Some good friends have been inviting us to go to 9th Street Bistro in Noblesville—we have been there twice with them in the last couple of months and I have been meaning to write it up, but I am lazy and busy and well, I am sitting in the airport waiting on a flight delay, and here it is! Honestly, this is one of the better new (ish?) places in the Indy area and is a labor of love between a husband-and-wife team who came back to Indiana in 2020 to open this place (and we all know how that went….) But this place is a little northern gem in the Indy area. Both times we have been here, they ha ..read more

Recently a friend invited us to go to Tinker Street. I haven’t been there for several years—which is true of a lot of places lately--whole pandemic and all. We’re back to going out a little bit more widely now.  Anyhow, we started with the Brussels sprouts ($17), the chicken and caviar ($27) and the cured tuna ($18) (there were 5 of us). All of these dishes were very good. The Brussels sprouts were honestly some of the best I have ever had I think. There were the sprouts, caramelized onions, hazelnuts, Point Reyes blue cheese, preserved lemon-thyme vinaigrette and then served with multi ..read more

A trusted twitter friend mentioned a great meal he had recently at Nesso (thanks @tokenwhitedude) which made me intrigued to go back, especially now that the whole family is finally fully vaccinated (thank you science). The first meal or two I had here were great and then the food seemed to go toward that generic Midwest Italian giant portion thing for a bit. But I am happy to report that they are back doing great food and interesting pasta combos (with some “classics” to make everyone happy). They also have a nice variety of protein main dishes, although we didn’t try any on this visit. Man ..read more

Ok, full disclosure-- it is a chain, but still, I was excited by a poke place finally that wasn’t downtown or in Hamilton county—it’s the kind of thing I crave for lunch, but don’t necessarily want to drive really far for—you know what I mean. This one is in Ironworks so recently the kids and I headed over to check it out. It was so new as you can see, the sign wasn’t even up yet. Anyhow, I found out about this place from a flyer we got in the mail. They just do one size bowl (but you can add extra proteins if you want). Also, I really like that they don’t count tofu as a protein (it’s a fr ..read more

Well…several of you guys had been mentioning how good One Trick Pony burgers were and I was intrigued. You know I love a good smash burger and I figured Neal Brown could do a good job with that right? So Friday night, I got online, planned ahead and ordered online for a 6:00 curbside pick-up to be in home in time for a hungry son who would have just been home from tennis. Well, that planning was for not. I mean, I can understand a few minutes delay….but long story (and it seemed really long), they totally lost my order, but never realized it til I sat waiting for another 15 minutes, called ..read more

Since COVID and quarantining began, we have developed a pretty regular list of places we get carry out from on a regular basis. Ramen Ray is one of these. They do a great job with carry out and even though it has to use a few more containers than is ideal, by keeping the noodles and everything else separate from the broth, it keeps the perfect consistency of the noodles and the eggs don’t get overcooked. And if I want to heat the broth up separately for a minute when I get it home to make it a bit warmer, I can easily do that too. My only complaint is they aren’t open Sunday nights which alwa ..read more

I have two teenagers in my house and a son that loves watching YouTube. Both my kids were intrigued to try this food that apparently was created by a guy who is a famous youtuber and somewhat of a wacky philanthropist/entrepreneur. Apparently, he makes a lot of money and likes to give it away in unique ways. That is about all I know. Oh, and that when he started this delivery/pick up only restaurant concept recently that he often gave wads of cash with the orders. It’s been a few weeks now since he started the “pop up” type kitchens  (I guess they use kitchens of other restaurants) aroun ..read more

This past weekend was our wedding anniversary, and we really wanted to go to Vida, even though I didn’t think they had outside seating (which they actually do—at least 4 tables that I saw). Anyway, we went for it hoping that the spacing would be good and hoping for good air filtration. We were the only ones inside for the first half of our meal, and after that the tables were very well spaced apart. I am still nervous about eating inside, but as the weather gets colder, I am starting to consider it. How are you guys feeling about dining in a restaurant? Anyway, hubby got the 4 course (which ..read more

I was excited to hear about a new place in Sobro with a good-sized patio and specializing in seafood. The stuff I read online was decent, and the menu looked very appealing, so we headed over to give it a try a couple weeks ago. Actually, this review is a combo of two visits—one with just hubby and one with the kids. They have a nice large outside patio (the inside looks cute too but I am not there yet) and a wine list that is also appealing to me. At each visit we started with one of the tartares—the salmon tartare ($14) the first visit and the tuna ($15) the second. Ok, these were the bigg ..read more

As you know, we are only eating in restaurants with outdoor seating right now. It’s the compromise we have made so that we can still go out to eat and feel a little bit safer with all of hubby’s health conditions. Anyhow, I was talking to a friend about being in desperate need for a date night (we suddenly realized we hadn’t been out by ourselves since this whole pandemic started—it seemed rude to leave the kids at home I guess since we were all a bit deprived for outside interactions). Anyway, this friend recommended Convivio because they have nice outdoor seating and a nice atmosphere in ..read more