Widely considered the chain restaurant capital of the country, I was impressed to find a number of unique restaurants in Indianapolis after a quick browse of my favorite sites. This in no way disputes the claim to chain restaurants, as you can’t throw a stone in Indianapolis without hitting one, but there is certainly something more to the place. The first spot we hit up was creatively named The Tamale Place and it was in an area that seemed to have its fair share of Mexican food.
The moment I heard Taco Bell was testing markets for breakfast, I began counting down the days until I could have some for myself. Of course, at the time, there was no date to count down to because of the whole test market thing. Nonetheless, a date came: March 27, 2014. And when I arrived at Taco Bell at 11:01 am I was promptly turn sent packing for being one minute past the breakfast deadline. Somewhat deterred, I returned a week later, but this time before the clock could run out on me.
Why would anyone go to Indianapolis? Well, outside of sports, I never saw any reason to until last weekend when I went for sports of the Michigan variety. But before said sporting could occur, I needed some food and headed to O’Reilly’s downtown, which was playing host to all of my fellow Wolverines. O’Reilly’s is pretty much an Irish Pub, but of reasonable size and we managed to find some comfy couch seats to get our eating going.
One might think that pho would be a little too “wintry” of a food for the springtime. But in Pittsburgh, that is certainly not the case. So when, on a chilly spring evening we were invited to try out a supposedly delicious Vietnamese pho spot in Bloomfield, we couldn’t say no. Called Tram’s Kitchen, the menu featured more than just pho, but we were there for one reason only (okay maybe two if you count spring rolls).
Like a sidekick to Legume in Oakland, Butterjoint hangs out next to the former restaurant serving up cocktails and a menu only available to those in the area while still serving the full Legume menu. Come to think of it, if it weren’t for the relatively small size of Butterjoint it would be the Batman to Legume’s Robin. Nonetheless, size or not, I was here for one thing: a burger.
A long time ago in a state far, far away, I fell in love with a little something called Umami Burger. As “umami” is a Japanese word and not exactly trademark-able, it was inevitable that I would run across a restaurant using the same name at some point, but was still surprised to find a place called Umami in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. Why was I in such a place? Oh, to please my wife who likes a little something called Jeni’s Ice Cream. But that is neither here nor there. What really matters is Umami.
Lettuce Entertain You is kind of a juggernaut of restaurant groups in Chicago. It’s hard to throw a stone in the city without hitting one of their many successful restaurants, and their empire goes beyond just the Second City. Yet, while in that city my sister booked us a table at RPM Italian, which I can only assume stands for Rotations Per Minute Italian. Oh and the super skinny lady from E! News is somehow involved, but I’m guessing she doesn’t eat much of the food.
William Penn Tavern in Shadyside is the quintessential college bar. Drink specials line the walls and an outdoor tented area makes you feel both beautiful and dirty at the same time. And they have a food menu to go with that, filled with all the usual bar food suspects. You know, the things that take up just enough stomach space and soak up enough alcohol to keep you drinking all night.
In need of breakfast in Chicago, we took a walk to Elly’s Pancake House in Old Town. It turned out that Elly’s was a lot more than a pancake house and was actually a lot like a greasy spoon diner given its plethora of choices. Nonetheless, something caught my eye immediately and didn’t let go despite my perusing of the entire menu. It was the Breakfast Burrito and I intended to see if this pancake house could handle it.
Recently I was enlightened to the existence of the greatest wings in Pennsylvania. Surely, this is quite the claim, but Dino’s in Latrobe has no issue with making the claim on their site. Plus, a buddy of mine gave them a glowing review, having grown up in Latrobe. Their specialty isn’t actually buffalo wings, but something called Sweet and Hot.