Crispy Bird

You knew I was going to have to try Crispy Bird soon. I mean it’s fried chicken, which I love, and it’s Patachou, which I also like. I had been kind of waiting for the crowds to die down and we lucked into a table the other day for lunch on my birthday with the family. I like what they have done with the interior of the space, even if they did displace one of my favorite lunch places, Barking Dog, in order to make the space.

Anyhow, the staff was very friendly, and in the beginning, the service was very prompt and efficient. It’s a challenge for the servers in there too—it’s still a very small space with a lot of tables, so they have to do a bit of a dance to get to their tables. The menu is very appealing, and there were several things we wanted to try, but we settled on a few to share amongst the four of us.

To start with, we had an order of the biscuits ($6). You get two large biscuits in an order and they are served with whipped maple brown butter. Hmmm. I liked the way these biscuits looked, but they were really dense and kind of bland. I appreciated the soft butter (which was more like butter with some maple syrup alongside), but a little salt would balance this sweetness better. My daughter, who typically inhales just about any type of bread, didn’t finish her half. We left a fair amount.

Between the four of us, we had the thigh/leg combo ($12),  two orders of the breast ($14), and the fried chicken sandwich ($10). For sides we had the mac and cheese ($8) and the black-eyed peas ($8). Of the chicken dishes, I would say the sandwich was probably the best thing. It’s a boneless chicken thigh piece (which is one of my favorite pieces of fried chicken) on a bun topped with aioli, slaw and pickles. The chicken was good, and I loved the pickles. They had a great combo of mustard flavor and a teeny heat and a little sweet. They were great with the chicken. None of us were fans of the slaw, which was strangely soft and lacking much flavor. The leg on the leg thigh combo was my next favorite piece because the meat was tender and it was easy to get the crispy skin with each bite. The thigh was not as meaty, and heavier on the crust. Also, my kids both ordered the breasts, which were dusted with salt, which you could see on the chicken and plate. The thigh/leg combo had no such salt, and needed salt. When I asked for some they brought me a precious little dish with a couple of pinches of salt in it. I think it’s a little presumptuous to think no one will want salt or pepper on fried chicken, to the point that you don’t even offer shakers at all. I can see not putting them on the table, but…. Anyhow, the breasts were the weakest pieces, which isn’t overly surprising to me. Sadly, this chicken suffered the fate of many a fried chicken breast. They were huge, and pretty dry. The thing about this chicken is the crust is really tasty and crunchy (hence the name I guess), but the rest of the chicken is just ok. And maybe I just like my fried chicken salty, but much of it needed salt as well. The sandwich excelled because it had sauce and flavor right on it. The chicken was definitely best when eaten at the same time as one of those pickles.

As far as the sides, the black-eyed peas with the egg yolk confit, “potlikker emulsion” and fried greens was the star. It has nice flavor, as well as a hit of acid. And I liked the crunch of the fried kale on top. And the egg yolk certainly didn’t hurt. This was probably the best thing on the table the whole meal. We also had the mac and cheese after reading a lot about it. I love Gruyere, which is the cheese they use. But it is extremely rich. Extremely. Out of the two chunks served, we didn’t even finish one between three of us.  I liked a few bites of it with the chicken, but whoa. It’s not your traditional creamy take, it’s baked in a block and somewhat dry, but that didn’t bother me. Hubby didn’t care for it, but I enjoyed the flavor quite a bit. Just in small doses.

So the place was jammed, and the service overall was good. I waited quite awhile for a second glass of wine, which was not my server’s fault, as he explained he was just waiting for it to be poured. The bartender was making a ton of mixed drinks and it took quite awhile. Maybe a second bartender would help until business calms down a bit. Just a thought.

Overall, it was not bad. My general theme is that everything is very pretty there, but it’s a little skin deep. And is it a place I will wait in a line to eat? Ehh…probably not. But I will give it another try one of these days. So, tell me about your experiences.

Crispy Bird

115 East 49^th Street

Indy   46205

317/744-0000

www.crispy-bird.com 

salt

Napolese

The noise. The din. This is the first thing that comes to mind when I think about Napolese. I even did a two visit review this time before writing this one just to make sure the first time wasn’t an aberration. Man, is this place loud. It’s a cute little place and I like the modern décor, black walls, open kitchen—but it is buzzing for sure. And the second time we went, shortly after the restaurant opened for the day, it wasn’t full on noisy yet, but by the time we left, as one of my dining companions put it, “it was prohibitively loud.” Now, the other person in our party later told me she really liked the atmosphere, and described it as "lively." She also commented she liked being able to talk without being overheard by the people at the next table. So I guess it depends on how you look at noise. It is a fine line for me, you don't want the restaurant to be a tomb, but I go on sensory overload when it is too noisy.

But on to the food. Both times I had the bruschetta appetizer to start. The first time I liked it better than the second. It was fresher and riper tasting, and I liked all the olives mixed into it. The second time, the tomatoes seemed a bit underripe and it didn’t have the tangy vinegar taste that I got the first time, and there weren’t nearly as many olives mixed in. We also had the warm goat cheese in marinara sauce. These dishes are served family style and are big enough to share. The bread is served on the side with them and you dish them out yourself. Which inherently, I do not have a problem with, but the pieces of bread (obviously slivers of the pizza dough) were far too skinny to be proper for topping or even dipping. They were probably an inch wide, and not crispy at all, so it was somewhat challenging to get the stuff on top of the bread--epecially the bruschetta. And actually, thinking about it, the word “bruschetta” means toasted or grilled bread (read crunchy) topped with various things. Yes, usually the most common topping is a tomato mixture when you see this on a menu around here. But the bread should be crunchy. That is all I am saying. Or at least wide enough that you can put some stuff on it. We also had the warm goat cheese in marinara sauce as an app. The goat cheese was really tasty. The marinara at Napolese has a great flavor. And at least it was easier to scoop up with the little pieces of soft crust. On my first visit I also tried the arugula salad. It is certainly large, and big enough to share, but it was underdressed and really all you could taste was the very peppery arugula. There was a lemon wedge on the side, which helped a bit, but more dressing is really what the salad needed.

As for pizzas, I have tried a few. I will say, one thing about Napolese, this place is dialed in to really interesting sounding toppings (at least to me). Two pizzas feature sunny side up eggs, which is a favorite of mine since the first time I had one in Rome. The first time I went, I had the “broken yolk” pizza with the chicken egg (as opposed to the quail eggs) which was nice. It was a margherita pizza, just tomato sauce and fresh mozzarella and basil with the egg in the middle. It was a little challenging in that you had to cut it yourself (I assume so as not to break the yolk before its time) but a big knife and a pizza are sort of awkward. Honestly, I am not sure how to remedy this situation, and I can’t honestly remember if the pizzas I have had with egg before were cut or not, but I certainly don’t remember cutting them myself. This may have been my favorite of the bunch that I have tried so far though as far as flavor.

We also had the Meridian Kessler which was the basic red pie (tomato sauce and cheese) with spicy sausage and mushrooms and aged provolone. This was tasty (my dining companions were quite happy with it for sure). The sausage certainly had a bit of spice to it, and while maybe not all would agree, I enjoyed the whole button mushrooms here. This was a traditional combo for sure, but still came across as a bit unique.

Finally, we had a special pizza of the day. This pizza was explained as morels, fiddlehead ferns and ricotta. It was a white pizza (i.e. no sauce) and was described by our server as “amazing.” Now, she pretty much had me at morels, even though they were Oregon morels… I was very excited to try it. Unfortunately, this one didn’t come together for me. I thought the morels were a bit sandy to really enjoy (even though they were cut into pieces) and the fiddlehead ferns a bit too crunchy. It was also a bit too dry for me too, and I often love a pizza without the traditional marinara. Both of my friends agreed with this assessment and declared they liked the sausage/mushroom pizza much better.

The thing that makes this kind of pizza for me is the crust though, and this was good. I enjoyed mopping up the leftover goat cheese and marinara with my crusts. And again, the marinara on the pizza was quite good as well. But the goat cheese app was so much better with the crusts, because they were so much bigger than the bread that was served with the apps. They really need to come up with a better plan on the bread they serve with these kind of starters.

We also had a dessert pizza, which was the crust drizzled with Nutella (a chocolate hazelnut spread) with a scoop of gelato (from Zingerman’s). Man, this was sweet. Super sweet. Maybe just a little over the top even for me, and I love Nutella. I would love to see something using the crust and maybe the chocolate sugars from Petite Chou and then a little Gelato on top. (What? A girl can dream)-- Something just a little less gooey I guess.

Ok, Napolese has some things that bug me, but the good news is, some of them are at least potentially fixable (the bread the bread the bread!) (and my guess is there is something they could do about the noise if they want to). And there are some positive things too--I love the sound of a lot of the pizza combos--the “BLT,” or bacon, caramelized leeks and Taleggio sounds delish as does the “PFG” which is pancetta, roasted fingerlings, and gorgonzola. That’s what I mean-- nearly every pie has some intriguing and interesting topping combos that really make you think you need to try them all. And hey, next time I want to go somewhere with my kids and not worry about the noise, I may just take them here.

Napolese
114 East 49th Street
Indy 46205
317/925-0765
www.cafepatachou.com