Brad Gates Catering- Revisit

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know I am a fan of Brad Gates from way back to Puck’s and Euphoria days (gosh, I bet many of you don’t even remember those places). Anyhow, Chef Gates has a lunch spot in the City Market, serving quick serve type items and to go things, but he also runs a successful catering business. And he is my go to whenever I need a party catered.

My favorite way to get food from him is to have him do lots of little bites. You know I like a good tapas style meal. So when we had a last minute going away party for some friends, I was thrilled they were available. Here’s a quick rundown of what we ate.

First were wild mushroom shumai with scallion dipping sauce. These were so good. Also vegetarian. I kept going back for more of that sauce to pour all over them. The mushrooms kept the dumplings nice and moist.

I loved the twice-baked fingerlings he does, and I love that everyone likes them. Think of little teeny potatoes stuffed with bacon, chives and cheddar and drizzled with crème fraiche.

The chilied salmon nachos with avocado crème fraiche and pico di gallo are also a perennial favorite in our house, and have been a recurring order whenever we have Brad cater. Another re-order, and something I used to even order at Euphoria was the sweet potato gnocchi with slow-braised Gunthrop Farms pork, Brussels sprouts and Parmesan. We love this one and saved some of the leftovers for a nice meal the next day. Even the kids love this dish.

We had a mixed group, so we wanted some items that were easily recognizable to people as well—so there were lump crab cakes with chives and honey remoulade as well as roasted Italian meatballs topped with a light San Marzano marinara sauce. And you can’t beat the service method for the meatballs—they were on a stick. Made ‘em easy to eat at a party where everyone was milling around.

gnocchi with pork

There was also some crostini with goat cheese, roasted pepper and pine nuts—ok I can’t speak to this one because I was too busy hitting the big money items, but people seemed to enjoy them as well.

Gates Catering is a great chef-driven caterer. I have enjoyed many sit down meals from here as well, but my favorite way is always the small plates. 

Brad Gates Catering

Indianapolis City Market

222 East Market Street

Indy  46204

317/445-0105

www.bradgatescatering.com 

City Market Dinner

This isn’t exactly my regular type of post, but I wanted to let you all in on something I have been working on for the last couple of months—an idea from Brad Gates that we talked about back in February when he was dropping off our annual Valentine’s Day dinner.  This past Saturday, I helped to organize what I hope with be the first of many market dinners at the City Market downtown.

We kept it fairly small for the initial attempt. I invited several people I know and several of you I feel like I know through the blog.  There were about 30 of us and we sat upstairs at large tables at the market and enjoyed food from Brad Gates Catering, Circle City Soups and Sweets, Fermenti Artisan, and pastry chef Pete Schmutte.   

Photos courtesy of Brown Sugar Meatloaf

I love the fact that we got to sit in an historic Indianapolis building eating local seasonal food prepared by market chefs—and we tried to keep the price reasonable at $45 per person.  We wanted the dinner to be accessible to lots of people in terms of price and formality.  I think people genuinely enjoyed themselves and it was great to interact with both old and new friends.

Dinner started with cheese and various pickled veggies.  The next course was homemade beet pasta with housemade salmon pastrami and a fennel cream sauce. The main course was bison medallions topped with cabbage, favas, pea shoots and a Vidallia onion demi glace and a baby root vegetable pot pie topped with Capriole farms goat cheese. Dessert was a lovely chocolate namelaka with passion fruit ganache (with lots more to it). The dessert was almost too pretty to eat.  Almost.  We were also treated to a plate of various flavors of macaroons and even more cheese. 

The dinner was even better than I hoped for food-wise, the setting completely casual, and it was great to bring various Indy food loving people together over a meal.  I know the market vendors hope to make these types of dinners recurring events and that is why I am doing this post.  I want to help them compile an email list for future dinners of anyone who might be interested in attending that I can pass along to them (and also for purely selfish reasons—I want to attend more of them myself!)  When they’re announced, the menu and the price are set (and payment is made in advance).  If you are interested in being included in the mailing list for future dinners, please leave me your contact information in a comment below (or if you were there, let me know what you thought about it) or email me at erininindy@gmail.com.  I can’t wait for the next one and I can’t wait to meet more of you!

***Special thanks to Brown Sugar Meatloaf for having the good sense to take some proper photos (I took a couple, but hers are so much prettier).  The photos here are her work. 

Brad Gates Catering

Indianapolis City Market

222 East Market Street

Indy  46204

317/445-0105

www.bradgatescatering.com

Circle City Sweets

Indianapolis City Market

222 East Market Street

Indy  46204

317/632-3644

www.circlecitysweets.com

Circle City Soups

Indianapolis City Market

222 East Market Street

Indy  46204

317/956-2395

Fermenti Artisan

Indianapolis City Market

222 East Market Street

Indy  46204

317/493-1652

www.facebook.com/fermentiartisan

Pete Schmutte

Pastry Chef

Pete.schmutte@gmail.com