Iaria's

I realize I haven't posted in a long, and I think that's mostly cause we tend to go to the same places over and over! But a couple of weeks ago we went to a new place. Well it was new to us but very old to the city of Indianapolis...Iaria's Italian Restaurant in downtown. Iaria's is in an old brick building and has been there since 1933!

Normally Dad takes Jeremy and I along with my brother and his wife for an annual night out on the town in Indy. There are no kids allowed and in year's past we've gone to St. Elmo's Steakhouse...another very old local treasure with amazing steaks and shrimp cocktail. But this year for a change we tried Iaria's and it was great!

They have a pretty simple menu of Italian classics but it's all prepared perfectly. I had the grouper picatta and Jeremy went for chicken marsala, but the dish that made us both envious was Becky's clam linguine. My favorite part of the meal was actually the salad with fresh made Roquefort dressing. Now yes I know blue cheese if off limits to pregnant people but this couldn't be resisted..everything in moderation right?

The tirimisu for dessert was another highlight. Having traveled through Italy and eaten as much tirimisu as possible, I was extremely impressed with the quality. I suspect it must be an old family recipe.

Another great thing about Iaria's aside from the cozy old style atmosphere is the price. For the quality of food the price is surprisingly reasonable. So this is definitely a place we will go again!

Oh and who did we see walking out with a stack of pizzas? Local celeb Larry Bird! So there's an endorsement for you!

Mmmm Pancakes

How exciting to have a good breakfast place on our side of town! The closest places to us are Bob Evans and Einstein Bagels which are both always crowded because there really aren't other choices. Well we finally have some good morning eats at Sophia's Pancake House on 135 across from Meijers.

We tried to go there last week after church but apparently all of Johnson County had the same idea, enticed by the idea of a hot and cheap diner breakfast. The wait was an hour.

So we went on Saturday morning and even though we got there at 8:30 it was still very crowded and a wait was building while we ate. But man was it good...your basic hot, unhealthy giant midwestern breakfast: omlets, ten kinds of pancakes, biscuits and gravy, skillet meals and lots of pork products.

Tessa majorly pigged on pancakes and eggs eventhough she was not feeling well and I splurged for biscuits and gravy. I can be a big critic on biscuits and gravy because not only is it a midwestern staple, but I've had it prepared both very well and very badly. A bad gravy can be like a pork laden glue. Their's was great, definitely a homeade gravy and not some kind of mix. Jeremy got a skillet with potatos, all kinds of veggies and fried eggs on top.

The best thing was the price, especially considering the large portions for the three of us was only around $20.

Jeremy had taken Tessa there during my dental surgery and got the skinny on the owners. There are two brothers who are the owners and they have two restaurants, one here and one somewhere in Michigan.

Two thumbs up to Sophia's Pancake House! I plan to go there at least a couple more times while I"m still pregnant and can justify the splurge before I go on weight watchers. Of course once I do I guess they'll always have oatmeal.

Third Time's a Gyro

Our favorite local Greek restaurant, Acropolis, is closed on both Sundays and Monday but we didn't know that until we tried once to go after church and they were closed, then tried a week later to go on Monday and they were closed.

Finally we got there last night and had a great dinner. Pita with hummus and Greek olives to start and I opted for the simple Gyro platter while Jeremy got the sampler.

His platter had a little bit of everything...musaka, spanicopita, grapes leaves, gyro meat with tatziki. I have no idea if I spelled any of those things right by the way. If you're new to Greek food and want to try it all, the sampler platter is really the way to go. It was a big portion that Tessa helped Jeremy eat and they were both able to make adequate pigs of themselves.

This is a great little restaurant with great food and a quaint unassuming ambiance. On certain nights they have Greek belly dancing, but we must have missed it last night.

When I was in the hospital after having Tessa, Jeremy went and got me dinner from Acropolis because of it's proximity to the hospital, but apparently thought I was joking when I asked for a giant portion of food (um, I had quite a workout to earn it) and just brought me a gyro. Last night I pre-ordered by dinner for Peanut's delivery.... a gyro platter (which includes green beans and roasted potatos) with extra tzatziki sauce and baklava for dessert. He made a mental note :)

By the way I really really love tzatziki sauce. It's a simple yogurt and cucumber sauce/spread to put on the lamb but in my opinion is the best thing about eating Greek. You could put tzatziki on a a stick and I might eat it.

Yats- good restaurant or local hangout?

The other days we went to the new Yats over by the Greenwod mall. This is a local chain of Cajun restaurants where everything is ordered ala cart and the menu changes daily.

Jeremy got red beans and sausage with rice, and I got etoufee. Tessa shared both with us and really like it too.

The food was great but it was noticeable that we were the only dining customers there. There was a large table of assorted teenagers and college age students just hanging out and not eating. Throughout the time we were there, many kids came and went. They were not rude or anything but after some time I felt like we were invading their territory, perhaps ruining their local hang out by actually eating there. And not to be a tightass but had my child been a little older I would have been pretty uncomfortable with their conversation (thinking spitting vs. swallowing, and that was the staff talking)

So the food was great and well priced but I can imagine that might be part of the reason nobody else was dining there. I would suggest the management make the restaurant a little more inviting to 'outsiders'.

Fast Food Proving Harder Than we Thought

I guess I never considered us fast food people. We probably eat it maybe once a week? Usually when I'm out and about and come home with lunch for everyone...usually chick-fil-a or Qdoba.

So I'm a little surprised at how difficult this project has been for those quick fast food, pick up a sandwich sorta meals. As of yet we have not eaten in any chain sit down restaurants, but we have cheated several times with fast food!

I'm blaming the fetus for Mcnugget cravings but also the travelling around we have been doing lately. It's pretty hard to eat non-chain while on the road or in an airport, so kudos to Jeremy for doing so much better than me!

Not giving up though...just hitting some unexpected roadblocks!

Two Great Places in Columbus

Satuma Japanese Restaurant
I love Japanese food. If I could eat sushi, teriyaki steak, and that yummy ginger salad dressing I would. We usually favor Kabuto in Greenwood as the best local place to get sushi, but I have to say that Satuma in Columbus may really be the best place around. Columbus is a smaller town than Greenwood, and a little further away from the 'big city', so I was a little surprised to find this quality and huge menu in Columbus.

The sushi at Satuma is incredible and well priced and they have a huge menu of other items for those who don't enjoy sushi. One of my favorite things that we ordered was actually a pan fried eggplant appetizer served with miso dipping sauce. Mmmm.

It's a little further away from home, but when we feel like a drive we just might have to go down to Columbus for our Japanese.

Arni's
We decided that Indiana based chains were okay to frequent because they are still locally owned, which allowed us to eat at Arni's. Anyone who's been around IN for any amount of time has either heard of or eaten at one of their many restaurants. I actually went there with my date prior to Prom.

Arni's is a mostly a pizzeria but also has very large menu of other items. One thing they are well known for is their salads, chocked full of ham, turkey, cheese, and veggies and served with homemade garlic bread. It's hard to say what makes one salad so much better than another, but Arni's has certainly figured it out.

From a parent standpoint the other great thing about Arni's is that they have some healthy option for little eater like cottage cheese, fruit bowls and steamed broccoli. Of course their unhealthy stuff like pizza and strombolis are pretty awesome too.

You're Not From Around Here..

Today we went to Edinburgh for a little antique shopping and lunch. The antique mall is right next to the outlet mall so it surrounded by chain restaurants on all sides. We decided to stick to our guns and scout out a local restaurant, so we went out of our way to old downtown Edinburgh.

We ran across three options, a diner, mexican and chinese. We opted for Bobbie Jo's Diner, a hole in the wall 'greasy spoon' sort of place. It was small and apparently filled with locals cause the minute we sat down the waitress said 'you folks aren't from around here'....haha. That's just a great thing about eating at small restaurants, the local familiarity and conversation that you might not get at Chili's.

The had lots of diner basics...burgers, pizzas, biscuits and gravy and homeade pies. Too bad we got there only 20 minutes past the breakfast cut off.

I ordered a fish sandwich which was HUGE and also awesome. It was probably the best fish sandwich I've had in years. And for only $14 for the three of us to eat lunch, I'm very pleased that we stopped there!

ETA: I noticed on the link that this place is actually called "Bobbie Jo's pizza and subs' but the waitress said they didn't use the oven until 4pm, so before then it's just sandwiches and whatnot.

I Found Bubble Tea!

Had we never decided to take on this project I may never have broken away from Starbucks for my tasty coffee beverages. And I may never have found out that there is a place in Greenwood that serves bubble tea (aka pearl tea).

This is a delicacy I frequently enjoy in California but have never found anywhere in IN. Thank you Strange Brew for thinking outside the box! I will admit it wasn't perfect (the tapiocas were a little underdone) but still a refreshing change.

If you're wondering what the heck I'm talking about, Bubble Tea is a Taiwanese cold milk smoothie type drink usually fruit flavored (I chose honeydew) but the best part is the gummy chewy tapiocas you suck through a giant straw. Sounds strange I know but I LOVE it. Wikipedia gives a better description: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubble_tea

Lovin Our Local Ethnic Food

I love all different types of food and given the choices would almost always choose ethnic food over 'American'. The awesome thing about avoiding the chains is utlizing our local ethnic restaurants which are of course small locally owned places.

In the past two weeks we've eaten at both Thai Spice and Royal Cuisine of India, two of our favorite places. When we first moved to Greenwood one of the first things we wanted to find was an Indian restaurant and it was actually pretty difficult. Royal Cuisine is sort of a hole in the wall place so we didn't notice it at first and would go all the way up to Broad Ripple for our Indian food.

Like many small local restaurants, it may appear from the outside to be a hole in the wall but it is an awesome restaurant with all of the standard Indian pleasures. We usually go for a saucy chicken korma or pasanda, some okra and tomato stir fry, and either eggplant or spinach...of course with extra naan flatbread for mopping up that good chicken sauce.

At our house Indian is usually takeout, enjoyed on the floor with a movie and wine. Of course having a 15 month old isn't condusive floor eating, but tessa really did enjoy the chicken with some rice and naan (in her highchair of course)

Breaking the Comfort Habit

This morning I rushed into the doctors for a last minute ultrasound to check on the Peanut. All was well but after the stress and rush I was starving and wanting something comforting. All I could think about were McDonalds chicken nuggets.

No I realize that McD's nugget are pretty crappy, even the choice of Chick-Fila would at least ensure handbreaded non-processed nuggets. But nope all I wanted were those salty, over processed chicken turds with one always the shape of Indiana and a bbq dipping sauce. Comfort Food.

So I did it. Yup you read right. I didn't even last a week on the project before cheating. I allowed myself the nuggets, justifying it as good blog fodder.

I simpy need to retrain my idea of comfort food, taking pleasure in the new food I find at my local restaurants. But there's something nice about depending on that same Indiana shaped chicken turd you had when you were 5 years old....there in lies the difficulty.

No more McD's. Its bad for me, bad for the earth, bad for the reputation of food in general and bad for my local business owner. But it sure hit the spot.

What We Will Miss

We're in the market for replacements for some of our favorite chain restaurants:
Starbucks
Qdoba
Subway
Chick-Fila
Papa Murphy's and
Chili's
I would say that these will be the hardest to give up. But we've found an awesome new grill very close to our house which will cover the pizza, chicken sandwiches and big salads we will miss. Louie's Pub and Grille has to be one of my favorite new places. Not only is it better food, it's quieter and cheaper than these other places. Actually Louie's inspired this whole project.

I'm working on replacing my Starbucks. Yes I know we have an espresso machine but when we have a busy day out and about running around I usually start festivities with a drive through Starbucks.

Hula Bean seems okay, but not very impressive. Everyone I've talked to says you have to visit a local place called Strange Brew. Apparently it is the place for java in Greenwood. Hopefully Jeremy and I will get there this weekend!

Our Year of Dining Locally

Our family has decided to make a year long pact to avoid all national chain restaurants...and welcome to our blog! We promise to do our very very best to eat only at locally owned restaurants in an effort to support our local businesses, and post our experiences and favorites here.

There's many reasons why I think this is a good idea, but I also think it will undoubtedly be a challenge. Living where we do this experiment definitely puts us outside the norm. I would guess that 80% of restaurants in Johnson County are chain restaurants.

At the start of our project I would say we have benefits and challenges to look forward to.

PROS of Dining Locally:
~Supporting our local business owners
~Trying new things at new restaurants
~Not relying on the sameness found in chains
~Hopefully experience better food!
~Not eating fast food
~Having to 'work' for our takeout (no drive thrus, have to call in orders)

CONS of Dining Locally:
~Having to 'work' for our takeout..haha..when weather is bad or I'm 9 months pregnant and carting around a toddler
~Planning ahead for travelling and 'road food'
~Pregnancy cravings for certain chain foods
~Finding variety in our chain happy town

Wish us luck! Lastly I would like to say please feel free to suggest restaurants to us around the Indianapolis area!!