9th Street Bistro

Some good friends have been inviting us to go to 9^th Street Bistro in Noblesville—we have been there twice with them in the last couple of months and I have been meaning to write it up, but I am lazy and busy and well, I am sitting in the airport waiting on a flight delay, and here it is! Honestly, this is one of the better new (ish?) places in the Indy area and is a labor of love between a husband-and-wife team who came back to Indiana in 2020 to open this place (and we all know how that went….)

But this place is a little northern gem in the Indy area. Both times we have been here, they have highlighted seasonal items and have cooked them just right. I love that they change the menu fairly frequently, and seasonally, but also offer a daily?/weekly? specials menu with such things as the “fried thing of the day." The first time they were empanadas. The second time…soft shell crab. You wanna win my heart? That’s the way. Why it is hard to find, I don’t know. I mean, I get that there aren’t crabs in local waters…but you can get fresh seafood any which way these days. I don’t know why I don’t see them on all menus. 

Anyway, both fried bits were delicious. And I (of course), loved the soft-shell crab. The crab was perfect. The sauce alongside (a tartar-ish aioli) was tasty. I could have lived without the bread underneath honestly—I felt like it just soaked up all the tasty sauce. The crabs were great though—and so were the empanadas—which now appear to be on the regular menu with a seasonally changing theme.

The first time we also had the bread plate with pimento cheese and the whipped butter because my daughter was home on spring break and if she could live on bread, she would. The focaccia was great—the whipped butter was also so tasty that we bought some to take home—the pimento cheese was good, but nothing mind blowing. Tasty, but not the best I have had. 

This last visit we also had the burrata starter and the asparagus starter. Both were very good and had lots of interesting flavor profiles—the burrata had a sweet edge, as it was served with apricots and orange honey and topped with crumbled pistachios. The asparagus had an Asian bent to it, and was topped with fried egg aioli, sweet soy and fish flakes—love the way the blow in the breeze. While I liked this dish—and the asparagus was just perfectly cooked—it was a little on the sweet side—I would have loved a little acid from somewhere.

The chicken at this place is amazingly good. I don’t typically order chicken, but I split it with my daughter the first time and had a bite of our friend’s version on this night. It was just a simple roasted chicken half (de boned) but man, it was so tender and had so much flavor, I would definitely order this again. It was served with a simple salad with locally grown veggies.

Hub and I split the pasta dish (there is always a pasta dish, but they change it up frequently). This one was house made spaghetti with a lemon cream sauce and sauteed shrimp and had fried capers on top. So good—so good. Would definitely get this again as well. One friend had beef wellington—which I didn’t try but looked delicious.

All in all, this is probably one of the best new (to me) restaurants I have tried in Indy in a while. Will definitely go on our rotation list. They also do a weekly special carry out dinner deal on Sundays (I believe) that look tasty, although I haven’t tried one. I signed up for the emails and always think they sound good. Now that I have tasted how good the food is, I would imagine these would be really good. 

9^th Street Bistro

56 S. 9^th Street

Noblesville, IN 46060

317-774-5065

www.9thstreetbistro.com 

Tinker Street - Revisit

Recently a friend invited us to go to Tinker Street. I haven’t been there for several years—which is true of a lot of places lately--whole pandemic and all. We’re back to going out a little bit more widely now. 

Anyhow, we started with the Brussels sprouts ($17), the chicken and caviar ($27) and the cured tuna ($18) (there were 5 of us). All of these dishes were very good. The Brussels sprouts were honestly some of the best I have ever had I think. There were the sprouts, caramelized onions, hazelnuts, Point Reyes blue cheese, preserved lemon-thyme vinaigrette and then served with multigrain toasts. I really liked the blue cheese with it and the tangy vinaigrette. Actually, we ended up having a second order with dinner. 

The fried chicken thigh was also so good I ended up ordering another one to have on my own for dinner (with some more of those Brussels sprouts). It was fried just perfectly and served with a hoecake, caviar and pickled onions. It was drizzled with crème fraiche and some jalapeno honey. Seriously, what a great bunch of flavors. Again, I was so sad about only having a small bite of the shared one, that I went ahead and just ordered it again for my dinner. It’s an appetizer, but it is pretty filling.

I enjoyed the tuna myself, but others didn’t like it as much as the other items. It was cured with smoked soy so it had a little different texture than most tuna crudo type things that you might taste, but I enjoyed it. It was served with yuzu gel, avocado puree and a slaw made with pickled beets. I liked all of it except for the beets, which I never like. 

My husband had the pork belly ($26), which is one of the classic items they have had at Tinker Street since the beginning. He said it was good, but I think he enjoyed the apps better. To be honest, I think they sounded better overall than the entrées and I will likely always order from this part of the menu. 

We also had the doughnuts for dessert ($11). They are ricotta doughnuts with maple ice cream. They were also very good. Generally, I find you can’t go wrong with doughnuts. We also had the s’mores bar ($11) which was also really good—it had a chocolate custard and marshmallow cream that was seared on top to give it that campfire taste—and it had an ash dust alongside There was a graham cracker crust too. Also, really good. I do have a weakness for singed marshmallow.

It was a very good meal and I was glad we got to go back. We will certainly add it back into the rotation.  Just remember, it’s 21+ and they now take reservations.

Tinker Street

402 E 16^th Street

Indy 46202

317-925-5000

https://www.tinkerstreetrestaurant.com/

Bocca

I know it’s been awhile, but I have to let you know when I have a great meal at a new place. Recently my husband and my son went with me to check out Bocca, which is in the old Shoefly spot. I like the remodel and it feels a lot more like a nice restaurant with a pretty bar, rather than a lunch place. The front door is strangely not really marked, but it is in the same place as Shoefly was if you ever went there. A nice sign on the door might make sense (and maybe a curtain or something to stop the draft from the door to some of the tables).

It was actually still Devour when we were there, and I did order it because there were some good options—I often don’t, but it seemed like a decent deal if you wanted to try a dessert. The Devour price was $45 for 3 courses. I chose the tuna appetizer which was marinated raw tuna with avocado, red onion, olives, and oranges—it had a tangy vinaigrette with some heat from a few peppers and a little truffle flavor. It was delightful and one of the most creative crudo/tartare versions I have seen in a long time. It was really good and I would easily order it again. The boys ordered the arancini ($12)—arancini are fried arborio rice balls and these are filled with gooey fontina cheese. They are served in a nice light and fresh marinara sauce and these were absolutely delightful as well. We were extremely happy at this point in the dinner and started to get nervous that maybe we had peaked.

Well, my son and I also had very good pasta dishes. The one I got with my devour was the mushroom lasagna (normally $22 on the regular menu). It was a rich white sauce-based veggie lasagna with pesto, shitake mushrooms and spinach. It was very rich and decadent, but also quite delicious. I like the way the pesto gave a hit of something to cut through the bechamel. My son got the Bolognese ($21) which was fresh tagliatelle with meat sauce and a mushroom ragout on top. The pasta was perfect and the flavor was good. I liked that even the tomato sauces were fresh and acidic. He loved it and between the three of us, it was gone pretty fast.

The only let down was the carbonara ($21), which is typically one of hub’s favorites. It is spaghetti (did not seem fresh) with guanciale, egg, black pepper and romano cheese. It is meant to be a pretty simple dish and the egg and cheese are what make it rich and decadent. This one just fell flat for some reason—the pasta itself wasn’t as good and the dish was just a little one dimensional. 

The dessert was not a star either—it was the bombolini which came with devour (usually $12), which are fried doughnuts with lemon curd. The doughnuts themselves were just a little dense and we didn’t finish them. I saw the tiramisu come out and it looked good—I would probably try this next time. And I have had friends tell me how much they liked the bombolini, so maybe it was just an off night for this particular item.

All in all though, we were really excited by the food, the menu and the place—the server was very nice as well and the wine list was interesting. We had a nice Italian Soave that we then ordered from the wine store because we enjoy it so much. I would recommend it and will happily plan a trip back, which is not something I saw often about Italian restaurants in Indy.

Bocca

122 E. 22^nd Street

Indy. 46202

317-426-2045

https://boccaindy.com/