Harry & Izzy's - Brunch

What is the deal with brunch in this town?  If you want to plan on going somewhere, and getting actual brunch type food AND make a reservation (and having booze doesn’t hurt), Indy is a tough place.  We had relatives stopping for a visit as they passed through town, and it was a fairly large group, so we wanted to make sure we had a reservation somewhere. A lot of places simply don’t take reservations and on weekends, wait times can be endless at the usual suspects.  I don’t usually go near a “chou” restaurant on the weekends, even though they are regular haunts for me during the week.

After doing some research, I was excited to see that Harry & Izzy’s has brunch on Sundays! There’s a real brunch menu and everything! They also take reservations, and serve alcohol, and as a bonus, the north side location is like 3 minutes from my house. I was surprised I haven’t heard about this option before—I wonder if they have always had brunch.

The brunch menu isn’t huge, and you can order off of their regular lunch menu as well (they actually didn’t bring the brunch menu until I asked for it).  Hubby and I agreed to get a couple of different items and share them. I had the steak and egg wrap ($10) and hubby had the steak and egg sliders ($15).  The wrap was good—there were a couple of chunks of beef tenderloin (I would say all in all it was close to the same amount of meat that is in the sliders, but for a significantly lower price), lots of scrambled eggs, queso blanco, and homemade cilantro salsa. There was also some pico de gallo on the side.  All in all, I liked it. The meat was pretty tender, the eggs weren’t dry and the salsa that was inside gave it a nice fresh, slightly vinegary flavor. I added some pico to most of the bites as well, and the tomatoes took the acid level even a little further. If I could make it better, I would cook the meat perfectly medium rare and then chop it into slightly smaller pieces—often you took a bite only to pull out a very large piece of the beef. They gave you a choice of a fruit cup or potatoes—I had the fruit and it was good fresh fruit. I liked that it wasn’t all melon (fruit cup pet peeve).

Hubby’s sliders were basically the same thing you get on the regular menu which we have enjoyed several times, except these also had some scrambled eggs and creamed spinach on top. Sort of like a mini steak dinner with eggs on top. They were good too and the meat here was cooked to order so they were nice and medium rare. This was not the case with my son’s beef medallions plate (from the kid’s menu)($10) which he ordered medium rare and they sent out well done. The boy knows what he wants though and promptly sent it back. I am not sure why they couldn’t cook his properly because they were basically the same pieces of meat that were on the sliders.

My father-in –law had the breakfast sandwich ($9) which looked really good as well—it had scrambled eggs, this time with bacon (or you can have sausage), cheese, and served on asiago cheese bread. I didn’t get to try it but he seemed to really enjoy it. I had a bite of hubby’s potatoes and they had a decent flavor. I don’t get that excited by roasted potatoes at restaurants, but these were seasoned well.

All in all, Harry & Izzy’s is a good option for a Sunday brunch meeting all the criteria I mentioned above. The food is pretty solid (if not overly exciting) and they can make you a good mimosa or bloody mary.  And you can make a reservation. I will certainly store it in mind for future such needs. Now, you guys tell me, what are your favorite brunch spots around town? And which ones take reservations?

Harry & Izzy’s

4050 East 82^nd Street

Indy  46250

317/915-8045

www.harryandizzys.com