George's Neighborhood Grill- Revisit

After a recent back to school event the family and I decided to hit George’s again. It’s in our neighborhood and it had been awhile. I appreciate having a large family style restaurant that is independently owned, even though it isn’t a place I frequent on a regular basis.

Luckily, it was a nice night and we had decided to sit outside (they have a nice patio) because when I walked in to get a table, there was a band playing in the bar and it was pretty darn loud. Even in the non-bar part of the restaurant, conversation would have been a bit difficult.

We were all arguing over which appetizer to share and couldn’t agree so we splurged and got a sampler platter (not cheap at $15.99 but basically three different things for the price of two apps). I appreciate that you can choose pretty much any of the appetizer choices. As it turns out, they basically give you three full sized apps, so it is a good deal, although a more appropriate choice size-wise for a larger group. We had quesadillas (daughter’s choice), onion straws (son) and fried mushrooms (me and hubby). I have had their fried mushrooms before and really enjoyed them. I am pretty sure they are making them in house and they have a nice crunchy exterior and I like the horseradish dipping sauce. Last time I had them they were much smaller though, which I preferred, making them easy to pop in your mouth. These had to be cut making the crunchy exterior fall off a bit. Quesadillas were surprisingly good—the tortillas nice and crisp. The onion straws were food service I’m guessing and were pretty much what you would expect. We had a lot of these left over.

So we had had the pork tenderloin sandwich ($8.49) in the past and enjoyed it—so hubby and I agreed to share it (he ordered it) and I would try something new—the fish tacos ($8.99). They’re soft tacos filled with grilled tilapia, a cabbage slaw, pico, jack cheese and an avocado cream sauce (so says the menu).The thing I really didn’t like about the tacos was the pico. I was expecting a classic pico with tomatoes and onions and this was full of cucumber. Not a fan. To be fair, it was on the “healthy option” part of the menu, but these were just not that good. I even tried to squeeze some lime and improve them, but it didn’t really help.

The tenderloin was as good as always—really crispy fried with a fair amount of seasoning. There was a nicely toasted bun, slightly undersized for the meat, but that’s classic right?

The kids both had burgers—one of them really liked it and the other one didn’t. Hubby (whose opinion I trust more) thought they were quite good. They asked how they wanted them cooked (medium) and they were nice and slightly pink.

All in all, as I suspected, I’m still thinking George’s is a place to stick with the basics—the fried stuff that is made in house is well done. Venturing beyond that can be more questionable. The menu is quite large too, so it’s easy to get curious about other things. Although if you have a favorite non-fried item, I would love to hear about it!

George’s Neighborhood Grill

6935 Lake Crossing, Suite B-12-15

Indy 46220

317-577-1600

www.georgesneighborhoodgrill.com 

George's Neighborhood Grill

It was midweek, I didn’t want to cook, and we didn’t have a babysitter. Sick of all our usual haunts with the kids, so we decided to give George’s another go. We had been once before for lunch and weren’t overwhelmed, but a few of you guys have recommended it to me since, and I always believe every restaurant (well, except maybe one in this city that will go unnamed) deserves at least 2 chances. Sometimes it is just a bad night and you never know what you might be missing. (And hey, it is really close to my house!)

Anyway, the first thing I like about this place is the little room in the restaurant with old style stand up video games. Instantly, my kids were over there checking them out—and my kids are so young it was like 10 minutes before they even asked for a quarter to play them. They just liked watching the screens and the example games just as much as playing. So basically hubby and I enjoyed some quiet time during what is usually the grumpiest part of a meal out with our kids (they’re hungry and impatient). So I really like a place with something for the kids to do.

As for the food, well, I ordered some onion strings to snack on to start. They were good. They were onion strings. Served with a horseradish sauce which was pretty tasty, but I still am old fashioned about this, and like my ketchup. They were similar to most onion strings I have had in Indy, so I am starting to thing that they must all come from the same place.

For my main, I had the steak salad which was a small filet served over lettuce with blue cheese crumbles, provolone and your choice of dressing (I chose blue cheese of course). Others have recommended the salads at George’s, but based on this one, I would not. The meat was fine, and cooked to my requested temperature, but it wasn’t the highest quality of meat for sure (but what do you expect for $9.95 I guess). However, that being said, the meat and blue cheese crumbles were the best part, the worst part was the lettuce mix itself. It was just like those bagged mixes with iceberg and little hard strips of carrot. Yuck-o. The dressing was also nothing special—seemed like it came straight from a bottle. I have certainly had better blue cheese dressings at similar midrange restaurants (Arni’s and Scotty’s come to mind). So I guess all in all, the salad was a miss.


Hubby, on the other hand, ordered a pork tenderloin sandwich and it was much better (and marked as a specialty). The pork was juicy (the problem that causes me to rarely eat such sandwiches is that they are usually too dry) and the batter was nice. I think one of the things that kept it pretty juicy was that it wasn’t pounded so thin to beat all the tenderness out and then overcooked. A lot of times, restaurants seem to want to go for the biggest looking tenderloin at the expense of tenderness. The egg bun was the proper proportion to the sandwich—not so big you couldn’t fit the sandwich in your mouth and was fresh and tasty. This was a good sandwich and based on it, I might just give George’s another go (well, that and the video games).



Here’s the reason I might not rush back too soon though. My son (he is 3) picked up a mint on the way in (you know those round starlight mints lots of restaurants have sitting out in bowls?) and after he finished eating, he popped it in his mouth (without my knowledge). Well, you can probably guess what happened, he started choking on it and Mommy had to Heimlich him right there in the restaurant. It popped out, along with half his dinner and the whole meal ended a lot more stressful than it began. Needless to say, I don’t know if my son will be wanting to rush back, video games or not, and I can tell you right now, I think he is off mints for good. But note to parents (and anyone really), you may want to brush up on your Heimlich skills, as you never know when you will need them. Instinct sort of took over for me, but I did take a class several years ago after my first child was born and I am sure glad I did.

Nothing like a little drama to end a meal.

George’s Neighborhood Grill
6935 Lake Crossing, Suite B-12-15
Indy 46220
317-577-1600
www.georgesneighborhoodgrill.com