restaurant review

The Tudor Room: Old World Ambience For Kingly Appetites

First Posted: 4/18/13 03:46 PM EDT Updated: 4/18/13 03:46 PM EDT
Originally published April/May 2013

BY CHRISTINE BARBOUR To walk into the Indiana Memorial Union’s Tudor Room is to step back in time—at least to the middle of the last century, and possibly even several hundred years before that. With its soaring ceilings, sky-high windows, medieval-looking tapestries, and flying heraldic banners (one for each of IU’s schools), the room is a mid-20th- century American idea of a room where Henry VIII might have felt at home tucking into a king-size, multicourse meal. Luckily, the meals in the Tudor Room are not reserved for royalty. Open for lunch from Monday through Friday and for Sunday brunch, the Tudor Room’s buffet menu is the creation of the IMU’s executive chef, Damian Esposito, winner of the Monroe County [...]

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Filed Under: Food/Wine Tagged With: Chris Gray, Christine Barbour, Damian Esposito, Herman B Wells, Indiana Memorial Union, restaurant review, Sodexo, Tudor Room

Max’s Place: For Lovers of New York Pizza

First Posted: 2/28/13 01:29 PM EDT Updated: 2/28/13 01:30 PM EDT
Originally published February/March 2013

BY CHRISTINE BARBOUR There are deep (not to be confused with deep dish) divides in the pizza lovers’ world. Some people love the rich-as-a-slice-of-cake Chicago-style pizza; others prefer the Midwestern version—what some call the “Hoosier Pie”—thick on dough and heavy on cheese with a sweet tomato sauce. And then there is New York pizza—hand-tossed, thin, chewy crust blistered in a hot, hot oven; good mozzarella cheese; light on the sauce. New York-style pizza is probably closest to what you find in Italy, except in New York they make them bigger and sell them by the slice as well as by the pie. Max’s Place, on the downtown Square, serves New York-style pizza, and as transplanted New Yorkers informally surveyed attest, [...]

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Filed Under: Food/Wine Tagged With: Christine Barbour, Max's Place, Paul Pruitt, restaurant review, Shannon Zahnle, Travers Marks

Soup’s On: A Tiny Place Big on Taste

First Posted: 2/25/13 02:42 PM EDT Updated: 2/25/13 02:42 PM EDT
Originally published December 2012/January 2013

BY CHRISTINE BARBOUR No bigger than a minute, Soup’s On is a funky, crayon-colored soup emporium at 108 S. Rogers St. Blink and you’ll miss it, so be sure not to blink. Brad Handler and Jake Fehrenbach’s little house of soup is a gem—one well worth waiting in the line you will no doubt find when you open the door to the tiny vestibule. Hang in there. A bowl of comfort awaits. Maybe that bowl is filled with steaming green bean parmesan soup, chock-full of vegetable goodness, with stretchy, melted cheese puddled at the bottom. Or maybe it is filled with chicken corn chowder, spicy hot and creamy rich. Or maybe it is the sweet pumpkin soup with Chantilly cream [...]

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Filed Under: Food/Wine Tagged With: Brad Handler, Christine Barbour, Jake Fehrenbach, restaurant review, Soup's On

Topo’s 403: Upscale, Fun, and the Food Is Fab (Photo Gallery)

First Posted: 10/16/12 02:04 PM EDT Updated: 10/16/12 10:05 AM EDT
Originally published October/November 2012

BY CHRISTINE BARBOUR Walk inside Topo’s 403, Bloomington’s fabulous new Greek restaurant, and the first thing you see is the elegant wallpaper: swirls of intricate blue-on-blue design with bright floral accents, a Victorian print that matches the vintage of the walls it covers. It’s only on a closer look that the lacy pattern resolves itself into a tongue-in-cheek extravaganza of octopi, squids, and jellyfish. That’s your first clue that someone at Topo’s is having an awful lot of fun. Topo’s 403 is named for its owner and its address. The owner is Dr. James Topolgus Jr., known more informally to the medical profession in town and many of his surgical patients as “Topo.” He and daughter Stephanie, who is running [...]

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Filed Under: Food/Wine, Web Exclusives Tagged With: Christine Barbour, Dr. james Topolgus Jr., Jason Shoulders, millen-chase-mccalla house, restaurant review, Topo's 403, Topolgus Building

Upland Brew Pub: A Beer Bastion With Surprisingly Good Food

First Posted: 9/18/12 01:50 PM EDT Updated: 9/20/12 04:36 PM EDT
Originally published August/September 2012

BY CHRISTINE BARBOUR Upland Brewing Company’s Bloomington Brew Pub is a popular place, abuzz with the energy, the chatter, and the laughter of people having good times. Regulars crowd up to the bar and grab the best tables early; less fortunate latecomers might have to wait a few minutes to sit down, even during warm months when the beer garden is open. The beer is a big draw at Upland, of course, but so, with the kitchen under the direction of Chef Seth Elgar, is the food. The British coined the word “gastropub” to signify a neighborhood establishment that takes both its drinking and its eating very, very seriously. Upland is a gastropub, albeit one with a Hoosier twang. That [...]

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Filed Under: Food/Wine Tagged With: Christine Barbour, restaurant review, Seth Elgar, Upland Brew Pub, Upland Brewing Company