Rook - Revisit

Rook, you guys, is one of the most creative and tasty places we’ve got going around here. Hubby hadn’t been to the new location so we headed over there on one of those nights when it was still unseasonably warm and sat outside—they’ve done a nice job with the outside seating. Even though it’s pretty near the street, it feels a little calmer than many places.

We started out with the steamed pork bun ($5). A friend had insisted we get the Spam bun because she says it is amazing, but hubby couldn’t be swayed from the pure pork version. And it is really delicious. The soft doughy bun and the just right crispy pork belly with no too much fat. My favorite part is the homemade pickles giving it a fresh crunch and some acid. There’s a sprinkle of peanuts and some hoisin sauce too. So good.

We also got an order of the fried pigs’ ears with fermented black bean mayo and a 63-degree egg ($8). We have had tasty pig’s ears before, but they are often too chewy. THESE WERE SO GOOD. You couldn’t sop eating them. It was almost like eating light fried pork skins—super crispy and not at all chewy. That mayo had a little tanginess to it as well, and well, you know me, put a perfectly runny egg on top of that mayo and it may just be the perfect dish. No way we would ever pass this by if it’s on the menu. Dipping the pigs’ ears into that runny egg and mayo was just perfection.

For our second round, we had the Ora King salmon poke ($18) and the Vietnamese crepe ($17). We really enjoyed the salmon—really nice-sized cubes of raw salmon—and if you aren’t familiar with Ora King, it’s super buttery and delicious (you can get it at Caplinger’s if you want to experiment at home). And then the salmon was served in a bowl on a bed of rice and flavored with soy, charred seaweed, sesame seeds and an avocado cream. There was also a big egg yolk in the middle of the dish, which made it into a rich, decadent dish. We really enjoyed it, but it was so rich, I was glad to be sharing it. I don’t think I could have eaten this whole thing on my own.

If I was going to pick a least favorite item of the evening, it was the Vietnamese pancake. And these are typically one of my favorite things in Vietnamese cuisine. It was stuffed with a large amount of duck confit, boiled egg, bean sprouts and bacon. It was drizzled with fermented chili aioli and had a side of a fish sauce-based sauce to season with. I’m not sure what made this dish a little lackluster for me, but I think it was the fact that there was a little too much of the filling inside (you couldn’t really appreciate the crepe itself) and the fillings were on the whole cold. When I have had this elsewhere in the past, the fillings are quickly sautéed or something so they are warm. Maybe they just put so much in there, it couldn’t all get warm before the crepe was totally done. The boiled egg was a new thing for me in a crepe like this. I appreciated some of it, but still, there was just a little too much.

All in all, this was a really good dinner. The first two items blew us away and we were also really impressed with the salmon. I love the way the menu varies from visit to visit. Hubby was also really impressed with the new (ish) digs, as they just feel more sophisticated, while it remains casual and approachable still.

If you haven’t been to Rook, you owe it to yourself to check it out for sure. It is certainly one of the most interesting places we have going and the food quality (and service for that matter) is very high. Can’t wait to try some other new things.

Rook

501 Virginia Ave

Indy 46203

317/737-2293

www.rookindy.com

Rook - New Location Revisit

I was excited to meet a friend for lunch the other day at Rook—I hadn’t been yet to their new location. Wow, so much more sophisticated. I always felt like the old Rook’s location didn’t do enough to live up to the interesting food.

It’s a more spacious place as well, with individual tables, a bar area (looking into the open kitchen) and some larger communal tables. The menu is larger as well, although you will recognize many items from the old Rook location.

One of these return items also happens to be one of my favorites—the mushroom dumplings ($6). These are so delicious. They wonton skins are thin and delicate and having a mushroom filling gives it a fairly intense earthy flavor, but without the routine pork dumpling taste. They’re rich, but not typical. The light sauce is made with soy and vinegar and even the chunks of cucumbers (which aren’t typically my favorite thing) were tasty. I love these things and was glad they are still on the menu. 

I ordered one of the two ramen bowls ($14). It was a very interesting bowl of ramen. Besides the obvious broth and noodles, there were pickled greens, mushrooms, cabbage and a chicken rillettes with pickled mustard seeds on top. Oh yeah and one of those wonderful 63 degree eggs that are soft and just the right amount of runny inside. The flavor of the dish was very deep and almost grassy with all those greens, but I really enjoyed it. The one thing that didn’t really do it for me was that chicken rillette. I couldn’t quite figure out what I was supposed to do with it. If you cut into it in the broth, it just sort of dissolved and lost most of its flavor. It was difficult to eat. I sort of wished I had a side plate to put it on separately. I mainly just didn’t eat much of the rillette, but enjoyed the rest.

My friend had the Galbi rice bowl ($16) with Korean short ribs, avocado, pickled cucumbers, kim chi and pork cracklings. This is a solid choice—and I liked all the texture variations. It was maybe a little dry before you cracked into the egg on top, which gave it some more moisture. I loved the addition of avocado, as I always do—but in this case it lent a little bit of creaminess that was nice.

Rook is a cool spot—again one of the more interesting and creative menus you’ll find in Indy. I also appreciate that they change it up a bit all the time. And there’s beer and wine as well as cocktails now in the bigger space, which is really nice. Mostly, I appreciate the feel of the new space because it feels like it can easily be a dinner spot as well as a lunch spot. In the old location, it was hard to imagine it feeling like a destination for dinner for me anyway. Glad to see the progress.

Rook

501 Virginia Ave

Indy 46203

317/737-2293

www.rookindy.com 

Rook - Revisit

One of the good things about having my birthday around Christmas (ok, and pretty much the only good thing) is that my birthday lunches manage to get spread out over a few weeks because people are busy and all those damn snow days didn’t help either. But on the brightside, my birthday was like 3 weeks ago and I’m still enjoying the benefits.

My friend Suzanne took me to Rook, because I had been itching to try their ramen. You know I have been complaining about why Indy doesn’t have a ramen bar for months now (even if according to David Chang, ramen is dead, I prefer Peter Meehan’s take. “Long live ramen!”). Anyhow, at least for now, you can get your fix at Rook. (They say they will be changing their menu routinely, so no guarantees how long they’ll have it).

We started with the mushroom dumplings ($5), which have been on the menu for a while, and which I saw on another visit, but did not get to try. I have been wanting them ever since. I was not disappointed. The dumplings were tender, but with a really nice seared side that remained crisp because it wasn’t soaked in the sauce—the sauce was in the bottom of the bowl. It was a “san bai su” sauce, which is a soy-based sauce that tasted also of vinegar and ginger. It also had a touch of sweetness and a slightly smoky taste as well. After we had eaten the four dumplings, I did not hesitate in picking up the bowl and dumping the sauce directly on my last one. The dumplings taste nice and meaty, even though they are filled with mushrooms.

I ordered the ramen tonkatsu ($14), or ramen with pork cheeks. It’s a darn tasty ramen with a truly silky (as the menu says) pork broth. The broth is the big deal with ramen and this one is done really well—lots and lots of flavor. There was a nice little bit of fat on top of the broth adding to that richness. There were two big hunks of very tender pork cheeks in the soup--I appreciated how tender it was, you could pull it apart with your chopsticks. This has not always been the case with pork I have had in ramen. Of course, I loved the 5-minute egg in there. It was super delicious and if you want to talk about something that was silky, that egg yolk certainly was. It was also drizzled with a sauce—guessing this was the black garlic soy. There was corn in there, and sautéed veggies (cabbage and carrot) and some pickled mustard greens. I liked getting a crunch from the greens and the sautéed veggies. The only part I wasn’t sure about was the corn.  I guess it is often in ramen, but I just couldn’t decide how I felt about it. Maybe if it were super fresh right off the ear super-crisp. I couldn’t decide if it added anything for me. And of course, there were the noodles, which are my favorite thing about the whole dish (well, next to the egg) and which were plentiful and had soaked up lots of that delicious broth. A perfect lunch for a cold winter’s day.

Suzanne had the bulgogi rice bowl ($13)—it was served in the style of a bibimbap with a bowl of rice topped with flank steak, pickled cucumber, kimchi, avocado, bok choy and pork cracklings. You can also add an egg as well (and who wouldn’t? You’d have to be crazy) ($1.50).  This was also a really good dish. The only thing I have about dishes like this is you really gotta mix them up and dig in to get all the flavors together. The bite I had with some kimchi was nice and spicy with a bit of crunch—and I loved the pork cracklins sprinkled on top giving it a surprising crunch but without the use of nuts, which was kind of nice. It also gave a nice salty kick. I also thought the avocado was a nice touch, as you may or may not know, I view avocado as a nearly perfect food. The flank steak is cooked a fair amount, but with a nice caramelized crust to it. It’s a very good dish as well. It’s hard to say which I would have liked it better based on the couple of bites of it I had,

but I would happily eat either.

I was happy to see the varying menu Rook has for lunch—I was also happy to see table service, the artwork on the previous white walls, and the fact that the place was jammed. Most of the time we were there, pretty much every table was full. The service is fast though and the tables tend to turn over pretty quick. I love all the creative dishes being served, and now with the alterations to service and décor (and the fact that they have beer AND wine), I look forward to trying it, and the even more expanded menu, for dinner.

Rook

719 Virginia Avenue

Indy 46213

317/759-5828

www.rookindy.com 

Rook - Dinner

Recently I went to a dinner with a bunch of people at Rook—I had been wanting to try dinner here for a while, but just hadn’t made it happen. I was excited to get to go with a lot of people, knowing I could pick a little off other people’s plates and get to try a bunch of things.

To start with, Rook’s food is certainly unique to Indy. There are a couple of sort of “appetizer” portions of steamed buns and dumplings. Then, there are larger items that run in the $8-12 range. For a larger appetite, you may want more than one of the larger things, as they are moderately portioned (and reasonably priced in my opinion). For two people, maybe 3 of the larger plates would be ideal.

Hubby and I started with the two flavors of buns-the pork bun ($3.50) and the avocado bun ($3) (each order is one bun). Both of these were very good. The pork bun had that melty pork belly in it and was topped with pickles, cilantro, and a sprinkling of ground peanuts. It was a great proportion of savory/salty and the tangy/acidic with a decent dose of spiciness. The avocado had similar flavors—the pickle part here was kimchi cucumber though. I loved the slight crunchiness from the outside of the avocado, which had been lightly fried in a tempura batter. This was great combined with the creaminess of the avocado itself (let’s face it, avocado in my mind is one of the world’s most perfect foods). Both of these buns were worth ordering again for sure. I was a little sad I managed to miss out on the dumplings though—as I saw them come out of the kitchen, I wished I had ordered some.

As far as mains, we sampled several things—the pig face hash ($10), the Japanese fried chicken (karaage) ($8) and the shrimp toast special ($10). The pig face hash was good—lots of small pieces of shredded pork with pork cracklings and pickled peppers and topped with a runny egg. It felt like an Asian breakfast dish. Hubby loved this dish and ate every last bite. The pig face certainly has a concentrated, pork flavor and I enjoyed it, particularly with a bite of the egg, and a squeeze of the accompanying lime, but I sort of wished for another egg—the dish was just a little dry when you didn’t get some egg on it. I think I would just ask for an extra egg, extra runny, and see if they’d do that. 

The karaage (fried chicken) was probably my favorite main dish of the evening. It is bite-sized pieces of chicken thigh that are fried very crisp, with a spicy seasoning and served over rice and topped with onions, peppers, sweet chili oil, cilantro, and a bit of mint. I love the tenderness of using thigh meat (as well as the extra depth of flavor that you don’t get with white meat). I loved the freshness that came from the crunch of onions and cilantro—this is one of my favorite things right now, the balance of fresh raw herbs and other veg (onions, bean sprouts, etc.) in Asian dishes.

The shrimp toast was a bit of a miss for me—maybe I am particular because I make a version at home myself that I really like and this was very different. The biggest problem for me was the size of the bread—it appeared they were just using the bread from the Banh Mi sandwiches and it was just too thick for the light shrimpy topping. I was excited about this dish when I read it on the menu (with bone marrow too!) but it just tasted like very lightly shrimpy bread with some of the fatty marrow on top. The recipe I use says that the bread layer should be the same thickness as the shrimp layer and I sort of like it that way. And while there were some sliced shallots on top, I missed the freshness and acidity that was part of most of the other dishes. I also had a quick bit of a friend’s rice bowl, which had a lot of nice things in it—the bite I had was sausage and a bite of a beautiful poached egg.

I like Rook, and I like the creativity that’s coming out of the kitchen. Chef Salazar is incredibly talented and inventive. My biggest question about this place is whether it is just a little too unfamiliar for many people to be a regularly frequented place. It also has quite an austere interior, which to me lends itself better to lunch (although you can’t get the wider menu at lunch, just the banh mi sandwiches and some of the dumplings) than it does to dinner. Also, while a friend pointed out to me that the target market here is probably beer drinkers, I miss the fact that they don’t serve wine. I understand it’s a small place without much more room for wine, but a couple of well-paired selections would be nice. We’re lucky to have Rook though, and hopefully there are enough adventurous eaters in town to keep them going!

Rook

719 Virginia Avenue

Indy 46213

317/759-5828

www.rookindy.com 

Rook

I was patiently waiting for a decent amount of time to pass before I went into Rook, but my friend @Indyfoodswap convinced me to go just a teeny bit earlier (it wasn’t hard).  I am always excited to go to a new place and I am particularly intrigued when someone is trying something new like they are at Rook.

It’s a small menu, just sandwiches (all $8), a couple of “snacks” (both $2.50), and 4 flavors of macaroons ($1.75 each, 3/$5 or 5 for $8).  The sandwiches are various non-traditional Banh Mi sandwiches inspired by various Asian flavors.  A Banh Mi is a Vietnamese sandwich that can be filled with various things, as the term “banh mi” refers to the bread itself.  This is exactly what Rook is doing—it’s the same basic sandwich (they all come with pickled Korean radish and carrots, mayo, cilantro, and jalapenos) and they change up the meat (or protein).   Suzanne and I tried the “Rook” (we had to get the namesake right?) and the “Raven.”  The rook has the setup mentioned as well as pork roll and chicken liver terrine.  We both enjoyed it. I loved the crisp flavor of the topping.  The pickled radish is my favorite.  The veggies were crisp, but cut very thin so the light pickling made them slightly tender.  They had great acidity (lime in there? And a touch of sugar maybe?). I didn’t get a ton of chicken liver flavor, which made me a little sad, but all in all it was a good sandwich with a nice combo of flavors and textures.  The bread is soft and easy to eat and the sandwiches are not ridiculously overfilled like some places.

Rook

Raven

The raven is made with marinated steak that is sliced and grilled.  It had a great seasoned flavor that was also really nice with the tangy toppings. There seemed to be more meat on this one than the rook, and felt quite a bit heartier.  Honestly though, I loved the toppings and their flavors so much, I can’t wait to try it with all the different meats.  We had both snacks, the shrimp chips and the pork cracklings and both were very good as well. I would recommend getting at least one of them because the crunchy saltiness is a great balance to the sandwiches. We both loved the shrimp chips and were fighting over the last few crumbs. They are light and crisp with just a small hint of the shrimp flavor. I could munch on those for days.  The pork cracklings were very good too, but well, it’s pork skin that’s fried so they are richer and I couldn’t eat an entire order of them at once. (Hubby happily polished off our leftovers when I got home though). Loved that they were both slightly warm when we got them.

Half and Half with the snacks

They are keeping it local with meats from Smoking Goose and macaroons for dessert from Circle City Sweets.  Yes, of course we had to try the macaroons as well. They are doing interesting Asian-themed flavors like lemongrass, wasabi white chocolate, black sesame, and green tea.  We had all but the green tea.  They were just right as far as macaroons go—crisp outer shell giving way to a slightly soft chewy interior.  I am torn as to whether I preferred the lemongrass or black sesame the best.  The sesame had a distinct almond flavor to me that reminded me a little of Christmas and the lemongrass had a very slight tartness that I like. I personally wasn’t a fan of the wasabi/chocolate combo, but I am generally not a huge lover of wasabi and while I appreciate the creativity, I certainly can pass on it in my dessert.

I like the focus on a very small menu. It makes you feel like there is a real focus on the ingredients. I like the uniqueness of the menu and having another cool alternative in the area.  They are also open 7 days a week.  Love the modern, alley-like interior with the power lines busting through the wall. Rook is another great example of how much Indy has changed and grown in the last number of years, and I am happy to see it.

Rook

710 Virginia Ave

Indy  46203

317/759-5828

www.rookindy.com