Northside Social - Revisit

Hubby and I were having a hard time deciding where to eat the other day, but we wanted a nice sit-down place, not too far, locally owned, and where we could get in without a reservation.  So we settled on Northside Social. It had been awhile, and I have heard a few good things lately—and the last dinner I had was pretty good even though it was a long time ago. I like the low country bent of the menu—southern coastal food with a fair amount of Cajun type flavors. 

I appreciate the upscale interior of this place—particularly in Broad Ripple. Sadly, it was pretty empty when we got there—although it picked up somewhat while we were there. Our server was very friendly and knowledgeable about the menu. 

We started with the mushroom tart ($13). It was a tart crust topped with a whole lot of sautéed (local) mushrooms, a big slab of Capriole Kentucky Tomme cheese, petals of pickled red pearl onions and crispy fried kale. This was truly delicious. Honestly, I couldn’t get over how good it was. The buttery tart with the rich, slightly pungent cheese, earthy mushrooms and kale and the perfect hit of acid with the onions was tremendous. I would get this every time.

For our main dishes, we got the fried chicken (shocker I know) ($23) and a special pasta dish with shrimp. The fried chicken was pickle brined and buttermilk marinated and had more of a corn meal sort of breading. It was served with pimento mac and cheese and bacon braised collard greens. I loved the very mild sour flavor from the pickle and buttermilk, the crust was unbelievably crisp—normally I don’t prefer a cornmeal crust, but this was really tasty. And we didn’t eat it all that night and it was almost better the next day. I was super impressed by how moist and tender all the chicken was—even the breast, which was very large—which I find to be notoriously dry usually. The mac and cheese was a large portion and extremely decadent with pimento cheese. The collard greens weren’t bad either, although compared to everything else, they weren’t as impressive. 

Sadly, the pasta was not as tasty as everything else for me, although it was still good. It was pasta with a light buttery pesto-type sauce with spring peas, pine nuts and some large shrimp. The shrimp were not overcooked, which was nice. Hubby liked it more than I did—or I guess I just preferred the other things. 

All in all, I was quite impressed with the food we had and the various flavor profiles in each dish. If you haven’t been in a while, you might want to check it out again. 

Northside Social

6525 N. College Ave

Indy.  46220

317/253-0111

www.northsidesocial.com 

Northside Social --Revisit

We snuck out the other night to grab dinner with friends while our boys were in a  55-hour long tennis tournament (ok, it was only 5 hours, but seemed like longer). We were undecided about where to go, and I remembered that Northside Social had a new chef, Dean Sample (check out his instagram for some of the new dishes).

To be honest though, I hadn’t been in quite awhile, so while I can’t really say exactly how much of the menu had changed, but I can tell you that just about everything we had was tasty.

To start with though, it was strange when we walked in—the restaurant was only about 1/3 full but they wouldn’t seat us without a reservation. We were on a time crunch so we walked into the bar, but when we started discussing it, we thought it was weird since the restaurant was so empty, so my friend’s husband went back up and then they sat us right away. And by the time we left there were still several empty tables. Anyhow, once we were sorted, we ordered some salads and dinner. I just had a green salad ($5) with blue cheese dressing and it was solid. It had chopped up tomatoes and red onions and was mixed greens. Hubby had a Caesar ($6) and was happy.

I ordered the potato-crusted basa ($21) and I have to say, it was delicious. Basa is a tender white fish made crispy on the outside with potatoes that are crusted and then pan-fried. The fish was great, and the lemon butter sauce on the fish makes it for me. It has such nice lemon flavor and herbs on top. I love my acid for sure and I didn’t even use the extra lemon wedge on the side. The sauce was just right. It was served with brocolini and mashed potatoes underneath. The potatoes were fine, but we all ordered a side of mac and cheese ($8) to share and it might be one of the better versions in town. I like that they mix the pasta with green chilies and make the top super crunchy with breadcrumbs. It is a very good mac and cheese.

One friend ordered the spicy Spanish triggerfish ($21) and it was very tasty as well. The fish is a bit thicker and denser than the basa, but remained tender and was a good match for the heartier, spicier flavors of the spicy Spanish shrimp sauce and the ratatouille. There were these really great roasted tomatoes in there that just sort of exploded with flavor. It was a good and interesting dish.

Hubby was excited to see a cassoulet ($21) on the menu, as that is one of his favorite things. They do a pork version here. It’s basically a bean and meat casserole. He liked the dish and the pork that was in there but thought the sausage wasn’t as tasty, but he said he would totally order it again, and liked that a restaurant is actually offering it.

The portions here are good-sized and I don’t think anyone of us finished our entrées. Our server was very friendly and helpful and kept up with our drinks.

Overall, it’s a nice place to grab a more grown up dinner in Broad Ripple. The new chef seems to be mixing up the menu a bit and producing good dishes. If you haven’t been in awhile, you might want to check it out again. And let me know what you think.

Northside Social

6525 North College Ave 

Indy 46220

317/253-0111

www.northsidesocial.com 

Meridian - Revisit

It had been ages since hubby and I had been to Meridian. It was one of those nights where we were struggling to figure out where we wanted to go. It seemed like a good time to go back.

The place is a very nice interior. I have to say, not very crowded these days—there were people there, but for a weekend, it was not that busy. Our server was very nice and they bring you warm toasty rolls pretty quick, which are soft, and maybe just a little sweet, and very delicious, especially with the totally soft butter they bring as well.

We started with a couple of appetizers—the fried oysters ($16), because, well, I guess there’s a reason they’ve been on the menu since the dawn of time (or at least the dawn of Meridian). They’re quite good. There are several small oysters fried very well and crispy. They’re still doing a play on Rockefeller with creamed spinach underneath, dots of hollandaise sauce and a large dot of Sriracha as well They then top the oysters with crumbles of bacon. These have pretty much always been good, and still are, but make me wonder if maybe a little variation would be good.

We also had the current version of the beef tartare, which they have had some version of the last few times we’ve been. This one was described as a poke, which I associate with a slightly larger dice. This one was still pretty fine I think, but it’s just semantics I guess. We were intrigued to get this one because of the flavorings with it—it was seasoned with lemongrass, ginger, mint, pickled shitakes and served with fried wontons. It was really good. I really enjoyed the pickly taste and even softer texture of the mushrooms. I liked the Asian flavors as well. This was a very well executed dish.

We then shared a Brussels salad ($10). They split it in the kitchen for us, which was nice, and it wasn’t ridiculously huge, which was also nice, but I wasn’t wowed by the salad itself. It was shaved Brussels sprouts, apple slices, radicchio, golden raisins, pine nuts, manchego and gastrique.  Many of the sprouts themselves were sliced a little too thickly, making them too tough to eat, since they were raw. The other ingredients were fine, but the salad just didn’t really come together as a cohesive whole for me.

We were more lured in by the apps on this night, so we just got two more for our dinner. We had the pork belly ($12) and the smoked trout ($16). These were both fine, but neither were as good as the first two we had. I appreciated that the pork belly was cut into nice cubes, giving you the full range of the pork without giving that overly gelatinous thing that sometimes happens with pork belly. These were more like a nice cube of bacon. The bread cubes were a little much with it though. There was remoulade all on the bottom of the plate, which was fine. The fried green tomatoes seemed to get a little lost, and that acid would have been nice. 

The fish was really pretty mediocre—the fish was dry and didn’t have a lot of flavor. Loved the little baby quail egg deviled eggs, but that was about it here. Honestly, I didn’t eat much more than a couple of bites.

Oh, but the side of mac and cheese was really delicious—totally worth ordering—super creamy and with a nice buttery crumb topping. This was worth taking the extra home. And it’s a big portion, so there will likely be some left.

Even though I know I said I liked the older dishes on the menu the best, I still feel like Meridian may be in need of a bit of some menu updates. They need to do something to distinguish themselves again if they want to stay up there with the nicer restaurants around town. There’s a reason we don’t think of it very often when we have a date night, and it’s that it just doesn’t have an interesting menu, particularly since it hardly changes… just my two cents.

Meridian

5694 N. Meridian

Indy 46208

317-466-1111

www.meridianonmeridian.com 

Meridian - Revisit

For Mother’s Day, my family took me to Meridian. They were offering a special brunch menu, and we hadn’t been since the new chef (Dean Sample) took over so I was kind of excited for it. I have really enjoyed Meridian the last few years and was anxious to see if the new chef had started putting his own spin on things.

We ordered some fried oysters ($15.50) to start. A version of these has been on the menu since the restaurant opened, and has varied a bit from chef to chef. These were one of my favorite versions, mainly because the oysters were small bits (honestly can’t say they were all small oysters and maybe have actually been cut into smaller sizes) but they were really good—juicy inside and with the right amount of crunchy coating outside. There was a swipe of spinach puree underneath and a swipe of hollandaise. A couple of dollops of Sriracha alongside were nice to zip it up if you wanted too. The thing that made these so good was how perfectly the oysters were cooked though. The boys split a Caesar salad ($7.75) as well, and it was one of the better ones I have had in town (I am extremely picky about Caesar salads). It was tossed in an appropriate amount of a nice and zippy dressing.

I was enticed by the crab cake benedict ($29) they were offering that day—it was kind of a deconstructed version and was mostly crab cakes—but I saw someone else get it as we sat down and the nice round poached egg attracted my attention. It was a good dish—but again was mostly focused on the crab cakes, which were nice and crabby, but pretty dense and filling. There was no way I would finish both. And sadly my egg was punctured and therefore deflated when it arrived. It still tasted good, but wasn’t as visually appealing. The crab cakes were served on top of slices of bread with what was I think more of the spinach puree, but the bread just increased the overfilling nature of the dish. The asparagus alongside was cooked and seasoned nicely. The whole thing was drizzled with a nice lemony hollandaise and some crumbled bacon (in retrospect, the flavors were pretty similar to the oysters).

Honestly, the best thing on the table entrée-wise was the burger ($22.50). Wow, that thing was delicious. It was beef topped with Fisher Farms ham, a fried egg, Gruyere cheese and garlic mayo. The soft eggy Brioche bun is perfect (the dinner rolls are just smaller versions and were a huge hit with my kids)—it’s soft yet holds up to all the toppings and the very medium rare meat that hubby had on his burger. You can get the burger on the menu all the time, although the egg, which was SOOO good—just runny enough without soaking the sandwich—I think was only available because it was a “brunch.” The variation of using Gruyere was great—and with the ham as well, it was like a really good ham and cheese sandwich on a burger. The burger here is worth going for by itself. The fries were fine, although not as crisp and as memorable as I remember them being in the past.

Cross section of the burger

All in all, we had a nice brunch and my kids were on extra good behavior for me. The food and service were good, nothing was spilled and we had a really kick ass burger (thank goodness for a hubby who goes halfsies on entrées).  The kids were only bummed because we couldn’t get dessert because of nut issues. But I was pretty darn full anyway. I am interested to see what the regular dinner menu is like—will have to give it a try here soon. Anyone been since the new chef started?

Meridian

5694 N. Meridian

Indy 46208

317-466-1111

www.meridianonmeridian.com