustle and bustle of the holiday season and was unable to blog in a two week window. I do not regret one second as I was able to spend quality time with family and friends.

I found a new app to help me choose winners of the free lunch. It is called Pupil Picker. It has been designed for school teachers to choose a random student, but I am using to choose a faithful follower. I look forward to another year of EAting with you. 

I'd like to throw this out there to the artists that follow my blog. I want a logo to use as my Twitter picture as well as a means to rate restaurants. It has been a request from a few of my followers to be able to quickly look at the blog to see a snapshot of how I felt about the restaurant. Once I have a logo, I will start using an EAting Indy scale to grade restaurants on: taste, service, and atmosphere. 

"And people coming up asking for autographs, there's only one time when it kind of bothers me: when I'm EAting." -Enrique Iglesias

Thai Papaya

3905 W 96th St Suite 1000
Indianapolis, IN 46268
(317) 334-1482 
This was the Urban Spoon app restaurant chosen by the winner of the first
"Lunch on EAting Indy". @BrandonCarder was the lucky winner. Just a forewarning, I went on a mini Thai food kick, so the next three entries will be all Thai. This will come to a shock to most of my friends, as they are aware of my aversion to Thai food. For some reason, it does not agree with me. Luckily I stepped out of realm of Thai noodles and decided to try the Thai fried rice. I apologize for not trying something different at these restaurants, but I would rather not cause me to "call dinosaurs". (I have a tendency to throw up violently, and @MJSki111 has eloquently referred to it as "calling dinosaurs.") Now I know you are in the mood for some Thai food.

We had been to Thai Papaya during lunch before, but it was during my time with my loaner Blackberry flip phone, so no pictures were taken. The restaurant is located at the Southeast corner of 96th and Michigan, tucked behind the McDonald's. It is very small, no more than 15 table tops. Both times I have been, there have only been two workers, who I can presume are the owners, a husband and wife. I have been told it gets pretty busy during the lunch hour, but our service has been pretty quick. We went at the tail end of the lunch hour, so there were still plates left on the tables. I can only attribute this to lack of wait staff. It is one of those places where you pay at the counter, which we did not know the first time we went there. We kind of just sat around waiting for our bill. The decor is pretty lively with bright colors and fun statues. 

The lunch combo ($6.80) comes with entree and choice of soup, salad, or spring roll. The first time I tried the soup, and I did not care for it. It tasted kind of fishy. There were pieces of cilantro and drops of chili oil on top. My next visit, I opted for the spring roll. It was nothing extraordinary, just thinly sliced cabbage, carrots, and onion. It comes with a sweet and sour dipping sauce. I just enjoyed it more than the soup. For my entree I ordered the Kao Padd Ka Prow. It is fried rice with your choice of protein (chicken, pork, beef, tofu), banana peppers, Thai basil, green onions, egg and carrots. Here they level of spiciness is mild, medium, or hot. I went with medium as I prefer spicy food and medium is a good starting point, as most restaurants differ on their gauge of heat. The dish itself is inherently spicy with the banana peppers, and what ever spice they add just enhances the heat. I couldn't actually feel the heat until afterwards. The initial bite is not hot, but it grows as you continue eating. I would call it a healthy burn. The heat is not unbearable, but it is very prevalent. The banana peppers were kind of a conundrum during my second visit. They were sliced in all different sizes. Also, they were different shades of yellow. I had the feeling that they ran out of fresh banana peppers, and switched to the jarred variety. The rest of the veggies are pretty large as well. Even though the green onion has a milder onion flavor, the large pieces are a little much. For protein, I chose chicken both times. It was all white meat chicken, diced into about one inch pieces. The rice itself was kind of greasy. I wouldn't go as far as saying it was a healthy meal, but it was very filling. I would go back again and probably ask them to cook with less banana peppers. By the end, they were overpowering the rest of the dish. 

"EAting is not merely a material pleasure. EAting well gives a spectacular joy to life and contributes immensely to goodwill and happy companionship. It is of great importance to the morale." -Elsa Schiaparelli

Thai Papaya on Urbanspoon