Indianapolis-L'Explorateur

In the spirit of when it rains it pours, I put my brisket in a pot in the fridge to corn the next several days AND found out that there's a good chance I will be enjoying Shapiro's in Indianapolis this Sunday. But, that's besides the point; I did a quick search and didn't come across any mentions of my other dining destination:

http://www.dinelex.com/about/

L'Explorateur

We were gonna do St. Elmo's, somehow this looks better. I'm especially-intrigued by the sample menu's sweetbreads with bone marrow icecream and the bao w/prickly ash demi-glace. As one reads further there's a lot of humor in evidence in the naming of dishes. They also offer an omakase which is something to consider for the future if this meal goes well.

Any thoughts? Anyone been? Heard anything?

Christopher Gordon wrote:L'Explorateur

I've been a few times.
Service has always been top-
notch, and I like a lot of things
about it, but I've often been left
a bit under-whelmed, somehow.

The meat dishes in particular
have been quite good. A rib
dish in a mole-like sauce with
hints of chocolate (or was
it coffee?) stands out.

Little foie-puff morsels.

But the seafood dishes never
seem to come together as a
whole/refined concept. (The
remjon of yellowtail, with the
use of raw onion, might have
just got things off on the
wrong foot from the start.)
And for a raw bar, might as
well just go to Oceanaire.

And the desserts look great,
but have left me almost angry
with their consistent utter lack
of something...taste.

Two other similar places worth
a look are:
Oakley's
http://www.oakleysbistro.com/menus.htm
and Elements
http://www.elementsindy.com
Those two both have been
consistently good from start
to finish in all of my experiences.

Christopher Gordon wrote:sweetbreads

14 West, just a couple blocks from
St. Elmo's does sweetbreads as
a really good appetizer. Entrees
are so-so, but desserts are very
good; so it makes for a good
late-night small-plate and dessert
option.
http://www.14westindy.com/menus.html

I've spent a ton of time in Indy- I'd reccomend elements over all of these. I think St. Elmo's is way overrated. Shapiro's is amazing though. My favorite place in all of Indiana

jpschust wrote:I'd reccomend elements over all of these.

As I said, Elements is consistently
good, but this week's menu isn't
one of their strongest, with (blah)
bass, fluke and pork loin.

R-Bistro, on the other hand,
has a particularly strong menu
this week, with a very Irish
Parsnip and Bacon Cake
appetizer, Duck Breast with
Guinness and Honey Sauce,
and Guinness Ice Cream for
dessert.
http://www.rbistro.com/menu/

L'Explorateur's already been decided on. And the sample February menu *does* peak my interest except for the fact that many of the entrees look more like app.s to me; i.e. plates I'd rather have as a smaller portion than as the "main event." Like, I'd prefer a single perfectly-proportioned bao to a hulking monstrosity...or, a smaller portion of sweetbreads instead of...what I imagine might be a unrepentently-large serving...that's the thing with imagining the dishes, tho' they could be on the smaller side(which suits me just fine, in general). Yet, all of this is moot because the menu changes every two weeks, supposedly.

The s/o and I were originally gonna do the famous St. Elmo's spicy shrimp cocktail and steaks because the restaurant peeked our interest last trip when we instead went with a very good *surprisingly good* meal at Oceanaire. Instead, this time out he's surprised me with res. at L'Explorateur which I'd previously read about in various Indy magazines as the city's answer to molecular gastronomy with an across-the-board playful, Puck-ish attitude toward food.

I certainly appreciate the other recommendations and will perhaps get to those in the future. But, L'Explorateur, it is, barring unforseen whatever.

and, while I dig raw bars...I'm not, at this moment, terribly interested in that side of the menu...

And...yes, Shapiro's *expletive deleted* rocks.

Onward Saturday to Indianapolis.

We made good time only to arrive at a Westin subsumed beneath the ravening hordes of a Midwest Dancing Girls Competition. Stage moms, Jon Benets, feathers, eyeshadow, jailbait, teased hair, spangles, streamers. Oh fuck me Jesus. They gave away our suite(T didn’t want to pursue it) instead we got a lovely handicapped room with a view of some massive, smoking factory(admittedly kinda neat in a Bechers way). The bed was comfy. Oh, and for some reason they weren’t valet-ing...which was total bullshit and we ended up parking in the unvalidated public parking garage for twice what valet would have cost. Fucktards. I, mean, when we pulled up did we actually look like we were here for that asinine, throwback competition? Give us our fucking valet. Tards.

We dressed and wandered around downtown stopping in at our first choice, The Canterbury, for a drink. A wedding was in residence which is why we couldn’t reserve there.
Phooey.

Lovely downtown Indianapolis, the massive circle monument...beautiful downtown Indianapolis at once rural Hoosier and ghetto.

A drink was the right idea. We wandered back to the expensively-parked car and took it out to the ‘burbs for some family time before heading back in for our reservation at L’Explorateur in Indy’s charming Broad Ripple neighborhood. An 8:30 res. we drove around a bit trying to find it...then realized it was located in one of the houses[I can’t remember eating in a house(that wasn’t a relative’s or a friend’s) in years...back in Athens virtually all the restaurants were located thusly]. I’ve always dug that particular vibe.

So...L’Explorateur is in a single story house sparely-appointed with choice artwork(T got to stare at a bare boob all during dinner) and evenly split between the bar at the back and the main dining room up front. Wedding party-ish tho’ it was, the little card on our table welcoming us was a nice touch. It did it’s job.

Now’s where I reveal my initial menu misapprehensions as per the website and what’s the real deal. They really just should say small plates cuz that’s what it is except for a handful of larger ones. There’re no appetizers...instead it’s two menus...one cooked...one Raw Bar from which you mix and match. We started with several courses then ordered more as the evening loped along. Our convivial waitress(in comparison a lot more “organic” than our previous night’s...L’Explorateur’s was friendly in a more off-the-cuff manner than the slight theatricality of the one at Aigre Doux) tirelessly illuminated the several dishes with occult titles that caught my interest(le marquis de foie, skate or die, 28 days later, etc.).

We started with a round of drinks...T got the last Hitatchino and I went for “Wandering Poet” in a wood box. I’ve seen this service, but never partaken of it...it’s how I’ll do it in the future...the aromatics and texture of the wood contrasted nicely with what I perceived as spicy floral notes in the sake. Now, I dearly love Hitatchino beer, but was pleased that I got the opportunity to try this other instead. We also ordered a bottle of 2004 Steele Pinot Blanc.

She asked if we wanted everything all at once, but I demurred and asked for pacing.

Oh...here’s the thing...it was dead. We were one of three other couples dining the entire night: a Hoosier-esque duo, more power lesbians(though T assures me that there’s a type of Indiana woman’s coif that is easily mistaken for stone cold butch...kind of like that game...”farmgirl or dyke”), and another couple enjoying a birthday dinner. The bar on the other side of the house seemed a lot more hoppin’.

As with what follows...everything was perfectly-paced over the course of two hours(at which point we were the last diners...though there was still a crowd at the bar)...towards the end of which I started getting a distinct...”finish up and get out” vibe...though nothing was ever mentioned...and T didn’t notice that at all. I guess 10:30 is late in Indiana. And we didn’t exactly dawdle...we were dining up until that last bit...no lingering. Ah well. Perhaps I was imagining things.

Most of these were elegantly-plated, good for a bite or three for each of us.

L’Explorateur 03.17.07:

amuse of duck confit in brioche

(the confit held up admirably inside the toasty whim of a crisp...very good...I’d order it as an app.)

waitress’s suggestion: Hamachi(hamachi! egads!) Carpaccio, chile oil, coarse sea salt, pea shoots, wasabi caviar

[the dish was at first overwhelmed by the salt and chile oil(eventually the sweet fish revealed itself), but the wasabi caviar...teeny-tiny verdant globules of bursting yumminess...cool]

Pacific Butterfish/Fresh Morels

(small filet of perfectly-cooked fish...itty-bitty, cute morels...could have demolished a vat of it...one of the highlights of an evening where there were no real missteps...even the above-mentioned carpaccio eventually gelled)

Le Marquis de Foie(passion fruit laquer, scallop, foie, avocado)

(well...the lacquer across the plate tasted more of brown than anything else...but, I dug the synergy of scallop, foie, and avocado...each brought a different angle to similar textures)

Sweetbreads, bone marrow ice cream, classic green sauce

(another highlight...fucking fantastic: hot, crispy, salty, tender sweetbreads paired with a small scoop of protein-y, sweet, creamy delight---herb jus the right foil for what could easily be overload...good, good, good...and, contrasted to the sweetbreads included in a prep at NAHA---an otherwise excellent meal in and of itself---these at L’Explorateur were actually prepared correctly...i.e. they weren’t unpleasant chewy nubbins)

at this point we decided to order more dishes, but were ping-ponging between several options...we chose:

Flight of Gnocchi(peruvian potato over chard/sweet potato with shitake veloute/”regular” potato over tomato olive sauce)

(okay...the peruvian and regular gnocchi were some of the best I’ve had...unexpectedly, really...I tend to get heavy, chewy gnocchi...these just disappeared, effervesced the moment they hit your tongue...and the one least likely to was my favorite: the Italian version...damn if that little dab of sauce wasn’t one of the most exciting, energizing I’ve had in...well, I can’t recall, rightly...real tasty....................that left the sweet potato which were of the chewy, lumpen variety and agressively-spiced with nutmeg and cinnamon?...they were okay...blown entirely out of the water-so to speak-by the others)

Skate or Die

(the gutbuster after all that came before...your basic pan-seared skatewing with pillowy cubed potatoes-this chef knows his way around a spud-and capers...with a sigh I loosen my belt)

But, wait! There’s more!

dessert

baked meringue filled with passionfruit cream and lemon curd sprinkled with plump blackberries

(I like the idea...it was a tad tart)

french press for T
I went for a lovely masala chai

urgh...grunt...sigh...

Now...I was under the impression that L’Explorateur was attempting to introduce molecular gastronomy in drips and drabs to the Indianapolis scene. That was hardly in evidence here. The most playful aspect of a generally superb menu is in the naming of some dishes; “28 Days Later,” I correctly guessed, is a hunk of aged homo sapiens.

L’Explorateur resembles nothing so much as Sweets and Savories’ chef tasting in it’s variety, execution, and joie de vivre...it ain’t Moto, etc...nor is it trying to be...I get the impression that the ubiquitous foams and airs don’t fly in Indy. Tho’ Elements is possibly working a similar tip.

SCUBAchef wrote:

jpschust wrote:I'd reccomend elements over all of these.

R-Bistro, on the other hand,
has a particularly strong menu
this week, with a very Irish
Parsnip and Bacon Cake
appetizer, Duck Breast with
Guinness and Honey Sauce,
and Guinness Ice Cream for
dessert.
http://www.rbistro.com/menu/

i understand that elements, l'exploratateur and r bistro use local sustainable ingredients and contribute generously to community orginizations.
i am anxious to try r bistro and have heard great things about chef regina mehallick's food.
i beleive that neal brown is the current chef at l'explorateur and greg hardesty is in charge at elements.

dug wrote:i understand that elements, l'exploratateur and r bistro use local sustainable ingredients and contribute generously to community orginizations.

Neal @ l'exploratateur is trying the most
unique/unusual menu, but it’s probably
the most inconsistent – with a lot of the
items sounding better on paper than in reality.

R-bistro is probably the most conventional;
largely reinterpreting “comfort food”. Pasta
dishes are particular standouts. And last week
I had one of the best Gumbos I’ve ever had there.

Greg @ Elements is probably the most refined,
with more complex sauces and overall more
unified dishes. Plus the room is the most
interesting/elegant.

If Oakley’s was downtown (rather than in a
northside stripmall) it would be my no-question
recommendation. As it is, it’s still on my as-often-
as-possible-special-occasion list.