Indianapolis Restaurant Tips by staindesign Top 5 Page for this destination

El Torito Grill: Upscale Mexican Food

The el Torito Grill is the whole package when it comes to a dining experience! The building is big and beautiful on the inside and out! The staff is fantastic and the food is amazing! Who doesn't love guacamole? Well a cool thing they do is that they will prepare it to order at your table. There are a few different ingredients to choose from and they also ask how spicy (hot, medium, or mild) do you want it.

OUT OF BUSINESS 12/7/2011 update

Favorite Dish: I had the Shrimp Diabla. It was probably the best i had ever had! It was served with a corn mash, cilantro rice, and 2 sauces the spicy one and a pineapple sauce also. The only thing i would suggest not ordering is the enchiladas, they are pretty basic, while everything else on the menu is fantastic!

Address: 8650 Keystone at the xing

Comparison: more expensive than average

Directions: Keystone at the Xing

Phone: 317-848-5202

Price: US$11-20

Rating: 5

Theme: Mexican

Wasabi on 86th: Spicy plastic!

The food here is great, over all the place is modern and beautiful. The wait-staff isn't very good, we waited a long time and she auctioned off our food when she brought it. And our sushi was mixed up on each others plates. I assume that they are trying to create a more up-scale environment, especially with the prices; so maybe they should fix those few problems.

UPDATE: 7-28-08 The food is still good, I had a great lunch there. Bento Box: steak teriaki, shrimp tempura and a few other tempura veggies, miso soup, house salad, a spring roll, a potato cake, and an orange. Price was $10
This time the service was good, i sat for awhile because the hostess didn't tell any server i was there and the hostess acted bothered to seat me. After my encounter with the hostess the experience was good!

Favorite Dish: I really enjoyed the eel and the seaweed salad.

Address: 5025 82nd St.

Comparison: about average

Directions: Plaza on the corner of 82nd & Allisonville Rd.

Phone: 317-594-1188

Price: US$11-20

Rating: 3

Theme: Japanese/Sushi

WB Pizza: They are Serious about some PIZZA!

I love this little hole in the wall place. I can honestly say everything is good here! The staff is awesome, very helpful! I like this place because it is one of those places you could picture people going to after they won a baseball game pushing table together and eatting some great pizza! I do want to mention, it is a few dollars more than most pizza places. Yet it is completely worth it because they have such a variety of topping choices and they are so fresh!

Favorite Dish: My favorite dish is the calzones. I always get the mushroom, spinach, with diced tomatoes and add ham. YUM! And the cheese is melted right on top!

Address: 6165 Allisonville Rd.

Comparison: more expensive than average

Directions: Corner of allisonville rd. and 62nd

Phone: 317-205-5555

Price: US$11-20

Rating: 5

Theme: Pizza

BARcelona: Small lids of food: tapas

I really enjoyed this place. It is really a great place to go with friends of a lazy afternoon lunch or sit outside on a warm spring day. The interior is really nice and eclectic. With beautiful colors, a handsome mosaic over the bar and fanastic antique chandiliers. It is really a unique place that sits on the corner of Ohio and Deleware downtown Indianapolis. But a few bad things need to be worked out to make the place perfect. First being when you enter the restaurant, the hostess are friendly but too informal, they look like some random teenagers hang out next to the door. We were seated quickly and our server did immediately greet us. The serving staff seems quite uneducated about the food and wine, so we felt a bit on our own. We were told that about 2 tapas per person would be filling. The 3 of us felt that 4 was plenty. The inside of the restaurant is so loud, you have to yell to talk with the other people at your table. Hence the reason i mentioned it is best go for lunch or sit outside. to end this on a good note, the bathrooms were really clean.

Favorite Dish: I have enjoyed everything that I have had there; bacaloa (cod & potato cakes), marinated shrimp, & spinach empanadas. You might as well forget your diet because most of the items here are fried. The one thing i didn't like was the artichoke frita, it just tasted fried like an oily flavor. We enjoyed a bottle of Rivola Tempranillo. It was great, even though i had to open it for my waiter. hahaha!

There was one main dish offered, Paella for $16.95. I haven't had the chance to try it. The menu said it is served with chicken, chorizo, shrimp, & mussels. With a 15 minute alloted time limit for cooking.

Over all the prices are reasonable.

Address: 201 N Delaware St

Comparison: about average

Directions: On the corner of Deleware & Ohio

Phone: (317) 638-8272

Price: US$11-20

Rating: 4

Theme: Eclectic/International

Website: http://www.barcelonatapas.com

Abuelos: A beautiful interior with very average food!

This resturant has a very beautiful interior! The mural along that back wall is absoluted amazing; huge, bold, & emotional! In the center of the resturant the ceiling is painted as a daylite sky with special lighting illuminating it! There are also some beautiful sculptures, spanish tiling, and deep mohogony tables & chairs! Those are the great things about the place, and the salsa is pretty good. Now, the bad news.... The service is quite slow, the menu choices are average considering the up scale look of the building. The food quality was average to poor. We had one of their current specials of filet mignon, it was over cooked. I would say this resturant would be good if you like a nice atmosphere and lunch food like tacos. How can you really mess those up?

Address: 5910 W. 86th St. Indianapolis, IN 46278

Comparison: more expensive than average

Directions: traders point

Phone: 317-876-0250

Price: US$11-20

Rating: 2

Theme: Mexican

Website: http://www.abuelos.com

Petite Chou: A french cafe in Broadripple

This place recently opened up, it is an extension of the 4 other locations in the city. They are all fairly similar, but each have their own flair. There is a huge outside patio, and when I eat here with friends I get the feeling like i'm in Paris or some European city eatting a wonderful meal while people watching. Right now the weather is cooling down since it is fall and the patio is perfect. The inside of the restaurant is fairly small, but quite elegant. I was told that they will be inclosing the patio for the winter, so that their seating won't diminish. I've only eatten there during the week days, but I have heard that the weekend it is extremely busy and the service is sort of bad.

Favorite Dish: My favorite thing is the potato leek soup! It is amazing, careful, but it is very very hot. It is served with oven dried baguette and perfectly seasoned. Everything else is great, but this is the topper for me!

Address: 823 Westfield Boulevard

Comparison: about average

Directions: In broadripple, on the canal next to midtown grill

Phone: 317.259.0765

Price: US$11-20

Rating: 5

Theme: Local

Website: http://www.cafepatachou.com/

Puccini's: Best Pizza in Indy

This place is awesome. The best pizza in a really comfortable atmosphere. The pizza is quite gourmet, I love pizza so I am very serious about a good pizza. I make my own usually b/c it is hard to find a good pizza, but this place tastes better than mine and the ingredients are of high quality. I respect their pizza dough, they don't use bleached flour; you can feel good about what you are eatting. They are always rated as the top pizza in Indy, and they are really growing with 11 locations now. 6 here in Indy, 2 in Lafette(purdue-area), 2 in Bloomington(IU), and now 1 in Louisville, KY.

The service is relaxed, they aren't in a big hurry. So go to relax at night, but lunch is great and fast if you need it to be! They have amazing pizza, salad, soda special.

Lunch - under $10
Dinner - $11 - $20

Favorite Dish: The two pizzas that I love are: King of Hearts - w/ articokes & Margarita- fresh sliced roma tomatos, basil, fontina cheese (w/ canadian bacon added-extra)

The best salad is the BBQ chicken salad- It is amazing!

Comparison: about average

Directions: 6 Indy locations: Greenbriar, Clearwater, Carmel, Fishers, Geist, & Sunnyside

Price: US$11-20

Rating: 5

Theme: Pizza

Website: http://www.puccinissmilingteeth.com/

H2O Sushi: World Class Sushi in Broadripple

To begin with this place has a great rep. around town for the quality of food they produce. And the clientel are dressed from fancy to casuel, I saw a few families there with their young children to people there on dates. The interior design of the restaurant doesn't please me much. It is so modern that it looks cold. The colors are dark, the tables are metal. The place is small, but there really isn't many tables or lights in the restaurant. There is lots of space between the tables, so sitting at the tables makes me feel like i'm eatting my food by myself in the dark. I prefer to sit at the sushi bar because there is more light and the colors of the food behind the glass makes it feel more inviting. The staff is very knowledgable and very concerned with your meal experience. This is a great place to go with a group of friends or family, but I wouldn't recommend it for a first date if you have to sit at a table.

Favorite Dish: First I would like to start off saying that this place has the best sushi I have ever had. My friend Edy is the head sushi chef here and he is fantastic. If you have the chance sit at the sushi bar and talk with him and he will fix you right up! I tried the tuna tartar ($11) it was fantastic. Since we had never had much sushi he fixed us up with unagi (eel), shrimp, yellowtail, and salmon Nigiri. Then we split the Pork Ribs: slowly braised with brussel sprout slaw, sweet potato chips, and the ribs were in the best BBQ sauce. (spicy & sweet). And they have an extensive wine and saki list. For two people we spent about $80 which included the tip.

Address: 1912 Broad Ripple Ave.

Comparison: more expensive than average

Directions: If you are traveling south on Keystone, make a right on 62nd st. The restaurant is on the right side of the street about 2-3 blocks down the street. You have to park in the back and enter from the back of the restaurant, they have a little sign out front.

Phone: 317-254-0677

Price: US$31-40

Rating: 5

Theme: Japanese/Sushi

Website: http://www.h2osushibar.com/

Southbend Chocolate Factory: The best Chocolate on the Circle!

This place is fantastic! One side of the store is a deli and the other side is a coffee shop with a candy store. They have out door seating in the summer and the fall. It is right on the circle so you can do some great people watching. The chocolates are pretty expensive, but they are delicious. Plus the store looks very cute in the front because of all of the different ways they have for boxing the chocolates in decorative boxes.

Favorite Dish: I love the hot chocolate, it is very chocolately and it is topped with whipped cream, cho. syrup, cho. shavings, and a cherry. In my opinion, a small will do you, because of the chocolate intensity. Small $1.93 w? tax. I love the chocolates there too. I always get the Cho. Haystacks, which are cho. with coconut. 2 pieces = $1.30 w/ tax. They have everything from turtles, to toffee, to chocolate covered cherries and chocolate covered blue berries!

Address: South side of Monument Circle

Comparison: about average

Price: less than US$10

Rating: 4

Theme: Coffeehouse

Website: http://www.sbchocolate.com/

Cheeseburger in Paradise: Famous Cheeseburgers Off the Highway

This place is sort of unique, it is a chain of restaurants which were concepted my Jimmy Buffet's song "Cheeseburger in Paradise"; the style of the food is american, creole, and caribbean. Over all i think the place is decorated in a cheesy manor, the staff wears tropical outfits, there are signs of pinacoladas everywhere and fake fish on the walls. The outside of the building looks big, but inside it is small and the smoking section leeks over into the non-smoking. They have a stage area, I went for lunch so obviously there wasn't a show. The drinks menu is huge, pages and pages of different drinks you could get. One thing I thought is cute and gimmicky is they make faces out of the fruit that they put on your drinks, they top each one off with little plastic sunglasses.

Favorite Dish: I had the Bohemian barbeque pork sandwich, with pickles and purple onions. The bread was nice and toasted and the pork was peppery, but it was in need of extra sauce, I'm a girl that likes a wet BBQ sandwich. I had the choice of 5 sides, I went with the sweet potato chips. These chips are great, sweet and salty at the same time. They were a little greasy, if they were dried off better they would have been perfect!

Address: 9770 Crosspoint Boulevard

Comparison: about average

Directions: right off of I-69 on 96th St. (Fishers)
There are 4 locations in and around the Indianapolis area.

Phone: 317-585-0247

Price: less than US$10

Rating: 5

Theme: Other

Website: http://www.cheeseburgerinparadise.com