Midtown Grill-revisit

I really wish there were more really good restaurants in Broad Ripple Village. I am always amazed by the fact that there are so many bars and bar food-type places and that people don’t get tired of them. But maybe I am just old. There are a few places that I frequent, and when we first moved back, I always thought Midtown was a good basic place where you could count on getting a decent meal. Over the last couple of years, they have re-vamped their menu a few times, with the most recent change being one toward being more of a tapas place.

Honestly, I think what they are going for is to re-make themselves into a bar with better food, as they have also remodeled the inside as well. While they have made it look a bit more modern, and they have certainly maximized the bar space (bars dominate both sides of the restaurant), but the food, well, based on my experience, has not been improved.

I was intrigued by the menu, there were several items that were at least an attempt at being unique, and a couple that sounded interesting. However, when I asked our server what she recommended, she chose all the things that you pretty much see on every other menu in Indy (wedge salad, shrimp cocktail, etc). So ok, I pretty much didn’t get anything she recommended. But there were several nice sounding things.
We started by splitting a grilled romaine salad. I will just start by saying this was the best thing that was put down on the table all night. The leaves were nicely grilled and slightly crisp on the edges and it was covered by some smoked tomatoes, and a nice tangy Ceasar-ish dressing. There was certainly more than enough dressing, and it was underneath the lettuce, so you could sort of put it on as you wished. Like I said, this was the best thing we had all night.

Unfortunately, as they started bringing out the tapas, things went downhill. We had the bruschetta with traditional tomato and basil mix. Ok, you could tell there were some decent flavors going on in this, it had the right tomato-y, basil flavor with a bit of vinegar and olive oil, but the execution was off. The bread wasn’t properly toasted and was actually pretty much completely soft. Which just leads to mushy bread when you add wet toppings. The tomatoes weren’t totally ripe, which could certainly be improved on. I know you can get your hands on better tomatoes than this these days. And there was a bunch of cheese all over it, which personally I thought was unnecessary.

Execution was a huge problem with the fritto misto plate we also ordered. The menu said it included calamari, scallops and shrimp. I love all of these things, and thought this was an interesting take on the classic fried calamari appetizer you see everywhere around town.

Unfortunately, while they did cut the scallops up and cut the shrimp in half, it appeared to me that they still threw it all in to fry at the same time, which cooked the shrimp well, the scallops a little too much, and completely fried the calamari to little, burnt, nearly unrecognizable nuggets. Because they were so much thinner, they needed to be put in later than the rest of the items, or else they needed to cut up the other shellfish into smaller pieces (which may not really be feasible). This is also a bummer because the original incarnation of Midtown that we went to, they had a nice fritto misto with calamari, and as I recall, lemons and fennel.

We also had the potatoes au gratin, of which I have yet to find a good version of in Indy (which kills me because you could buy frozen pre-made ones in England that were delicious). Sadly, these weren’t it either. The slices of potato were slightly undercooked (this seems to be a problem with me and potatoes lately) and therefore a bit too firm, and just covered in ooey gooey cheese. Even if the potatoes had been properly cooked, this lacked any depth of flavor to make it special and had way too much heavy cheese (I think there was probably as much cheese as there was potatoes).

Finally, we had the blue cheese stuffed lamb meatballs. Hubby was really intrigued by them and I agreed simply because, well, they had blue cheese in them. Normally I have never really met a meatball I have liked because they are always too dried out. Well, these were no exception. After a bite or two, I gave up on them as well. The idea was nice, and in theory, I think ground lamb could impart a unique flavor to a meatball, especially paired with the blue cheese. But they were doused in a thick, sweet red wine sauce that sort of covered up any underlying flavors that might have been there. Again, a unique idea that was poorly executed.

Overall, that was my theme for Midtown. There were some interesting menu items that were pretty much all (with the exception of the salad) poorly executed. There seems to be a lack of interest in the kitchen about how to wow people when the food hits the table. It seems like someone dreamed up the menu, and then didn’t bother to train the kitchen about how to prepare the food.

Midtown Grill
815 East Westfield Blvd.
Indy 46220
317-253-1141

Midtown Grill

I was excited to go to Midtown because I had heard rumors that Chef Neal Brown was working with Midtown on their menu. (Heard it in a comment on my own blog as well as on The Dish.) I have always enjoyed Midtown but in the 3 years since I have lived here, I hadn’t seen the menu really change and I get bored with menus that don’t change.

Once we sat down and I saw the menu, it was obvious that it had changed—there were several new items as well as certain classic items (many of which I had had before and enjoyed). I still have no idea if Chef Brown has helped on the menu, but it has certainly changed. Some of the classics that remained were the spinach artichoke dip, the calamari appetizer and the steak Dijon which is flambéed tableside. I have had the calamari and the steak before and have really enjoyed them. Since we were with friends, we decided to get the spinach artichoke dip as we had never had it here. It was really tasty with really big chunks of artichoke and a creamy sauce that wasn’t over the top, the spinach was clearly fresh, but it was just a few leaves draped over the top of the plate and wilted, so it didn’t add much (a little more would be good I think).

For my appetizer, I ordered the mussels. I was pretty sure these were new on the menu and I am sure if you read my blog, you know how much I love mussels. While the garlic sauce was really tasty, the mussels had that same problem that so many do in this town, in that they must have been previously frozen as they had that weird soft consistency. (I learned that that consistency means previously frozen right here on my blog from one of my readers—I love you guys!) If that really is the thing that causes this problem, I am asking all restaurants in Indianapolis to take the mussels off the menu if you are keeping them frozen in the back. Please! If you can’t sell enough to keep them fresh, don’t bother. Like I said, the broth was really tasty, and would’ve been great with fresh mussels, but with these mushy things, not so much.

There were several pasta dishes on the menu, and here is a big shout out to whoever had the idea to offer half sized portions at a reduced cost! Hallelujah! I have been asking for that forever! Someone has figured out that not everyone wants to eat a bowl of pasta that could serve 6 by themselves. I rarely order pasta for this reason, but with this option, I decided to give it a go. I tried the eggplant ravioli with spinach and mushrooms and truffle oil. The pasta wasn’t bad, but it was a little dense for me, the eggplant flavor was nice and I liked that it wasn’t just your usual cream and/or tomato sauce. But the mushrooms on this dish (and they were the same ones that were on hubby’s steak) were just not very good. They were too saturated in whatever they had been cooked in, tasted a bit like stew, and overpowered the dishes. And mushrooms are usually one of my favorite things. These were bordering on slimy. If there was truffle there, I wasn’t really tasting it, but that could have been because of the mushrooms. But the half portion was spot on size-wise for me.

Hubby overall enjoyed his New York strip steak, save for those mushrooms. It had a nice thyme butter on top and was cooked perfectly. I had a bite without the mushrooms and it was delicious. It also came with super thin potato strings which were really thin and tasty.

They also kept the classic white chocolate brownie dessert on the menu, which I have never ordered before even though my dentist swears by it, because I thought it had white chocolate in it (go figure) which isn’t my fave. However, I finally found out (because our server told us so) that it was actually a blondie—i.e., the brownie was white, but the chocolate chips are actually regular dark chocolate. It is served with ice cream on top. It was really good! They need to call this what it is, a blondie with ice cream. We also tried a banana thingamabob (can you tell I can’t remember what it was called exactly) which was pretty good, but couldn’t touch the brownie.

I like Midtown, it has one of the nicest outdoor seating areas around (particularly for Broad Ripple), a nice interior, and we usually always have great service. I am glad to see they are working on revamping the menu, but I certainly think it needs a bit more tweaking to get it just right. Particularly if it isn’t going to change again for 3 years.

Midtown Grill
815 East Westfield Blvd.
Indy 46220
317-253-1141
www.midtown-grill.com