Recess - Revisit

This week’s quickie post is about Recess. I saw in their social media that they were doing the Room 4 cheeseburger for a couple of nights and I needed to eat it. The kids are also fans, so we trekked over as a family.

That burger? One of the best in town (fat burger wise anyhow). Tender meat, cheese, Dijon/mayo, lettuce, onions, pickles (I had to get them on the side because I was sharing with hubby) and a Brioche bun. Perfect.  And the crispy fries (more like slices) are strangely addictive. There were fights over them at our table. Those burgers were just pouring out of the kitchen all night.

We also ordered the chirashi, or scattered sushi bowl—the first time I have really tried the new raw bar menu. There was tuna, Hamachi and salmon sashimi served over sticky sushi rice with chunks of cucumber (could have lived without those personally) but I loved the shaved lightly pickled cucumbers on the side. Wonderful fish, delightfully simple, but great dish.

My daughter also ordered the goat cheese quesadilla with chicken. It was wee, but mucho delicious. We ended up ordering a second one because everyone wanted some of the first one. 

The food at Recess is always great. The service can get a little sketchy. Prepare for a little more time than you would think is my advice. And enjoy every bite. And if that burger’s on the menu, go get one. 

Recess

4907 N. College Ave

Indy 46205

317/925-7529

www.recessindy.com

Room Four -Revisit

Hubby and I decided to have dinner at Room Four the other night—I am subscribed to the emails that tell you the menu every day, and while I don’t always read them, on this night I did and it was very appealing (and we had a sitter). Honestly, I think Room 4 is still kind of a hidden gem, even though it has been open for several years. It seems to be the place that when people ask me about my favorite restaurants, and I mention it as one, they have never heard of it. They know Recess usually, but not Room 4. And the crowd was still pretty light when we got there at 6:30 or so (it did pick up though). 

Room Four is such a good place to get some of Chef Hardesty’s (and staff) refined food but in a more casual, a la carte setting. Often the things being offered are using ingredients from Recess, and in our case, our dessert was the exact one being served at Recess the night we were there.

We started with the cream of celery soup with porcini mushrooms ($14) and their version of a Caesar with tomatoes, mushrooms, sweet onions, Parmesan and a Caesar vinaigrette ($12). The soup was very good. It had a deeper earthy richness than most vegetable-based soups have because of the porcini flavor. It also had hunks of soft celery in there, which is something I like in a “cream of” soup. I don’t like them as well when it’s just a puree. The taste of celery was very strong though so you had to really like celery to like this soup. 

Frankly, we were a little disappointed with the salad—maybe because we always have such high hopes from salads from this kitchen as they are usually perfectly balanced and dressed. This one was heavy on the lettuce and light on the dressing. It wasn’t as composed as salads here usually are.

After that though, things certainly improved. The rest of our dinner reminded us that Recess/Room Four is definitely one of Indy’s best.  We had a second course of the roasted flank steak with Napa cabbage, shitake mushrooms, scallions, spicy ginger sauce, and chopped peanuts ($13). What a great take on an Asian-inspired dish. The beef was cooked nice and pink and the sliced shitakes blended in with the meat just adding that additional depth. The dish had just a teeny bit of heat, but mainly was seasoned with an acidic ginger sauce. In this case, the fresh veggies were marinated in the sauce perfectly, and the crunch and saltiness from the peanuts added texture and seasoning.

For the main part of our dinner, we split the crisp whitefish with kalamata olives, asparagus, roasted tomatoes, basil and yellow beet coulis ($20). I also think fish has always been a strength from Hardesty’s kitchen and this was no exception. Perfectly cooked and not dry at all, with the briny salty olives (one of my favorite things) and the acid from the tomatoes. Neither hubby nor I are huge beet people, but we even enjoyed the beet coulis underneath. We both love asparagus and it was really good and well cooked-- just enough to preserve the flavor and a bit of the toothiness. We also shared one taco—we were torn as to which one to get and decided on the pork. It was grilled pork tenderloin, queso fresco, avocado, cilantro, onions and salsa ($6). Ok, I have heard people complain about “six dollar tacos” but come on, these things are delicious. And I like them because it isn’t just the meat and the tortilla. You get all kinds of goodness in there too. Let’s face it; while I appreciate the cheap, basic taco, these are fancy. And gooey. And super good. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still restrained in some ways—the stuff isn’t totally spilling out of the tortillas, but it’s just a great combination of flavors and textures. We had to restrain ourselves from getting another one. 

We did however, get lured in by dessert. Because it was cheese—the cheese course they were serving as one of the dessert choices at Recess on this particular night ($12). And it was fantastic. It was Sartori gorgonzola dolcina paired on a plate with blueberry honey and toasted nuts. There were these super thin crisp slices of bread served with as well. Every single part of this dish was perfect together. The lightly sweet light blue cheese with the sweet honey but a slight acidity from the fruit. And nuts and cheese—well, they’re made for each other right? In theory, it was simple, but comes across as complex when you get all the flavors together.

I love the food here, and we are seriously lucky to be able to get these delicious little ever-changing tidbits so easily at Room Four. I also took note of the fact that they serve a fancy burger every day and I saw a family with a kid come in and order it plain for him for dinner and he loved it. So my kids might start seeing the inside of this place soon as well.  The service is spot on and professional. My only complaint? We went on one of those really warm evenings we’ve had recently and the place was FREEZING inside. Seriously. I still don’t get why only in Indianapolis do they have to turn the thermostat to 50 degrees just because it gets warm outside. I have never noticed this problem in any other city. Even other midwestern cities. Our server did his best to adjust it for us (he said others had complained as well) but it didn’t change much. It won’t stop me from going again because I love the food so much, but next time I will dress appropriately.

Room Four

4907 North College Ave

Indy  46205

317/925-7529

www.recessindy.com 

Room Four - Revisit

Wow. As you can probably tell, we go out to eat a lot, and while I have a lot of good meals, I am still always excited when I have one that really makes me repeatedly say things like “this is sooooo good” throughout the entire meal.  Anyway, this meal was one of those. And makes me regret not going here more. It was a random Wednesday and we ended up with a sitter—I had seen the Room Four menu earlier in the day and had thought that it sounded good so off we went (some days certainly sound better than others).  We were seated right away, although the place was probably 2/3 full and people continued to come in the whole time we were there.

I ended up getting a starter that wasn’t actually on the online menu-- so sometimes there are additional or slightly different variations of things once you get there.  My starter was a salad of thinly sliced prosciutto, fennel, and green apple on top of a blue cheese mousse and topped with crumbled pistachios ($10).  There also seemed to be a very light vinaigrette on top as well.  This salad was superb. Seriously—definitely one for the mental bank to try and re-create at home.  On the bottom of the plate was a fairly thick blue cheese cream that was topped with the little mounds of prosciutto, several slices of tart apple and lots of the fennel. I was worried the fennel might be overpowering, but it wasn’t. It was all light and crisp and went really well with the meaty softness of the meat and cheese.  The pistachios also gave it a nice teeny bit of crunch. (Side note though, I was surprised to see them since they weren’t listed on the menu—and as a mom of a kid with some severe nut allergies, these things stick out to me).  It was really, really good though. A bunch of ingredients that I probably wouldn’t have thought to put together, but which I will be in the future (with something else to replace the nuts).

Hubby had the rabbit rillette ($12) which was also really, really good.  It was basically like a light pate made from rabbit—and served on top of the perfect pickled carrot mustard—I like some mustard with things like this to cut the fattiness, but sometimes it can be too sharp.  This was perfect--and without the pickled carrot flavor it wouldn’t have been as good.  There were also hearty sunflower shoots on the side that gave a nice crunch with everything else.  The thinly sliced sourdough bread that was toasted and buttered was great too. We only wished for another piece or two.  We had a hard time deciding which appetizer we liked better, but honestly they were the perfect two things to split.

For my main, I had the fried pork tenderloin tonkatsu over soba noodles ($16).  I absolutely loved this dish.  It was thinly cut, breaded and fried pork tenderloin that was sliced across a bowl of noodles that were slightly cold.  There was a ton of flavor in the noodles from the ginger scallion sauce—lots of small bits of ginger and scallions in there and maybe a bit of heat from some jalapeno?  The pork was perfectly tender and the breading also added some nice, slightly salty, flavor.  Hubby really liked it too, and honestly I had a hard time sharing it.  We ate every single bite.  If this was a dish available regularly somewhere, it would be one of those dishes that I would crave and buy a lot.  Fairly simple, but perfectly executed.

Hubby got the both the tacos of the day ($6 each). The first one was a chicken version with avocado, arugula and chipotle salsa.  The other one was with black olive picadillo, roasted poblanos, queso fresco, and cilantro cream.  We both really liked the chicken version—and I have to admit I kind of like the gooey more “fancy” tacos quite a bit that you get at places like this and H2O.  All that cream and stuff may not be totally authentic, but it sure is tasty.  The chicken was super tender and the salsa gave it just a kick of heat.  Not too much, but enough you could feel it.  Honestly, neither one of us was as big of fan of the other one—there was something strange about the consistency of the filling for us.  It was even spicier than the chicken one—although I did like the cilantro cream which I have had before on other tacos at Room 4.  The taco menu changes daily but they almost always have some flavors—I look forward to trying some of the other flavors.

We were on such a food high, we went ahead and got dessert because we pretty much knew it would be good because it is usually the only offering at Room 4 and it has always been good.  The candy bar cookies ($5) are basically big gooey chocolate chip cookies with bits of random candy bars in them. Pretty sure there was some Kit Kat in ours.  They serve them with some whipped cream dusted with chocolate.  If you like warm, gooey, chocolate chip cookies, you are going to like these. (And really, who doesn’t?)

All in all this was up there as one of the best Indy meals I have had in awhile and is going to remind me to think of Room 4 more often when we are going out.

Room Four

4907 North College Ave

Indy  46205

317/925-7529

www.recessindy.com

Room 4--Revisit

Recently, I had the opportunity to take advantage of Recess/Room 4’s special lunch hours during Super Bowl week.  Even though technically, by the time you read this, you won’t be able to take advantage of it yourself, since they were just offering their normal Room 4 fare, I figured it was game for a post (even though we were actually sitting in Recess) because you can always go to Room 4 and get some similar types of stuff. 

I was with the BFF and we both started with the “hangover chicken soup” ($11) which was perfect for me because I felt like I was getting just a touch of a cold, and the spicy rich broth was exactly what I needed.  The soup was loaded with pieces of seasoned, tender chicken and a ton of veggies—celery, carrots, onions, jalapenos, tomatoes and zucchini.  There was a nice little garnish of cilantro on top. The veggies were tender, but not tasteless mush, like so often happens in soup.  But seriously, the thing about this soup was the well-seasoned broth.  It had so much flavor, a nice amount of heat, tasted good, and seriously helped out the sinuses. I also liked the lime wedge alongside to add to the freshness from the cilantro.

The grilled fish tacos ($16) were great.  I think this was the first time I have had monkfish in a taco, and it was really nice. The fish was grilled, and very slightly charred on the edges, but the fish was really tender and I love the way monkfish has such a sweet taste.  But my favorite part about these tacos was all the flavor from all the toppings. There was mashed avocado, a tangy cabbage mix with lime and fresh sliced jalapeno.  They were topped with a seasoned crema, which had a little spice, but still gave you the creamy coolness that made the whole thing a perfect combo.  I had just a little taste of my friend’s carnitas as well, and it had a nice meaty taste (had cotija cheese and salsa on top) but if I were going back and had the same choice, pretty sure I’d be going with those fish tacos. They were bright and delicious.  There was also a black bean salad along with the tacos, and while it was good, I enjoyed the tacos (and soup) so much, I didn't have much room for it.

I was glad to hear that several of our Super Bowl celebrity guests got up to Recess to try the food here.  It was good to see a few of them venturing outside of the chain-zone downtown.  I am looking forward to a return visit soon for dinner.

Room 4

4907 North College Ave

Indy  46205

317/925-7529

www.recessindy.com

Room Four

I was interested to check out Room Four ever since it had opened, but I hadn’t gotten around to getting there. The thing about this place that sort of surprises me is that it seems like it is flying a little under the radar—as big a deal as the opening of Recess was, it seems like Room Four has just sort of quietly opened, and there hasn’t been a lot of press.  I have mentioned it to several friends-who have all eaten at Recess, and they had no idea what I was talking about.  In case you don’t know either, it is the newest addition to Greg Hardesty’s ventures and is actually accessed through the same door as Recess—instead of going in the front door and turning right, you go left to a new, smaller dining area.  The menu is a la carte, less expensive and they don’t take reservations.  I had heard that it was easy to get in, so we called some friends and asked them to meet us.  Unfortunately even at a fairly early hour (6:30), while they weren’t full, they had no tables for 4 available so we had to wait about a half an hour to be seated.  The tiny room (almost a hallway) is made up completely of tables for 2, which they push together for larger groups.  We did get some wine while we waited, which was nice, but it was a little frustrating that there were several tables for 2 available but not next to each other. (I would’ve happily bought a glass or two of wine for any couple willing to scootch down one table so that we could slip into a table for 4, but hubby wouldn’t let me ask any of them).  My advice though is that you can probably get seated fairly quickly if there are just 2 of you—more than that and you may want to prepare for a wait.

Anyway, we eventually got seated and had already checked out the menu, so right away we ordered several appetizers—the corn fritters ($8), the mixed greens salad ($9) and the quesadilla (which was actually listed as an entrée--$13).  Loved the corn fritters—there were 3 fritters to an order (ok, we had 2 orders) and they were super moist little fritters that tasted wonderfully of sweet corn, with a crisp pan fried edge.  But my favorite part was the topping on them—the menu called it “avocado cous cous caviar.”  It was cous cous mixed into a lightly seasoned avocado spread—sort of a milder guacamole.  I loved the addition of the cous cous. What a unique way to add another texture to what was a very tasty dish.

The salad was also really good too and was a nice thing to have on what was a scorching hot night (and this place can be a little warm even with their blinds drawn) because it was cold.  There were mixed greens topped with sliced roasted shitake mushrooms, thick slices of beautiful ripe tomatoes, jalapenos and a ginger vinaigrette.  I liked this salad because it wasn’t necessarily something I would have put together myself, and the flavors went together really well—it had a bit of Asian taste with the dressing and the shitake mushrooms, but also great sweetness and the right acidity from the tomatoes, and a touch of heat from the jalapenos.  I have always liked the thoughtfulness of flavors in Recess (and other Hardesty restaurant) salads.  This one was certainly no exception.

The quesadilla was also universally enjoyed and devoured quickly (and another one promptly ordered).  It was a crisp tortilla filled with Capriole goat cheese, zucchini slices and black beans.  I have never made a quesadilla with goat cheese and I am pretty sure it will be happening around here soon.  It was so creamy but had that extra depth of flavor that goat cheese has—tangy yet light.  The other ingredients gave it nice weight and the salsa of charred tomatoes, cilantro and chunks of avocado on top were perfect.  I so enjoyed eating all these wonderfully ripe tomatoes…hopefully by the time this post is up I will have a few of my own coming out of my garden.

We also all shared one of each of all the other entrées (ok, so we ordered everything on the menu except the soup because it was like 150 degrees outside, what can I say? That is the benefit of taking other people with you.)  The chicken wings ($13) at Room 4 are some of the best in flavor when it comes to chicken wings.  They are marinated and well seasoned and then deep fried and served on top of a fairly thick pool of blue cheese celery sauce—I really liked the sauce—a ton of blue cheese in it, but it wasn’t a really cold sauce as you usually get with wings, but a room temperature sauce which I liked—gave the wings a little more gourmet feel.  There were little bits of celery in it, instead of your traditional side of celery sticks.  An interesting twist.  And the wings themselves were so hot (as in temperature) we had to wait a bit to eat them.  While I enjoyed them, and have had the pleasure of having them before (although with slightly different seasonings I think), I wouldn’t say they were my favorite thing of the evening.

Their take on “spaghetti and meatballs” ($13) was also a good one.  Normally, I would never order spaghetti and meatballs in any restaurant.  To me, it isn’t exciting or overly interesting and a fairly easy dinner to make at home, so why bother?  Since there were several of us and we were going to share everything, we went ahead and got it.  It was different—more like papardelle and meatball.  There was one large meatball, and the tomato sauce, was a super fresh one with large hunks of fresh ripe tomatoes.  It was lighter than what you think of with spaghetti and meatballs and I enjoyed it because of that.  The meatball was also tender, unlike most meatballs I have had in my life.  Everyone enjoyed it.

The last entrée we had was the gilled cobia ($15) served in a light broth (described as chimichurri butter sauce) with zucchini, French horn mushrooms and kale.  Ok, so this is the one I can speak the least to, because it was the farthest away from me on the table, and I only got about a bite before it was gone.  The fish was very tender, although with a very distinct, slightly fishy taste (I think because the skin was on the fish).  You have to like fish to have liked this—we all did, but it wouldn’t be a dish for someone who likes only very mild fish. It is a little firmer than a lot of other white fish as well.  The veggies with it were wonderful and as I have said before, Chef Hardesty has a way with fish.  It is always cooked properly and with just the right things on the side.  Being served in the buttery sauce also made it even more intensely moist.

Ok, so there was only one dessert.  Of course we had to order it.  They were cookies. Warm homemade cookies made with large hunks of various chocolate-y candy bars.  Seriously, even with as full as I was (and a bit too much wine), I could have eaten several more of these.  I don’t know if they are always on the menu, but I hope so.

So to sum up, this place is such another great addition to the ever-growing group of restaurants in the City that are taking familiar dishes and tweaking them a bit to give it a gourmet spin.  And in the hands of this kitchen, they are doing it with more finesse than most.  The ingredients are impeccable and many of the flavors are complex, but the dishes are approachable and affordable.  I have always loved Recess, but this place will have something to please everyone I think, and I know I cannot wait to return.

Room Four

4907 North College Ave

Indy  46205

317/925-7529

www.recessindy.com