Heading down for a week so after the turkey is gone,we will be dining out as usual. Having adopted it as our second home for the past 6 years, thought I may be able to contribute to this topic. The Lafayette/West Lafayette area must be one of the busiest restaurant locations in the country after a Purdue home football game.The turnover seems really high,too. Fortunately,there are many good ones;it just depends what you're in the mood for.I will ignore the chains which are very well represented and try to remember some highlights. Bistro 501 that Davooda mentioned in an earlier post is still very good. I had ratatouille there that was simply heavenly,as most entrées are. The theater dessert spoons are really a great way to sample up to 3 of the house-made desserts. La Scala http://www.lascalaitalianrestaurant.com/ is a very good choice for Italian. This family owned place really tries to please their customers,and usually succeeds. This will have to be continued,if anyone's interested,at a later date.

My wife and I went to the Triple XXX today for an early dinner and we were not impressed.

My wife had a single patty cheeseburger and I had the Bernie Flowers All-Pro (2 patties with lettuce, tomato, onion and Miracle Whip to which I added American cheese).The thin griddled patties were just OK (no perceptible crust) and the buns were bland. The Triple XXX root beer was OK but nothing to write home about.

Kewpies in Racine and Schoops all over Indiana do a much, much better iteration of this type of "diner"-style burger with a noticable exterior char.

ld111134 wrote:My wife and I went to the Triple XXX today for an early dinner and we were not impressed.

I made my first trip there back in March. I didn't mean to not post about it but it was a pretty lackluster affair and I guess that by the time I got back from my trip, I forgot about it. It wasn't until I saw your post that I remembered I'd been there . . . and agreed with your overall assessment.

=R=

ronnie_suburban wrote:

ld111134 wrote:My wife and I went to the Triple XXX today for an early dinner and we were not impressed.

I made my first trip there back in March. I didn't mean to not post about it but it was a pretty lackluster affair and I guess that by the time I got back from my trip, I forgot about it. It wasn't until I saw your post that I remembered I'd been there . . . and agreed with your overall assessment.

=R=

Guy Fieri raved about it on Diners, Drive-ins & Dives and it appears to be a local favorite, but the burgers couldn't even hold a candle to Culver's. Moreover, I substitued potato salad for french fries and it was obviously standard-issue food service stuff, no different from what you'd find at the deli counter of a Jewel.

ld111134 wrote:Moreover, I substitued potato salad for french fries and it was obviously standard-issue food service stuff, no different from what you'd find at the deli counter of a Jewel.

Fries were no better -- almost certainly a freezer-to-fryer situation there.

=R=

I studied at Purdue and was always mystified by the love for XXX. This is a place that is clearly coasting on nostalgia, you can get better burgers and root beer at A&W's down the street.

South Street Smokehouse is an old favorite of mine, but as some have said the meat is just serviceable. It may be damning with faint praise to say this about a BBQ joint, but I really love their sauce. Their house spicy sauce is the best I've had anywhere and I always pick up a pint when I'm back in town. It's heavy on the spices and black pepper which I really like.

One other noteworthy place is Kokoro in downtown Lafayette. The humorously self-aggrandizing menu intro is basically an autobiography of the chef and owner - "Tony" - who is among the most arrogant people I've met in my life. The food is basically Japanese-Cantonese fusion, but god forbid you call it that; "Tony food" is the preferred nomenclature. Every time I've gone the main man has been berating a staff person or customer in the dining room, but the food is so delicious it is almost worth it. Tony has a deft hand with maki rolls, but the best thing I've had there was the Shanghai street fried rice. It's a fiery red rice loaded with crabmeat and prawns and plenty of wok hei, probably the best fried rice I've ever had.