February 27th - 14 West

Brian and I celebrated our "second" anniversary this weekend. I picked 14 West as our restaurant because they are local, and they also have a local only part of their menu. On the local only menu, they serve 4 items where everything on your plate came from farms in Indiana. They also talk a little about the farms, where they are located, and how the farmers raise their produce.
Anyway, this place is not only a local jewel, but the food is absolutely fantastic. It may just be the best food I have ever had in my life.
We started off with the crab cake. Although Indianapolis isn't known for its crab cakes, this one was incredibly delicious. It had tons of crab, and just a little bit of cake. But it didn't stop there. The crabcake had a poached egg on top, and sides of applewood smoked bacon, and sauteed mushrooms. But my very favorite part was the amazing hollandaise sauce that the chef put between the egg and the crabcake. I swear, its the best hollandaise I've ever had in my life!
After that, we shared a caesar salad. The dressing was perfectly blended. Not too sour, not too salty, and definitely not too anchovi-ey. Perfect. And the best part of our salad was the parmesan crustinis that they put in the middle of the salad. So when you got a bite of food, it went lettuce, cheese crustini, lettuce, crouton. Delicious! And just the way this cheese girl loves it!
For our main dish, I chose the local pork chop covered with brie and blackberry compote, served with a side of vanilla apples. The pork was cooked perfectly, and the vanilla apples were an excellent touch to bring out the flavors of the dish. It was just too big for me to finish! But I was really glad I ordered it. Brian got a USDA Prime Grade center cut filet, with a side of parmesan peppercorn frites. He let me have a couple of bites, and man - that was one good steak!

For dessert, we ordered a Viennese Apple Strudel, in honor of the trip to Germany we are taking this fall. They wrote "Happy Anniversary" in caramel around the plate, and it was really really good. It was the most authentic tasting strudel I've had here in the Midwest.

This was definitely a place I will go again. We may have to wait for another special occasion to do so, but I will definitely look forward to the day we can go again. Who would've thought that a "local" place would be better than those expensive steakhouse chains?