It’s new, so of course I had to try it. I have heard a lot of mixed things—but am
always excited to see for myself, particularly when it is so close to my
house. We met my parents and my sister
and her husband one night for dinner. I always enjoy these meals because my
family knows they have to share whatever they order. They are down with blog participation.
Hubby and I perused the menu before we got there because we
knew we would need lots of time for negotiations—the menu is pretty big. After guessing what my family would order
(with a high degree of accuracy I might add), we decided to go with a meal of
lots of appetizers to share between us.
We started with the tuna tartare ($16) and an order of the
fried calamari ($14) for the table.
Hubby and I mainly ate the tartare and enjoyed it. I liked the way they
had mixed the slivers of fried wontons right into it. It had a fair amount of avocado and was
topped with some crème fraiche. The whole thing sat in a ginger ponzu sauce. I tend to like ponzu—which is soy based with
some citrus mixed in as well. Sounds like it would be a great combo with the
tuna and it was good—it just had a little strange twist of sweetness, almost
like there was some sweet chili oil in there too. But all in all, an enjoyable dish. My family really likes the calamari which is
fried and served with a true sweet chili oil and candied cashews. The calamari itself was really good—very fresh
and really tender. I have pretty much
come to the conclusion that I am tired of sweet chili oil though—it seems like
it is on so many menus these days. It is
certainly a very generous portion and easy to share. If you like calamari, and a slightly sweeter
taste, you will probably like this.
Next, hubby and I split the Shellfish “cobb” salad
($19). I was intrigued by the salad
because it was about as close to a Louis salad as I have seen around town and I
desperately miss them. There was
lettuce, blue cheese, chopped egg, and shellfish—lobster, crab and shrimp. Strangely, the dressing with it was called
“gourmet” dressing—really? Is that a technical name for a dressing? When asked the server told me it was egg and
champagne vinaigrette based and described it as “dull” which I thought was a
little weird. It wasn’t bad, and the
salad contained a whole bunch of my favorite things on a plate, but overall, it
just didn’t seem to mesh together. I am not exactly sure why. I appreciated that they split the salad
evenly between us. I think I enjoyed my
sister’s Ocean Prime house salad better—the dressing (a Sherry vinaigrette with
some Dijon) was very good. The salad had
lettuce, spinach, apples, goat cheese and walnuts. It was well done.
For my “main” dish, I had the goat cheese ravioli appetizer
($11). Even though it wasn’t steak or
seafood, I thought it was the best thing on the table all night. The pasta was housemade (that makes me so
happy) and was stuffed with goat cheese—the broth it sat in was buttery and lemony
and there were also thinly sliced shitake mushrooms scattered throughout, which
added a nice earthy flavor to go along with the sharpness of the goat cheese
and lemon. Even my brother in law liked
it, and he claims not to like goat cheese.
Hubby had the “signature appetizer” crab cake ($16) for his entrée
(you can get it as an app or entrée; he went with the smaller version). I had heard decent things about it and it was
so well featured in the menu, I had pretty high hopes, even though generally
crab cakes bore the crap out of me these days.
This one was not very good—it wasn’t that crabby—more of a flatter
pancake kind of version without much of the crabby lumps I like. Hubby was really disappointed.
We had bites of pretty much everyone else’s food—steak, shrimp pasta, scallops and lobster. It was all cooked
properly (well, the shrimp was a bit tough) and was enjoyed by the people who ordered it. It was pretty classic steakhouse type
food. We also all shared a couple of sides—one
I really liked and one was a bit of a letdown.
The jalapeno au gratin potatoes ($10) were really good—the potatoes were
more shredded, had just a hint of heat from the peppers and lots of Swiss
cheese which was nice. They were cheesy
but not so much so that you felt like you were just eating cheese. They were worth ordering for sure. The black truffle mac and cheese ($12) was a letdown. One of my big pet peeves is when something is
called “truffle” and has absolutely no truffle flavor (but is still priced as
if it does). You can see the two slices
of truffle in the picture, but that is the only evidence of truffles. By looking at the picture you can taste the
truffle flavor as much as I could that night.
The mac and cheese wasn’t a bad basic mac and cheese, but I was sad
about the truffles.
Desserts were good as well--hubby and I shared the peanut butter pie ($9) (we have a peanut allergy in our house, so we never have peanut stuff in the house, so it always seems extra decadent). It was really very good. I am not sure I would call it a "pie," but regardless, I would say it was tasty. It was basically peanut butter mousses covered in a dark chocolate ganache. The middle was very light and soft and the chocolate super rich. Like an amazing peanut butter cup.
Overall, it’s a nice place, very popular with some
highlights on the menu for sure. The
interior is nice, although many of the tables are kind of cramped together. They have a great looking outside bar area in
which I would enjoy grabbing an appetizer and a glass of wine some time. There
are definitely ups and downs food-wise, and it is pretty pricey, so some of the
entrées are kind of risky endeavors if you don’t want to spend a lot. I do like that they have a fair amount of
non-steak (and mainly seafood) entrée options.
I would go back, but I would probably stick with appetizers.
Who else has gone? What was your experience like?
Ocean Prime
8555 North
River Road
Indy 46240
317/560-0975
