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

Harry & Izzy's- North

You know, I am pretty psyched to have a local steak place on our side of town.  The closest one is Peterson’s, which I actually quite like, but it is still a little trek from my house, and well, let’s face it, it is one of the more expensive ones.  The new Harry & Izzy’s is super close to my house and some friends invited us to join them for dinner shortly after they opened.  So, I don’t usually review a place so quick, but I figured, you can all take that into account when you are reading this right? 

So the interior space is nice, especially considering it is in a strip mall—not quite as dark and clubby as I sort of expected, but a nice, fairly sophisticated space overall.  The place was jammed also so I guess I am not the only one who is happy to have a locally owned place in this area (and I am sure the proximity to the Nordstrom Rack and Container store don’t hurt either.  I have never seen a bigger transformation in a strip mall then this one).  Anyway, we were greeted promptly and the host was quite friendly which is important to me. I hate being treated like an inconvenience, which seems to happen more often than it should in restaurants.

Hubby and I were planning to split a steak because it was just after Thanksgiving and we were still a little stuffed.  It also gave me the opportunity to order the carpaccio appetizer ($12) since I couldn’t exactly order a steak and have carpaccio for a starter right?  I actually thought it was really quite well done.  A fair amount of beef, sliced very thin, and topped with a good amount of salty parmesan, capers and a drizzle of oil as well as some dressed greens in the center.  The crackers served alongside were buttery and sort of melted in your mouth with the beef.  All in all, it was one of the better seasoned versions I have had in Indy (and I seem to try it everywhere).

Hubby started with a Caesar salad that honestly wasn’t very good.  Well, it just was kind of blah.  I don’t think he would order that again.  He then had the ribeye ($34), which I had a fair amount of as well.  I appreciate that Harry & Izzy’s includes a side in its price and hubby went with onion rings, which he had before at the downtown locations and really enjoyed.  The steak was good. It was cooked properly and had a nice flavor.  The right amount of fatty content without being overly chewy, which is a fine line for me.  I would put it up in the top 25 or 30% of ribeyes I have had around town.  Not the best, but very good.  The onion rings are hand battered and tasty—the coating kind of falls off as you eat them, but they still taste good.

I just ordered the seared tuna appetizer ($13) for my main because we knew we would have plenty of food.  The tuna was very rare and sesame seed crusted and then just very briefly seared on the edges.  There’s some sticky sushi rice on the side and a soy based dipping sauce.  It is described as a soy cilantro ginger sauce.  I tasted mainly soy.  I would have liked a bit more of the other flavors to develop the taste a bit more—it was a lot like just eating plain sashimi with soy sauce (there was also wasabi on the plate).  The tuna was good quality, but just needed a little more excitement for me.

I also had a couple of bite of one of my friend’s potato pancakes and I enjoyed them.  They are shredded potatoes that are in thin patties and pan fried.  Served with sour cream and some sort of apple sauce I believe (I just ate some of the sour cream).  I liked that they were really crispy and crunchy.  Another friend also had some of the Asian shrimp as an appetizer, which I have talked about in a review before and they were just as good—they are rock shrimp that are breaded and fried and tossed in a chili aioli.  I liked that the shrimp remain fairly crunchy (although the shrimp are not tough) and that they don’t use so much of the sauce that they get soggy.

Ok, so that’s the food.  The biggest annoyances of the night actually came from service and atmospheric issues.  I am truly hoping these were just new restaurant kinks and will get sorted out.  The first thing was the wine service.  It took about 15 or 20 minutes to get the bottle of wine we ordered.  They do have a rather impressive wall of wines in there, but if you can’t make it work service-wise, it just becomes a giant wall of annoyance that there is so much wine that you can see but can’t get to your table.  And sadly, when we ordered a second bottle of the exact same wine, it took just as long again.  I am assuming they have some sort of wine captain with all that wine, but I don’t know if it was because it was so busy or so new, but the wine service blew.  My other pet peeve of the night was about midway through our meal when they started using what is apparently, their “ice crusher” in the kitchen.  I mean, it is so loud (we were seated a few booths away from the kitchen apparently) it sounded like the place was being bombed. And it went on for quite awhile—it wasn’t like just a minute or two and then it was done.  They might want to think about crushing ice before service or during lulls in business—you couldn’t really carry on a conversation while this thing was running.  Of course, if I had had more wine at this point, maybe I wouldn’t have cared as much, but, well, I couldn’t get the wine.

So, overall, I would say Harry & Izzy’s is certainly a welcome addition to the Northside.  We needed a non-chain steakhouse in the area, and hopefully, once the service kinks, etc. are worked out, it will be a complete package.  The food was pretty good anyway.

Harry & Izzy’s

4050 East 82^nd Street

Indy  46250

317/915-8045

www.harryandizzys.com

Harry & Izzy's

Just as I always thought I should try St. Elmo’s because it is such an Indy legend, I have also had Harry & Izzy’s on the list as well. Harry & Izzy’s, in case you don’t know is also owned by the St. Elmo’s folks (Harry & Izzy were two of the former owners of St. Elmo’s). They offer several steaks as well as the “famous” St. Elmo’s shrimp cocktail (of which I am not a fan). Anyway, we finally got there the other night when the in-laws were in town. I like the fact that the menu is much more varied than that of St. Elmo’s, although this menu is so large it might be a little too varied. But they have a decent selection of seafood as well as steaks. There are also sandwiches, pizza and pasta and several different appetizers and sides.

We started with the spicy Asian shrimp which is rock shrimp, which is hand breaded and tossed in a chili aioli. First of all, this was a huge portion. More than enough for the 4 of us to share. Thank goodness we only ordered the one appetizer. They were really tasty though. The shrimp were quite tender (I think one of the great things about rock shrimp is they don’t seem to get tough as easily. The breading was pretty good, not so much crunchy because it was coated with the sauce, but it all went really well together. The chili aioli wasn’t too mayonnaise-y, had a little heat and more of a chili oil component than a mayo one. I would get them again.

When our server described the seafood entrée special, I was sold on the description. It was halibut lightly seasoned with cornmeal and served over a risotto with crab and asparagus. My mother-in-law ordered it as well. It was good, but not amazing I thought. And the portion was ridiculously large. But that is no real surprise I guess. The fish was maybe a tad overcooked, although not dried out or anything. The cornmeal crust was light and added a nice texture. The risotto was extremely rich but tasty. The king crab pieces that were in it were fairly plentiful, but a bit strange. The only word I can think of to describe them is “deflated.” It was almost like somehow the inside of the crab meat had been sucked out from the red outer skin. Tasted ok, just strange. The creamy butter sauce was very rich and could have benefitted from a bit of lemon or something to cut it a bit. We really should have shared the dish, as we both left at least half of our portions (well, we brought them home to the dog who thoroughly enjoyed it).

Now hubby and my father-in-law both ordered steaks. Clearly, this is the way to go here. Hubby ordered the ribeye, his favorite, and my father-in-law the filet. Hubby’s steak was perfectly cooked and I would say, based on the several bites I had, and his comments, probably one of the best steaks we have had in Indy. I guess all that St. Elmo’s experience is a good thing. When you get a steak like this and compare it to some we have had lately, you realize why you sometimes leave a place feeling a little underwhelmed. He had a side of the house made onion rings which were really good—sort of like thicker onion strings. But you could really tell they were made in house and they were really nice with the steak. I didn’t try the filet, but was told it was quite good as well, and based on my observation, it was also perfectly medium rare.

We all shared a dessert as well (which was certainly large enough for 4 of us in my opinion). We had the brownie with vanilla ice cream, hot fudge and caramel sauce and candied pecans. I remember thinking the brownie itself was good, and how can you go wrong with ice cream and hot fudge and caramel really? But we were so stuffed, even between the four of us, we didn’t finish it.

Overall, I think I prefer Harry & Izzy’s over St. Elmo’s for a few reasons. I like the interior of the place better, not quite so old fashioned, and I like the service better. The staff is friendlier I think, and you certainly have more options as to what to order. Considering I don’t care for the St. Elmo’s shrimp cocktail, that is a plus for me. Either place, I would go with a steak, and the ones I have had at both places have been very good.

Harry & Izzy’s
153 South Illinois
Indy 46225
317/635-9594
http://www.harryandizzys.com/