Labor District Café

After seeing a couple of people post about Labor District Café, I was intrigued because I hadn’t really heard much about it. Apparently it just opened around Christmas and is from the same people who brought us Punch Burger. It’s up on the second floor of the BMO building downtown. Not sure you’d notice it if you didn’t work there or randomly hear about it. A bit of signage might be good.

Anyway, I met my friend @wibia there since he works nearby. I liked the way they start you out with a bowl of salty local popcorn from Cousin Willie’s Farm in Ramsey, Indiana. This seems to be a theme here. They are definitely trying to source a lot of the menu items locally—even the ketchup is Red Gold. Of course I think this is a great idea, and you get some wonderful quality ingredients, but you will also pay a bit of a premium price-wise compared to other quick service sandwich places nearby.

The popcorn though was tasty—light and fresh and nicely salty (and just a little butter flavor). If I worked in this building, that popcorn might become a workday addiction for me.

The menu is mainly made up of sandwiches and salads. None of them sound bad at all, but honestly, I was having a hard time finding something that jumped out at me. I settled on a “pick two” so I could try a sandwich and some soup ($8.88). The soup was broccoli with cheese. It was good—and a really large bowl I will say (I was expecting a cup). I am a sucker for broccoli cheese soup—this was more of a broccoli cream flavor, some decent chunks of broccoli and a lot of broccoli flavor. I appreciated that it wasn’t over cheesy. The sandwich was just kind of okay. I had half the spicy Cali club. I asked him if it was warm, and he said they could make it warm for me if I wanted. I did since it was practically blizzarding outside at the time (you do get a nice view of Penn from the large windows overlooking the street). They toasted the bread, but that was all that made it warm. I don’t know, it was just a stack of ingredients that were fine, but nothing that made you feel like you couldn’t do it yourself pretty easily. It was sliced turkey, bacon (they use Goose), lettuce, avocado, habanero cheddar, tomato (very thick slice) and mayo. It all just kind of toppled over when they put it on the table. I would have loved to have it with the cheese melted—maybe a quick press in a Panini press—would have made it easier to eat. I also expected a little more spicy bite to it, with its name. A quick bite from @wibia’s roast beef sandwich revealed it suffered the same fate. And his had even less meat on it. We also shared a side of fries. They were fine. Could have stood to be cooked a little longer-they weren’t especially hot or overly crisp. 

Overall, I am not sure about this place. We both discussed that it seemed to be lacking some draw to bring people in. The space is easy to miss from the street and the interior design is somewhat sparse. It could use a touch of warmth. I think it works at Punch with it’s modern, industrial feel, but this is a place that clearly was other restaurants before and there’s a mix of what I’m guessing was the old furniture with an attempt at the super modern look. Our server was very nice and they were quick with the food. I’d be tempted to try one of the entrées next time—the fried catfish or even the house made chicken fingers and see how they do with a regular meal rather than the sandwiches that didn’t really wow me.

Have you guys been here? Curious about what you think of the place.

Labor District Café

135 N. Pennsylvania Street, 2nd Floor

Indy 46204

317/672-7591

www.labordistrict.com  

Punch Burger - Revisit

The males in my household have a thing for burgers lately, and frankly, I was getting kind of tired of going to the same places that we always go, even though I like them.  We decided to take a little road trip downtown and revisit Punch Burger with the kids.

Ok, so maybe the secret real reason I wanted to go again so soon is because I know Punch recently changed their bacon to Smoking Goose bacon and I wanted to go in there and show some support (and eat some of that bacon).  I have also been hearing about this “burnt cheese” option which intrigued me, so that is also what I ordered—the burnt cheese burger with a runny fried egg and bacon (of course) ($9.24).  I sort of screwed it up because I really just wanted those things on the burger, and they gave me the regular burnt cheeseburger that also has a bunch of other stuff on there too (lettuce, ketchup, onions, etc.). No biggie, I just picked them off, but I need to be more careful about how I order my burger.

Ok, it looks messy, but tasty!

So first off, the bacon was great. Soooo much better than the old bacon option there. I will say, it is slightly pricier, but this is certainly a case of you get what you pay for. And it is totally worth it.  The burnt cheese was very interesting. I sort of expected the cheese to be melted regularly on the burger with just edges that were burnt.   These were actually crisps of cheese that were cooked until crispy and then placed on top.  They were tasty, and had an interesting crunch to them, but I can’t say this would be a regular order for me because I missed the cheesiness of the cheese on the burger. But a very interesting concept.  The burger itself was good. The quality of the meat is high—I just wish they wouldn’t cook it so much. I was so busy ordering all the extra things I wanted (and screwing it up), I didn’t even think to ask to have it cooked to a particular temperature. Next time I would see if they would do it. They did ask if I wanted the egg runny or not, and they cooked it perfectly.

Hubby ordered a “build your own” (what I was trying to do) with cheese, grilled onions and bacon ($7.54).  It was really, really good. He got even more bacon than I did and had the right amount of cheesiness that I missed. He did love my little fried bits of cheese and added a few on top of his (hmmm…wonder if you can just order a side of fried cheese).  We shared waffle fries.  They’re waffle fries, so you know they are not making them fresh, but they were done exactly how they should have been. Hot and crispy—and they season them with a seasoning mix that is pretty tasty.

The kids each got a kid’s meal, which comes with a smaller slider and a side of waffle fries.  They thought they were fine, but because they were pretty small, they were even a bit drier.  (My daughter also informed me that the buns were just a bit too big for the size of the meat). I think next time they would just split one regular burger and be happier.  The kids also enjoyed the fancy soda machine where you can mix up different flavors into your soda (even though they don’t drink soda).  They made different flavors of lemonade and were happy.

I would say overall, Punch has taken a pretty solid burger and made it even better with the addition of kick ass bacon. It’s nice to have a local place downtown serving this kind of more casual food.

Punch Burger

137 E. Ohio Street

Indy 46204

317/426-5280

www.punchburger.com

Punch Burger

Always up for a good burger, hubby and I decided to try Punch Burger for lunch.  It is pretty new, and I have been hearing a lot of good things.  I have also heard there has been pretty long lines at times, so we went a little early. We didn’t have to wait long in line, but by 11:40 or so, the whole place was full (there isn’t a ton of seating, but the tables turn over fast).

This is a place where you order at the register and then they call your number and deliver your food to you. So you sort of have to listen, especially if you are in the back room, because they won’t know where you are.  The service was pretty darn speedy—it only took about 5 minutes to get our burgers.

We both did build your own, although some of the specialty burgers sounded pretty good. I almost went for the “good morning” ($6.25) which is a burger, bacon, fried egg, and cream cheese, but the cream cheese idea just didn’t appeal to me.  I do like cream cheese, but pretty much on a bagel. Not in my sushi, and not on my burger.  Anyhow, I just created my own (and there are a TON of toppings options, most of which don’t cost extra) with a 1/3 pound beef patty (you can also get turkey or mushroom), an egg (over easy) and cheese (I went with American) on the classic white bun (they also have wheat and pretzel) ($6.25). I also got a side of waffle fries ($1.50).  Overall, it was a good burger—the beef was really very tender despite the fact that it was cooked pretty well done (they don’t ask) and had nice flavor. You can tell from the irregular shape and the tenderness that they aren’t overworking the meat here. The egg was runny just like I wanted it.  Size-wise, the burgers are in a middle ground between the really thin burgers (a la Steak n Shake or Workingman’s Friend) and the thick burgers (a la Boogie Burger or Fat Dan's).  The bun was nicely toasted and was really soft. I didn’t get the pretzel bun because I always worry they will be too hard and chewy, but I caught a glimpse of them and I am thinking about trying one next time for a change of pace—they didn’t look overly dense.  If I could change something about mine, it would be that I would like the meat to be a little pink, but I still really enjoyed it. The waffle fries were good too—seasoned and fresh and hot (you can’t really get THAT excited about waffle fries can you?).

Hubby had a “build your own” as well with cheese and bacon.  Burger-wise, he pretty much agreed with me on the actual beef patty itself—he liked it.  The bacon though-- it was pretty bad.  I was kind of surprised in a place like this that is using such high quality, fresh Indiana beef and turkey that they aren’t sourcing bacon locally when we have a great resource like Smoking Goose (or other local Indiana bacon). The bacon was limp and tasted too much like fake smoke.  Think cheap hotel buffet bacon and you know where I am at with this.  Hubby pulled it off the burger after the first bite but the flavor still lingered even after he took it off.  It was a little bit of a bummer since the burger itself is pretty darn tasty (and they charge an extra $.95 for bacon).  The sweet potato tots ($2) are interesting—little tater tots of diced sweet potato.  I loved the crispiness of them- and they were perfectly cooked.  If you are a fan of sweet potatoes, I think you will like these.

boo on the bacon

Overall, I like the place. The food is good and reasonably priced, the people who work there are friendly and they serve beer and wine.  If I worked downtown, I can see how this would be a good addition to the lunch options (particularly if you need something fast). My only warning: stay away from the bacon.

Punch Burger

137 E. Ohio Street

Indy 46204

317/426-5280

www.punchburger.com