Revery

I have been itching to get to Revery for months, but it’s in Greenwood. It’s a trek for me, and even harder to convince hubby of. Luckily I convinced my sister and husband that it was where they wanted to go for their birthdays (their birthdays are a couple weeks apart) so hubby had to relent. Honestly, it’s mostly highway driving for us, so it doesn’t really take much longer than going downtown. And, get this…THEY TAKE RESERVATIONS! So nice to go to a place and know there’s a table waiting for you. A departure from new restaurants around town for sure.

The buzz about this place has been really positive and I was excited. And the buzz inside the actual restaurant was loud as well—it’s a cute place in the old downtown. They’ve done a nice job of creating a restaurant with a lot of character—it’s a crowded, busy little place, and I love all the windows looking out onto the street. When you sit down, they bring you a complimentary bucket of popcorn—they change the flavor every day and will freeze it with liquid nitrogen for an upcharge (we passed). Ours was supposedly jalapeno cheddar, but I got little of either flavor in there. Tasted like plain popcorn to me. A nice playful touch, but didn’t start me out thinking this place was going to wow me.

I was most excited by the appetizers, as I usually am—we ordered several to share between us. We were having a hard time because a lot of them seemed based around bread, and we didn’t want to fill up too much, but we had to try the “best part of French Onion soup” ($8) and the crab cake bruschetta ($10), both bread-based. The French onion soup dip was an interesting one—it was literally like the flavor of French onion soup without the broth. Caramelized onions and lots of melted cheese on top. It was basically a cheese dip with onion flavor and was probably the favorite at the table. It was served with nice hunks of grilled bread. We also enjoyed the crab cake bruschetta, which interestingly looked like a sushi roll almost when it came out. It is served on softer bread, and the topping is like what a crab cake would be made out of. It isn’t fried though, so it has a softer consistency. The crab itself tasted very fresh. There is remoulade and lemon sauce drizzled on top and I liked both—some heat from the remoulade and a lemon kick as well. A nice combination.

The most disappointing item we shared as an appetizer was the fried calamari—they call it “tubes and tentacles” on the menu ($6)—and that it was. There was a good showing of each, and it inherently was okay on its own, but it was described as coming with arugula, honey wasabi and a truffle ginger vinaigrette. All of those things sounded intriguing to me, but were not very successful on the plate. The calamari sat in one of the sauces making it soggy, and the greens just seemed thrown on the plate as an afterthought. Everything was just sort of mish-mashed together making nothing stand out.

Both couples got a salad to share as well as a middle course, and I really liked both of them. They may have been my favorite part of the meal. Hubby and I got the Caesar ($8) because the crispy egg and the pickled white anchovy lured me in. The crispy egg wasn’t what I expected—it was actually a beautifully soft boiled egg that was then lightly fried on the outside. It was wonderfully runny, making the dressing even richer. I really liked the pickled anchovy to add to the acid kick, but wished there were a few more bits of them in there for a little more balance. It was a fun take on traditional Caesar ingredients—egg and anchovy-- and was well done.

My sister and hubby shared the apple salad with raisin vinaigrette ($6), almonds, goat cheese, bacon, apple and cinnamon toast croutons. This one was a great mix of tart acid and lots of sweet stuff as well as just enough salty flavor from the bacon. Some might say it was too acidic, but I loved it. I like that the salads are not ridiculously big as well, so you don’t feel like you can’t have a salad course without getting too full. I’d get either of these again.

This was another restaurant where I found the entrées better than the apps overall. Again, I’m always surprised when that happens, because I seem to usually like apps better. My favorite entrée was the fried shrimp ($21). I know, it sounds basic, but it was really well done. There were 4-5 large shrimps battered in Mashcraft beer (a local Greenwood beer) and served on top of shoestring-type fries that had a sweet and salty kick. The shrimp were nice and tender inside and I liked the very, very crispy airy batter on the shrimp. We were all obsessed with the fries though and ended up ordering one of the appetizer portions of them ($5) as a side. I liked these even better, because they were just straight up fries—purely seasoned with salt but then with a trio of interesting dips. There was “ball park” cheese dip, garlic aioli and ketchup. They were all good, but I tend to be partial to aiolis and this one was sharp with garlic. I really enjoyed it. I would certainly add some of these fries to any future order.

My sister and brother-in-law also shared the special prime New York strip steak ($39). It was really good as well. This is not a cut I often would choose, but the high quality of this piece of beef made it melt in your mouth. It came with a blue cheese sauce (which they had on the side) and which was super delicious with the steak. It had a distinct blue cheese taste, but was thin and smooth, making for a perfect thing to dip your bites of steak into. There were also potatoes served underneath. This was easily the most expensive item on the menu, but for a prime steak with a side, it was pretty reasonably priced at $39. Steakhouses in this town would likely charge $50 or more just for the meat. In general though, most entrées here are under $25.

I was really disappointed in the ricotta gnocchi. I made hubby get it to share with me and it wasn’t great. They have housemade ricotta on the app menu, and it was listed as part of the name of this dish (along with mushrooms, roasted garlic, and brown butter), but I guess I was actually expected gnocchi made from ricotta, not regular dense potato gnocchi with a dollop of ricotta on top. And there were so many other things in the dish, the dumplings actually got kind of lost in the dish. This one just didn’t come together for me. It was a small portion, and we didn’t even finish it.

We had a couple of desserts—one was a caramel and banana based dish served in a jar (two of hubby’s favorite dessert items) and was tasty. The other was a chocolate-based dessert and had a slab of ganache with some chocolate sorbet. This one was over the top for me. It was too rich to eat more than a bite of it. To be fair, our server warned us about it and listed it last in her list of favorite desserts. The caramel banana was tasty though. Following in the theme with the popcorn at the beginning, they also bring you a little bowl of cotton candy at the very end of the dinner. They change the flavor daily and we really enjoyed our grape version.

Service-wise, our server was helpful and friendly, but also a bit swamped. Our drinks came at random intervals, and the glass pours were fairly small on the wine. (I would share a bottle next time to prevent dealing with both of these problems).

Overall, I think Revery is a fun, creative place and I can see being a regular if I was a Greenwood resident. I would like to try several other items I have seen on the menu (or that they were already out of by the time we got there). I like that they change the menu on the regular and use ingredients that aren’t necessarily common on many menus. I am sure it is a welcome relief to have a place like this in Greenwood. And did I mention? They take reservations!! I’m not sure anything wowed me enough to make me venture all the way there on a regular basis, but I do plan on trying it again at some point.  I would love to be able to go regularly for lunch and just eat the salads—they were really good.

Revery

299 West Main Street

Greenwood, IN 46142

317/215-4164

www.reverygreenwood.com