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

I know it’s been awhile, but I have to let you know when I have a great meal at a new place. Recently my husband and my son went with me to check out Bocca, which is in the old Shoefly spot. I like the remodel and it feels a lot more like a nice restaurant with a pretty bar, rather than a lunch place. The front door is strangely not really marked, but it is in the same place as Shoefly was if you ever went there. A nice sign on the door might make sense (and maybe a curtain or something to stop the draft from the door to some of the tables). It was actually still Devour when we were there ..read more

I’ve been excited to try this place for a while—it’s new so of course everyone seems to be trying it so make a reservation in advance if you want to go. It’s located at the Bottleworks too—but it’s a full sit-down restaurant. It’s also a Cunningham joint. It’s got a modern vibe inside, unfortunately was freezing when we went inside (classic Hoosier move) but luckily, they had a sort of outside area with a garage door so we sat there so we didn’t need to have parkas on in July. Anyhow, we started with several apps—the soft-shell crab tempura with chili aioli and cabbage (hold the candied pean ..read more

I keep hearing about this place from friends and neighbors, but frankly, it’s a hardware store so I also keep forgetting there’s a restaurant in there. But recently I had the opportunity to try it and was quite happy with my lunch, and the creativity of the menu. I shared Bavarian pretzel sticks with nacho cheese ($7) to start and these were good. Ok, nothing spectacular, but solid. The breadsticks were HOT, soft and had the appropriate amount of salt, and the nacho cheese was your typical nacho cheese. With the creativity in the rest of the menu though, I would love to see a more interesting ..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

Recently I had an opportunity to try this new place in Carmel with some friends. It has been on my list but if I am honest, I sort of forgot about it so when my friend mentioned it, I was looking forward to it. They have a nice patio and we chose to sit outside (which turned a little wet when a sudden downpour came through but luckily, we had an umbrella which mostly shielded us).  We started with the deviled egg flight ($10) and the hot pimento cheese ($12). The better of the two was the pimento cheese which was served more like a queso type dip rather than your typical spread. It was ..read more

The kids and I are on summer break and we had to run an errand downtown so it seemed like a fitting time to go check out the Garage Hall at Bottleworks. I had walked through it recently, and was impressed and was looking forward to trying a few things. I have two teens, and they were both impressed with the “coolness” of the place and said it felt like it was in a different city so that’s probably the ultra teen compliment.  We all agreed to get different things so we could try lots of stuff. My daughter got an arepa and fresh squeezed juice from Azucar Morena, I got a lobster roll from ..read more

Recently hubby and I went out to dinner with some friends to celebrate their anniversary. It was a Monday and I was sort of  surprised how busy this place was! We had to wait about 40 minutes to get a table outside, which is good for them and gave us a chance to walk around and check out the Bottleworks buildings. The Garage Food Hall was doing a big business as well. We had a quick drink in the temporary hotel bar (which was empty unlike everywhere else) and then headed back to Bodhi when we got the text that our table was ready. I have always loved the outdoors space here—when it was ..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