Late Harvest Kitchen - Revisit

 This one is tough for me. I love the interior of this place and I love that someone has made the effort to get a higher end independent restaurant in this part of town. It is close to my house, and I wish it could be a go to restaurant for us.  We had a pretty good meal the last time we were there, after a couple of disappointing ones, but this last one sort of fell back into the realm of disappointing.

We started out with a fried chicken liver appetizer ($10). I think I mentioned recently how much I like chicken livers, and deep frying them certainly doesn’t hurt.  This was the best course we had of the savory dishes by far, but it had a couple of issues too.  There was a lot of the crunchy batter on them—almost too much on a lot of them.  I felt like I was eating batter mostly and occasionally got a little bit of the liver.  There were a couple of meaty bites and when you got one of those, they were really good—but unfortunately they were sort of few and far between. I loved the potato chips they were served on top of—great potato flavor and crisp crunch. And the drizzle of thin ranch-type dressing added a needed moisture element and a nice slightly sour contrast in flavor.  It was a huge portion of fried food, and even between the two of us, we didn’t finish it.

For my main dish, I had the chicken thighs ($22.00) which were done in a slightly sweet Creole type barbeque kind of sauce.  They were served over cheesy grits.  I really enjoyed the grits, but the chicken was just too heavy and rich for me—and honestly I think one of the thighs was a little undercooked.  This dish was a good example of why I have a hard time with Late Harvest—so many of the dishes (pretty much all of them in the winter) and just really rich and heavy and not really balanced.  We also had a side of the garlic fries ($8) which I liked quite a bit—they are very large cut fries and really well done. Crispy on the outside with lots of garlic.  But again, a gigantic portion—I think it could have fed at least 4 people as a side.

Hubby’s dish was the most disappointing I think. He had swordfish with what was described as salsa verde and a fried egg ($29). It made me realize there is officially something that I don’t like an egg on top of. It just wasn’t right.  And we were intrigued by the “salsa verde,” but what we got was pretty much a puree of parsley.  Honestly, it tasted like grass.  Hubby instantly scraped it all off.  It needed acid, big time, as well as some other ingredients because all you could taste was parsley. It was like pesto made of parsley (and an egg according to the server) and, well, nothing else.   There was just nothing about either entrée that made it stand out. They seemed heavy, and flat.

We knew we could somewhat redeem the meal by ordering dessert—one of the best things going at Late Harvest is the Sticky Toffee Pudding ($8).  I have talked about it before I think, but it is one of the most well done, true to authentic English sticky toffee pudding that I have ever had in the U.S.  It is a really moist square of cake that is covered in a warm toffee sauce and served with whipped cream.  They do it well, and this was no exception.  Sadly, I am to the point where I am thinking that maybe Late Harvest may be a good option for dessert and an after dinner drink (nice dessert wine selection), but I think I will have a hard time getting hubby through the door again for dinner.  The food was pretty off, and the server was a little know-it-all-ish with us, assuming we knew nothing about anything on the menu (this is a big pet peeve of mine).  There was one conversation that went like this:

Hubby (to me): “Oh look, they have cassoulet on the menu.”

Me: “You should order it.” (He really likes it).

Server: “Are you familiar with cassoulet?”

Really? Would we be having this conversation if we had no clue what it was?  Anyway, much of the service went this way, and I found it kind of annoying.  If I don’t know what something is, I will ask. Or if you want to say, “Do you have any questions about the menu?” that is fine too. Don’t just assume people are clueless. Ok, that’s my rant.  Overall, I am sad that we don’t like this place more because like I said, it is a really nice interior and a great location for me.  But I just am not seeing it.

Late Harvest Kitchen

8605 River Crossing

Indy 46240

317/663-8063

www.lateharvestkitchen.com

Dig In 2012

I tweeted a lot about this year’s Dig In, so I am going to keep my post fairly brief and just talk about a few of my favorite dishes from this year (in no particular order) (and I didn’t get to try every single item, although I did try a lot of them).

Goose the Market’s “walking taco”

You can always count on something interesting from Chris Ely of Goose the Market and Smoking Goose and this year was no exception.  (You can also count on some of the longest lines there). You got a little paper bag full of tender goat meat and some crunchy cracklins on the bottom—the “tacos” had a bit of seasoning in the form of some chopped onions, but mainly you got to add toppings yourself.  There was tomatillo salsa, a creamy sauce, corn pico de gallo, cilantro, cabbage slaw (the things I remember off the top of my head).  I put a little bit of most of the things on and really enjoyed it.  And I am sure goat is certainly a meat that a lot of Indy people might not have had before.

Brad Gates Catering Bison Succotash

This dish included a decent portion of slow cooked bison shoulder with lots of great local (and crispy fresh) veggies—corn, cabbage, green beans and tomatoes.  I thought this was one of the dishes that had the most varied flavors and the meat was also super tender.  As it turned out, it was one that had quite a line later in the day as well.

Late Harvest Corn Salad

I loved Late Harvest’s corn, walnut, goat cheese, and housemade pancetta salad.  The pancetta was nice and salty and I really enjoyed that this dish also had a bit of acid to it—there was a lot of rich food to eat at Dig In, and this one stuck out to me because it was different and was a really nice combination of flavors.  I may have to try and recreate this one at home.

Chef JJ’s Sweet Cheeks

This was a dish that was somewhat similar to Brad Gates’ dish, but made with pork—and I loved the crunchy bits of falafel on top.  Few dishes could really give a good crunch under these circumstances and this one was really good.

Duos (Food Truck) Goat Cheese Quesadilla

This was probably my favorite vegetarian option and I really enjoyed that it was also something totally different from pretty much everything else. It was a potato, mustard green and goat cheese quesadilla.  You definitely need to like goat cheese to like this one, but I love goat cheese and thought it was really good.  I liked that there were veggies being used that weren’t the corn, tomato and green beans that were in a lot of dishes (and I love all of those things as well, don’t get me wrong).

I got to go as a VIP (I was given 2 tickets for my work as a gastronaut), which meant we got in the gates at 11:00 and didn’t have to wait in line for much of anything, which was really nice.  Overall, our impression was that the food has continued to improve over the course of the 3 years that Dig In has been around. My general observations about the food this year--tacos and chilled soups were the most popular dish and many people tried to come up with novel ways to serve the food that didn't require a spoon or fork, which was nice since you are walking and eating. (Which reminds me, the little tortilla filled with pork and seasoning from Indiana Downs was also really good--see pic below.)

The good news is they ended up selling out all the available tickets, which was a goal I know they wanted to achieve and it makes me happy that so many people were excited to eat local Indiana food. The downside, from what I saw and have been hearing, is that the lines got really long shortly after 12 and remained that way for most of the afternoon.  Apparently several chefs also ran out of food by 3:00 or so.  I am not sure what the solution is, but hopefully they will get it all worked out by next year (although there will always be lines I think).  I know I really enjoyed my day and nearly everything I ate.

So what were your favorites? And what was your experience like?

Dig In

A Taste of Indiana

www.digindiana.com

Late Harvest Kitchen

This technically isn’t my first visit to Late Harvest, but I have held off writing about it til now because the first visit was so close to their opening date, I felt it wasn’t fair to review it so soon. I will tell you, I wasn’t overly impressed with that first visit, other than I loved the feel of the place.  This visit started out with being seated in a far back room which seemed a little strange in a nearly completely empty restaurant, but when we left, we saw pretty much the entire rest of the restaurant was full with a private party eating non-menu items, so then it made more sense. And I have to say, the back room at Late Harvest is kind of nice because it has big windows looking out onto decent greenery.

The menu has a decent variety of items on it, but I noticed that a lot of items had not changed (much anyway) since our first visit.  We decided to get different things in order to give it a completely fair shake.  We started with the caviar pie ($16) and the brandade ($10); both things that I think have been on the menu since the restaurant opened.  When our server set the brandade down, I was a little worried—it looked sort of dry. But it was really quite good.  The bread served alongside was soft but toasty, and the brandade (which is a spread made with salt cod and various other ingredients, depending on the recipe).  I have had it made several ways in many places, but this one was very good.  Even though it was on the dry side in some ways, the fish itself was very tender and wasn’t overly fishy.  We enjoyed this one quite a bit. 

The caviar pie is a really great idea but, which to us, had one major problem.  Basically, this is a “pie” made with chopped boiled egg as the “crust,” a layer of what we were told was sour cream and cream cheese, and then topped with various types of caviar.  Alongside was a garnish of chopped red onion, more egg and capers.  Sounds great.  So here was the problem for us—when I think of sour cream and cream cheese, I think of a savory, slightly tart flavor.  This was noticeably sweet. I had to ask the server to tell me again what was in it to make sure I wasn’t remembering the ingredients wrong.  It was almost like it was made with whipped cream or something.  That part bothered us both.  Hubby was also annoyed that the toasted baguette pieces served alongside weren’t particularly toasty.  We both ended up mainly using the bread from the brandade which was much better.   If it was truly savory, I would have really enjoyed this, but as it was, we ended up eating around most of the creamy part. Maybe it’s just me—maybe other people like this flavor combo better.

For our main course, we shared several items. We had the halibut, which is a main course ($28), the beef carpaccio which is an appetizer ($12), and the asparagus ($8) and the potatoes Minneapolis ($9), which are both sides.  The halibut was outstanding.  The fish (which was a very large portion) was nice and crisp on the bottom but tender and juicy.  It was served with melted leeks (you can almost always get me with these) and chunks of pancetta on top (not going to hurt either).  But the key was the fish was cooked really well.

The other really great thing that we had was the asparagus.  It was also a generous potion, cooked exactly right—tender but with a little give.  It was served on top of a Hollandaise sauce that was nice because it wasn’t overly gooey and rich.  And there was a great sunny side up egg on top.  I know this is a dish that is very popular right now, but this is one of the best versions I have had in recent memory.

The carpaccio was also pretty good—the beef was tender and properly thin, and had many of my favorite accompaniments—more boiled egg, capers and sliced shallots.  There were some nice light, but crisp French fries on top that had a nice amount of salt to go with the beef.  What I missed was just a little bit of dressing and/or mustard or something just to give it a little bit of extra moisture and/or pizzazz.  It was fine, but not great.

The potatoes Minneapolis were also pretty good—they were basically fresh hash browns that were topped with large chunks of bacon and sour cream.  You can’t really go wrong with that combination—the only thing I would change is the amount of crispiness on the potatoes.  There was a lot of potato in the middle that didn’t have any crispy to go with it.

One of the best things going at Late Harvest, and the one high point of our first meal, was the sticky toffee pudding we had for dessert both times ($8).  We fell in love with sticky toffee pudding in England and it is hard to find it this well done in the U.S.  It is basically a very dense moist cake covered in a toffee glaze and topped with whipped cream (and it is served warm).  This one is great. The cake is super moist and the whipped cream-- just light enough to not be too much. A must order.

All in all, we were fairly happy with this meal.   If it had been our first meal, I think we would have, on balance, been pleased.  We were both glad we ventured back in.  I am really curious though about what everyone else thinks, since we have had such differing experiences.

Late Harvest Kitchen

8605 River Crossing

Indy 46240

317/663-8063

www.lateharvestkitchen.com