Roadfood_ Revised Edition - Jane Stern [148]
Lunch is served from about 11:00 A.M. until early evening, and the meals we’ve seen look dandy—meat loaf, roast beef, cold-cut sandwiches, soups, quiche, etc.—but to be honest, we’ve only seen them. When we come to JWI, we want pie, cake, candies, cookies, and ice cream. The ice cream is especially excellent, ranging from cones and single scoops in a dish to sundaes topped with real whipped cream. Of course we could not resist the top-of-the-line pig’s dinner known as the ’37 Flood—a ten-scoop, multitopping extravaganza that JWI says will feed four to six people.
King Ribs Bar-B-Q
4130 N. Keystone Ave.
317–543–0841
Indianapolis, IN
LD | $
King Ribs is a former automobile garage with no dining facilities. All business is drive through, walk up, or home delivery. It is the sort of barbecue you smell before you see. The scent of more than a dozen drums lined up, smoldering wood inside them, and pork sizzling atop the wood perfumes the neighborhood for blocks.
The house motto is “Fit for a King,” and of all the regal meals to eat here, ribs top the list. They are tender enough so that the meat pulls from the bone in heavy strips, barely glazed with sauce, but chewy enough that the pork flavor resonates forever. It is a pure, sweet flavor, just faintly tingling with the smoke that has infused the meat.
Side dishes include macaroni and cheese that is thick as pudding and intensely cheesy, with noodles so soft they are almost indistinguishable from the cheese. Also baked beans, fine-cut slaw, and white bread for mopping. For dessert, there is a choice of sweeties: chess pie or sweet potato pie.
Main Café
520 Main St.
812–682–3370
New Harmony, IN
BL | $
The southern Indiana countryside for miles around New Harmony is farmland: no business or industry, no malls, no convenience stores, no chain restaurants. Just rolling green landscape and two-lane roads. A former utopian community created by folks who sought heaven by living simply, New Harmony remains a bucolic small town that happens to have a dandy little Main Street café. Just sitting here is a Roadfood delight. Despite lively table-to-table conversations (everybody who eats here knows everybody else), it is a meditative sort of place, ideal for getting centered, as well as nicely fed, before or during a day of travel along the Ohio River Valley.
In truth, the breakfast menu is not all that interesting, the baking powder biscuits are slightly overweight, and dairy products are virtually unheard of (buttery spread for biscuits, powdered creamer for coffee). But we relished the very piggy, crisp-fried tenderloin that came alongside our plate of eggs. And on a return trip, we delighted in the ploughman’s lunch of ham, beans, and corn bread. And the pies—coconut cream and chocolate cream—are blue-ribbon beauties.
Mug ’n’ Bun Drive-In
5211 W. 10th St.
317–244–5669
Indianapolis, IN
LD | $
The mug is root beer; the bun is the fried pork cutlet sandwich known as a Hoosier tenderloin. Together they are a paradigmatic Midwest drive-in meal. This timeless drive-in not far from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway gives customers a choice of eating off the dashboard or at outdoor picnic tables umbrellaed by radiant heaters for cold weather. In-car diners blink their lights for service and food is presented by carhops on window trays. People seated at tables summon the kitchen by using a buzzer that adjoins the posted menu.
We were tipped off to Mug ’n’ Bun by journalist Dale Lawrence, who described its root beer as “legitimately creamy, yes, but also smoky, carrying hints of vanilla fudge and molasses, as rich and smooth as a dessert wine.” In other words, not like