The North End - Revisit

This is another revisit that I feel I need to update after going back after my first post. My son and I were both excited to try the chicken at the North End again because it was just so darn good that first time. We were with my in-laws too, so we got to try a few new things as well.

We had the salmon dip starter ($8) again, which we really enjoyed the first time. For some reason, I wasn’t feeling it as much this time—I realized later it was because I didn’t have the lemon wedges to squeeze on top that I had pilfered from the oysters last time. I would potentially get this again, but it needs the lemon to jazz it up. The thick cut house potato chips are great though—super crisp and well seasoned.

We also tried the pimento cheese spread with Johnnycakes and green tomato chow chow ($7). The portions for these starters are generous. The cheese spread was a big hit with my kids as were the Johnnycakes. Unfortunately, there aren’t really enough Johnnycakes to go along with the cheese. We used some of the potato chips when we ran out. The cheese spread is pretty mild, even borderline bland, but the Johnnycakes were tender and I appreciated the little bit of acid from the tomatoes. Again, this was a dish my kids really liked.

So I was psyched for ordering my perfect combo based on figuring out what I thought were the best things. I got the half chicken with two sides ($15). I had the fries and the mac and cheese. Sadly, the chicken really let me down this time. It was very dry and had none of that amazing juiciness that it had the first time. I guess it’s just a matter of luck and hopefully this time was the aberration rather than the first time. Luckily they give you all those different BBQ sauces to try with it. I decided after trying them all again that my favorite is the “classic” because it has a nice kick of vinegar to it, but still has the thickness of a good sauce (but not so thick that it’s gloppy). The mac and cheese was consistent with the first time—it’s good and I like the addition of the rib jam to jazz it up a bit. Nothing that knocks your socks off, but solid mac. I love the fries—they are hand cut fries and are coated in smoked bone marrow butter and topped with some sliced jalapenos. And even though they are coated in butter, they somehow stay sort of firm. The bone marrow flavor gives them an extra richness. I would say top to bottom, these fries are one of the best things on the menu.

A couple of us got the cornbread as well—it is also a favorite with my kids. It has a big hunk of maple Bourbon butter on top adding to its sweetness. Again, I like it for dessert. 

So there you go, I think the sides have stayed fairly consistent and I feel like I know which ones to order. I’m sad that the chicken was disappointing (my daughter had the sliced turkey, which she also described as dry). I didn’t love the pulled pork the first time so I am not sure whether I will be motivated to go back when I don’t feel confident that I can find meat that I will really like.

The North End

1250 E. 86^th Street

Indy  46240

317/614-7427

http://thenorthendbbq.com/ 

The North End

I have ventured over to Ryan Nelson’s new place, The North End, a couple of times since it opened—the first time for lunch and the second time for dinner. First of all, judging by the Monday night crowd at dinnertime, this neighborhood has been desperate for somewhere like this to go. It’s nice not to have Nora continue to be such a desert of independent, casual restaurants. So much fast food in this area.

At my lunch I had the Carolina pulled pork sandwich ($8), which came with 1 side. I went with potato salad because that is usually my go to with barbecue. The pork was okay. It’s the kind of pulled pork that has a lot of the crisp “bark” on it. So it kind of depends on whether you like that or not. They serve 4 sauces—a sweet molasses based sauce, a classic BBQ sauce, a spicier version and a vinegar/mustard-based sauce. You needed the sauce for sure to get the pork juicy. The sandwiches also come dressed with a house made cole slaw, which is a bit creamy and has a bit of vinegar. It was nice with the meat and sauce I thought.  Was it my favorite pulled pork? No, it’s a tad dry for me. The potato salad is a write off though, it was also super dry and bland. Just seemed liked chunks of potato with a bit of mustard. Needed some creaminess and some more zip.  I appreciated the wedge of boiled egg to mix in, but still could have used a little more pizazz. On both visits, I had the cornbread as a dessert ($3 as a separate side). It’s very sweet and topped with a nice mound of maple Bourbon butter. I really enjoyed it as a small dessert though (and so did my son). The first time they served it in a little iron skillet, which gave it a little more crisp edges, which I liked. They didn’t on the second visit. 

At dinner, we were with another family, and took the opportunity to try a bunch of the appetizers, which all sounded very appealing. Probably my favorite was the smoked Alaskan salmon dip ($8)—it was a creamy dip with lots of salmon in it as well as capers and chives. It was seasoned well and was served with thick housemade potato chips. A great combination. And when I squeezed a couple of lemons from the broiled oysters on top, it was perfection.

The oysters  ($12 for 6) themselves weren’t bad. They were small oysters (my favorite) but were almost overwhelmed by the amount of broiled parmesan cheese on top. The cheese had sort of hardened into one large piece of cheese on top on some of them and a lot of the garlic butter had spilled out of the oysters before they were served. For the price point, I think I would just stick with the salmon dip.

Based on several recommendations, we also had the house battered onion rings with remoulade ($7). These were my biggest disappointment of the appetizers. These are the really big kind of onion rings, which don’t tend to be my favorite kind anyway, but if they have a really nice crunchy batter, I won’t care. Here, the batter wasn’t crunchy at all—very soft. I liked the drizzled remoulade that was on them (although didn’t help with the softness) and asked for some more on the side. I don’t know, maybe it was just an off night on these because like I said, a lot of people have recommended them to me.

For dinner, I wanted to try something new and went with the chicken ($15). It is a half roasted chicken and was spectacular. The smoked meat was so tender--it was amazing. The skin on the chicken was crisp and seasoned. Dipping the meat in the sauces was barely even necessary, but I enjoyed all of them. A bit of classic mixed with spicy is probably my favorite, but I went back and forth with the mustard sauce because I liked the acidity of it. After my son had eaten half his pulled pork sandwich, he tried my chicken and then proceeded to pick it to the bone. Every time we drive by now, he asks when we will go back and get more of the chicken.

For sides this time (the entrées come with 2 sides), I had the mac and cheese and the collard greens. The collards were good. Tender with the right amount of porky bits and vinegar. The mac and cheese is also very good (probably my favorite side if I were choosing). It was creamy and topped with a slightly sweet, slightly smoky, rib jam that gave it extra texture and depth. Although my son had the fries as his side, which were tossed in bone marrow butter and jalapenos and they were quite delicious as well. Decadent, but good. They were certainly hubby’s favorite side.

Speaking of, hubby decided to go with another of the appetizers as his main dish, the shrimp and grits ($10). He figured he would eat off our plates, and he did. The shrimp and grits were good as well. The shrimp wasn’t overcooked and the grits were cheesy with white cheddar mixed in. There were some hunks of tasso ham and some fresh tomatoes as well. It was a large appetizer for sure. 

All in all, I think now that I have been a few times and found a couple of things we all really like, it will be a nice family-friendly place to put in the rotation that is near us. I can tell you what my son and I will be splitting—that chicken. Delicious.

The North End

1250 E. 86^th Street

Indy  46240

317/614-7427

http://thenorthendbbq.com/ 

Late Harvest Kitchen

This technically isn’t my first visit to Late Harvest, but I have held off writing about it til now because the first visit was so close to their opening date, I felt it wasn’t fair to review it so soon. I will tell you, I wasn’t overly impressed with that first visit, other than I loved the feel of the place.  This visit started out with being seated in a far back room which seemed a little strange in a nearly completely empty restaurant, but when we left, we saw pretty much the entire rest of the restaurant was full with a private party eating non-menu items, so then it made more sense. And I have to say, the back room at Late Harvest is kind of nice because it has big windows looking out onto decent greenery.

The menu has a decent variety of items on it, but I noticed that a lot of items had not changed (much anyway) since our first visit.  We decided to get different things in order to give it a completely fair shake.  We started with the caviar pie ($16) and the brandade ($10); both things that I think have been on the menu since the restaurant opened.  When our server set the brandade down, I was a little worried—it looked sort of dry. But it was really quite good.  The bread served alongside was soft but toasty, and the brandade (which is a spread made with salt cod and various other ingredients, depending on the recipe).  I have had it made several ways in many places, but this one was very good.  Even though it was on the dry side in some ways, the fish itself was very tender and wasn’t overly fishy.  We enjoyed this one quite a bit. 

The caviar pie is a really great idea but, which to us, had one major problem.  Basically, this is a “pie” made with chopped boiled egg as the “crust,” a layer of what we were told was sour cream and cream cheese, and then topped with various types of caviar.  Alongside was a garnish of chopped red onion, more egg and capers.  Sounds great.  So here was the problem for us—when I think of sour cream and cream cheese, I think of a savory, slightly tart flavor.  This was noticeably sweet. I had to ask the server to tell me again what was in it to make sure I wasn’t remembering the ingredients wrong.  It was almost like it was made with whipped cream or something.  That part bothered us both.  Hubby was also annoyed that the toasted baguette pieces served alongside weren’t particularly toasty.  We both ended up mainly using the bread from the brandade which was much better.   If it was truly savory, I would have really enjoyed this, but as it was, we ended up eating around most of the creamy part. Maybe it’s just me—maybe other people like this flavor combo better.

For our main course, we shared several items. We had the halibut, which is a main course ($28), the beef carpaccio which is an appetizer ($12), and the asparagus ($8) and the potatoes Minneapolis ($9), which are both sides.  The halibut was outstanding.  The fish (which was a very large portion) was nice and crisp on the bottom but tender and juicy.  It was served with melted leeks (you can almost always get me with these) and chunks of pancetta on top (not going to hurt either).  But the key was the fish was cooked really well.

The other really great thing that we had was the asparagus.  It was also a generous potion, cooked exactly right—tender but with a little give.  It was served on top of a Hollandaise sauce that was nice because it wasn’t overly gooey and rich.  And there was a great sunny side up egg on top.  I know this is a dish that is very popular right now, but this is one of the best versions I have had in recent memory.

The carpaccio was also pretty good—the beef was tender and properly thin, and had many of my favorite accompaniments—more boiled egg, capers and sliced shallots.  There were some nice light, but crisp French fries on top that had a nice amount of salt to go with the beef.  What I missed was just a little bit of dressing and/or mustard or something just to give it a little bit of extra moisture and/or pizzazz.  It was fine, but not great.

The potatoes Minneapolis were also pretty good—they were basically fresh hash browns that were topped with large chunks of bacon and sour cream.  You can’t really go wrong with that combination—the only thing I would change is the amount of crispiness on the potatoes.  There was a lot of potato in the middle that didn’t have any crispy to go with it.

One of the best things going at Late Harvest, and the one high point of our first meal, was the sticky toffee pudding we had for dessert both times ($8).  We fell in love with sticky toffee pudding in England and it is hard to find it this well done in the U.S.  It is basically a very dense moist cake covered in a toffee glaze and topped with whipped cream (and it is served warm).  This one is great. The cake is super moist and the whipped cream-- just light enough to not be too much. A must order.

All in all, we were fairly happy with this meal.   If it had been our first meal, I think we would have, on balance, been pleased.  We were both glad we ventured back in.  I am really curious though about what everyone else thinks, since we have had such differing experiences.

Late Harvest Kitchen

8605 River Crossing

Indy 46240

317/663-8063

www.lateharvestkitchen.com