One thing I donât take too many photos of in Indianapolis is food. Weâve eaten a lot of Hoosier delicacies alreadyâIâd been introduced to the tenderloin sandwich (read: blander schnitzel) years ago on our friend groupâs annual âWindy 500âł pilgrimageâbut stranger things still arrive on my plate weekly. Here are a few local highlights, in no particular order:
The Steer In: A punny retro diner in the neighborhood that once served carside now boasts a Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives-famous tenderloin, and believes its coleslaw is something special. It is not. It is chopped with mayo, just like the grocery store used to make. Not that I wouldnât eat grocery store coleslaw. The best thing on the menu at Steer In is actually the coconut cream pie; itâs the literal best Iâve ever had and I donât know why.
St. Elmo Steakhouse:Â Famous for an unnecessarily horseradishy shrimp cocktail, everything at this old-school restaurant was actually pretty dang good. Itâs that kind of resting-on-its-laurels restaurant that sometimes gets you a long-refrigerated salad or a stale bread, but the meat itself is perfection, and all the flavors hold up.Â
Mush:Â Iâd just like to mention that this happened to me at a neighborhood diner the other day:
Iâll just spoil it for you: itâs the grits version of fried polenta. So, fried polenta.
Another note about the Great Lakes States: potato pancakes. Next time youâre in Wisconsin (which you should make a point to visit), find a rural bar with a fish fry and order potato pancakes instead of fries. You will have to ask for sour cream: for some reason only applesauce made it out there.
Vegan restaurants: Few and far between, and hard to find. Whether itâs users or owners, something causes Yelp to return any place with salads in search results for âVegan,â but they do exist. Weâre less vegetarian than before we moved here, but Both Three Carrots and The Sinking Ship are great encouragements. Iâve yet to be served a vegan tenderloin, but Iâm not about to cry about it.
I am ashamed to admit that I had a fear, coming from Chicago, that we would not have...the things I want. This has borne out in small ways, such as Kroger not carrying Goya or El Milagro products, but we live within walking distance from a small brewery with the literal best veggie burger I have ever had. It turns out that Black Acreâs veggie burger rotates, so I donât know if Iâll ever have the same one again, but itâs worth trying whateverâs on the menu.
The most dear thing to us is the local farming. Not only does our neighborhood coordinate with an Amish farm, we live down the street from (and are lucky to be friends with the owners of) Tres Gatos Farm, which in its first year is already producing for local restaurants from their single acre of land.
We got here at the beginning of February. Winters are mild in Indianapolis: the first morning snow was sticking to the driveway I, seasoned Chicago winter-abider, drove straight to the hardware store to pick up a snow shovel and salt. I didnât understand the look I was getting from everyone there* until later that dayâsnow consistently melts by noon. No wonder our neighborhood streets donât get salted.
It was one of those 40-degree mornings I was hustling the dogs around the block so I could hurry back to my depression-cocoon when a man in a black SUV pulled up next to me. Drove up on the wrong side of the road so he could lean out of his window and yell: âYouâre a bad dog parent!â
I took out an earbud and squinted at the silhouette backlit by the morning sun. âExcuse me?â
MAN: Youâre a bad dog parent!
I: ...
MAN: They should be wearing boots!
I: We have boots for them...but itâs very warm out. And there isnât any salt on the ground, so.
MAN: I put boots on my dogs every day!
I: Okay?
MAN: (to my dogs) Youâre being abused! You should be curled up on the couch!
I: Okay, well thatâs where weâre headed next?
Maybe it was my nervous chuckle, or maybe he was just negging me into chatting with him this whole time. He started telling me about his dogs and how he spoils them and this and that. Eventually he drove off, and Iâve been on the lookout for this shadow-man ever since.
Months later, Iâm spreading mulch in the front yard when a black SUV pulls up, says something to a pedestrian, who responds âno, sorry,â so he makes a U-turn to pull up next to me on the wrong side of the road and yell âSay, do you live here?â
I pull out an earbud. âYes?â He is a large guy, late-middle-aged, with a grey high-and-tight haircut.
MAN: I just wanted you to know there was someone in your backyard looking at your trees.
I: Yeah, I just had some guys come trim the trees.
MAN: They were pointing at your trees, they were called DYNASTY TREE SERVICE.
I: Oh, those werenât the guys.
MAN: Well, this truck said DYNASTY TREE SERVICE.
I: Were they in my backyard?
MAN: No, outside the fence.
I: ...Okay.
MAN: Itâs just that sometimes, a business owner will give an employee a truck and they think âItâs mine for the dayâ and get a bunch of their buddies to come with them and they pull some extra jobs using the ownerâs equipment.
I: Well, okay, I canât guarantee that thatâs not what happened to me. They had a different name.
MAN: (shaking his head) Noooo, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Those scam artists.
I: Okay, well...thanks for letting me know. I guess itâs good all the neighbors look out for each other.
MAN: Itâs not that, itâs that we donât like letting small businesses get FUCKED OVER.
I: Well, still. Thanks.
MAN: This is a nice neighborhood, but weâre due for something.
I do not know what this means, but it reminds me to be grateful that I left Nextdoor.com. This guy, like the time before, now wants to have a friendly chat about himself. And how heâs been in the neighborhood for 40 years. And when he was a teenager, he was in my garage once. And there was a really nice car in it.
Iâve rarely been depressed the way Iâve been depressed in Indianapolis. Nothingâs so bad here, Iâve just never moved without a purpose on the other end.
The water tastes funny here. Itâs either the consistency or flavor of milk, but I canât tell which.
Drivers blow through red lights in pairs.
Chain groceries donât carry Goya products or lemongrass.
But we moved into Irvington, a neighborhood with the most fanatic devotion to Halloween and a Little Free Library on every block. On one of our first nighttime walks with the dogs in the new neighborhood we stopped at a LFL with a plexiglass door and, stoned, I was disappointed that the neighborhood was too dark to browse. I wanted to peek inside anyway, and as the door swung open an automatic light flickered on. I was so charmed I almost cried.
It is too dark in this neighborhood. There isnât enough traffic or enough streetlights and the peace around here can make it difficult to sleep. Our anxious dog, though, seems to like it.
When itâs 70 degrees and beautiful so you actually have to put on a bra, a real shirt and other stupid pieces of clothing that would otherwise be covered up by your overcoat because youâre just running a small errand. Â
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