The Later Years - After the Happily Ever After

Barbie

Batman & Robin

Belle

Snow White

Jasmine

Little Red Riding Hood

Snow White

Spiderman

Superman

Ariel the Little Mermaid

Thor

Tweety

Wonder Woman

Are you under-stimulated?

Great Ambiance

Beautiful Decor

It has come to my attention that you are perhaps understimulated.  Not getting quite enough of the good stuff; the kick and juice that makes you feel alive and awake and happy to be barely surviving on this little blue speck of space lint we call home.

Does that sound about right? Is that you? Are you aching and craving and moaning deep in the night?  I know just how you feel.

It has therefore come to my attention that you could use some additional, shall we say, titillation.  Damn straight.  You are far from alone.

Fresh Brewed Ice Tea...

They say we are an increasingly desensitized country.  We are dejected and perpetually jaded, numbed out at a very deep level.  Everything's amazing and nobody's happy.  Why, just look around. It's like you can't get a tolerable cup of coffee.

Where do you look for stimulation?  Where do you find that vital and bracing slap to your id?  More importantly, just how intense do you need it to be before you feel it worth your time, attention, reaction?

Let me introduce you to the Brick House Grill, an upscale gastropub in downtown Huntington, Indiana at 19 West Washington Street, serving the finest sandwiches, steaks, and seafood for lunch and dinner.

Andrew and Garin are the owners of the Brick House Grill and they offer something truly real.  With an understated - elegant atmosphere, stunning plate presentations, and delicious, freshly cooked food, hope and salvation is finally here for us foodies. May I hear a Hallelu?

Battered Artichoke Hearts

Baby Bellas

Starters include Scotch Eggs ($8), Fried Artichoke Hearts ($8), and Stuffed Baby Bellas ($8), which are absolutely fabulous!

Salads are The Classic Cobb Salad ($8) with chicken, bacon, tomatoes, cucumbers, eggs, and cheddar cheese.  A Fresh Summer Salad ($8) with fresh strawberries, mandarin oranges, dried cranberries, red onions, almonds and bleu cheese.  And a Black & Bleu Salad ($10) which is topped with 6oz of prime sirloin, fresh mushrooms, red onions, cherry tomatoes and bleu cheese.

Nice thick and juicy burgers with all types of toppings and served with fries. Try the Helluva Burger ($10) which is topped with everything they have except the kitchen sink.

Brickhouse' version of the Chicago Dog!

Gourmet Dogs ($6) are 1/4pound all beef franks and served with Lager Rings. The Chicago Dog is missing the sport peppers and the poppy seeds and the NEON relish but beat out a road trip to Chicago.  Ever have a BLT Dog? Wrap bacon around the dog and fry it crispy then add lettuce and tomato; yummy!  And look at those onion rings!

The Drunken Englishman ($8) is a crispy fried beer battered fish sandwich, while the Southern Gentleman ($7) is a classic pulled pork sandwich topped with slaw. 

One pound of Bacon BLT

The BFBLT or is it BLFGT ($8) or maybe it is GLBT (just tell your server a whole bunch of initials and point to the menu!)  I can assure you it is not no normal BLT.  This baby starts with one pound of crispy bacon and is topped with fried green tomatoes.

Filet cooked to perfection!

Grilled Yellow-fin Tuna with Wasabi

Dinners include Lime City Sirloin ($16), 12oz N.Y. Strip ($19), 16oz bone-in Ribeye ($20), 8oz Filet Mignon ($22), Blackened Chicken ($16), Cajun Grilled Shrimp ($16), Bourbon Grilled Salmon ($16), and Grilled Yellowfin Tuna ($18) served rare with wasabi.

Spectabulous!

Dijon Dill Salmon ($16), Veggie Linguini Primo ($14), and Englishman’s Feast ($12) which is beer battered fish with fries and slaw.  The Pile of Pork ($14) is slow smoked and topped with whiskey BBQ sauce. And the Beer Can Quarters ($14) are plump chicken quarters slow roasted with vegetables in dark beer then covered in BBQ Sauce.

Sweet Potato on the side!

Fried Green Tomatoes

Side of Broccoli

The Brick House Grill is available to cater weddings, rehearsal dinners, showers, birthday or anniversary parties, or any type of celebration on or off sight.  They also offer a full bar (with many specialty martinis) and a nice wine selection and beer list.

Give them a call at (260) 224-6696 or check them out on the web at www.brickhousegrill.org and make sure to call for reservations because Awesomeness now has a name; and that is The Brick House Grill.

Hall's Factory - Fort Wayne, IN

Don Hall’s Factory

5811 Coldwater Road

Fort Wayne, IN  46825

Pictures of Old Time Landmarks hang on all the walls at the factory.  The pictures are fun to look at and try to figure out if they were actually in Fort Wayne.  Just like the pictures, Don Hall’s is operating in a time long past.  Dark paneling and heavy wooden chairs with leather backings are most likely original furnishings from when the Factory first opened.  Very nice but at the same time very dated.

            The Factory has a Fixed Price Menu from 4pm to 5:45pm everyday and all day Sunday.  For $11.95 you get your choice of Chicken Marsala, Herb Roasted Chicken, Brisket, Prime Rib, or Cod Filet. These dinners come with mashed potato and the veggie of the day which is usually broccoli; a dinner salad and a special dessert.  The day we went we were served small chilled crème brûlée in monkey dishes. It was very tasty and cooked perfectly with a crunchy top.

The Chicken Marsala was very moist, tender and delicious with a wonderfully light Marsala sauce.  The 16oz porterhouse porkchop tasted wonderful but was overcooked and dry.  Probably due to the fact that manly people still think that pork has to be over-cooked to be done.

The brisket was dry- smoked and then had bbq sauce poured over the top of it.  The Ossian Smoked Ham was moist and served at room temperature.

The side Caesar salads were fresh and had lots of dressing on them, but was very mild if almost bland.  The side wedge salads were quite nice with blue cheese dressing.  The Dinner sized Greek Salad had plenty of peperoncini and anchovy slices.  If you order them left off or not it doesn’t matter, you are going to get the anchovy.

When you order the blue-cheese butter the computer does not have a way to charge you for it, so the server has to raise the price of your meal up by $3. You would think that in this day and age of computers somebody could figure out how to use their computer system.  It is just another way to show that the Hall’s chain is still operating in an “Era that has already gone bye – bye”.

The andouille potato cake ($3) is crispy on the outside and creamy mashed potatoes on the inside, covered with scallions and diced tomatoes and a melted cheese.  Too bad the sausage could not be tasted.

Once the server’s caught on, the bread and butter was fresh and plentiful.  They would bring another couple of bread boards with each trip back to the tables.  Yummy.  Nice soft white bread with a crispy crust and coated in sesame and poppy seeds that is impossible to cut with the dull-ass knives they bring with it. So, you just reach over and grab a chunk and rip it off the loaf.  Did I mention yummy?

The website’s menu for the Factory says Gorgonzola Butter for $3, but when you go to the restaurant it is called “Blue Cheese Butter for $3” on the menu. Hall’s either does this to confuse their customers, or they don’t know their own ass from a wheel of good cheese.  Just another way that Hall’s is still in a past century. Both; they don’t know their cheese and they do not keep their website updated.

If you want to dress up and pretend you are living in your parent’s time and age, Don Hall’s Factory is totally recommended.  It is a place preserved in the minds of your grandparent’s surviving contemporaries.  And it don’t get much better than that.

Today’s Forecast:
Remembering Big Willy...

An advisory is put out today for a High of Laughter and a Low of Tears. 

With many multiple pressure fronts of memories moving in and out all day.

Watch out for Multiple Disturbances with Flash Floods of Tears.

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Today's blog is very personal to me.  

A very close friend passed away, and I went to his memorial today.

I have cried and cried again.  

Just thinking of my friend not here any longer makes me tear into my medicine cabinet like Billy Holiday. And alas, I can only find one xanax.

This is how we feel about death.

Family 

Friends

Food

Her specialty!  Whipped Topping!
Laura is good like that...

 

Good times remembered.

Good food eaten.

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My audience with Bill was beautiful... if not brief.

Bill taught the great lessons that must be learned for admission into Heaven.

Faith, Hope, & Love.

I must now let Bill pass from Non-Fiction into Legend.

Sigh!

            Looking back at one of my favorite restaurants.  Did you already know?  I bet you already knew.  Or at the very least, had a sneaking suspicion that Blu Tomato near Georgetown has CLOSED.  Why do all the good restaurants have to close?

Blu Tomato offered wood fired pizza, pasta, and martinis, with great music and a nice laid back, casual, upscale, trendy atmosphere.  Not as pretentious as Biaggi’s and much more elegant than Casa.

The Blu Tomato had different rooms that you could sit in and each were decorated a little differently but all are still warm and friendly just like the wait staff.  The hostesses always panicked when I asked for a chair without arms, but they quickly found one and brought it to the table for me.  The white paper table-covers placed over the white tablecloths are very handy to draw on and are kind-of-cute.  I always forgot to take crayons.  

At the table was a bottle of extra virgin olive oil and a dish of parmesan cheese to put on the fresh bread that was brought to the table in a basket along with flatbread and a small dish of black olive tapenade which was superbly made with diced black olives, extra virgin olive oil, and capers. 

Appetizers included Fried Polenta (in Indiana we call it mush) crispy and delicious, with Italian sausage and roasted mushrooms in an asiago cream sauce.

Four Cheese Artichoke and Spinach dip served lukewarm with Blu Tomato bread-sticks. Valenza Chicken Wings; Smokey and yummy, a bit small but very tasty.

Salads included the Chopped Salad of romaine, provolone cheese, peppers, carrots, garbonzo beans, cucumbers and balsamic vinaigrette.  And the Caesar Salad with romaine, roasted garlic dressing, housemade croutons and parmesan cheese.

 And an absolutely delightful Spinach Salad made with goat cheese, grapes, pears, toasted walnuts and a maple sherry vinaigrette.  The Radicchio and Romaine salad is one of the nicest salads in Fort Wayne.  Tossed fresh gorgonzola cheese, spiced walnuts and balsamic vinaigrette and with honey mustard marinated oranges which truly made the salad over the top and fantastic.  Just wish the kitchen would have removed the seeds from the oranges.

Dinner items included Filet Mignon served on weekends and Wednesdays, served with spiced butter on top and cooked perfectly to order.  Rigatoni with chicken, Italian sausage, portabella mushrooms, basil and vodka-tomato-cream sauce, light and incredibly delicious.  Chicken Marsala with garlic new potatoes and green beans in a sweet Marsala Sauce.

My favorite was always the Chicken Chop.  It was stuffed with smoked cheese, roasted mushrooms, sauteed spinach, and artichokes. With rosemary sprinkled everywhere, and served with roasted potatoes.

Desserts included Warm Apple Tarts, Spumoni Pie, a Cannoli, and Tiramisu which was exceptionally light yet flavorful, and a Warm Chocolate Brownie served with butter pecan ice cream, candied walnuts, and caramel sauce.

Yeah, their hours were limited, only being open from 4pm until 10pm and closed on Sunday and Monday.  And the credit card receipt said “Blu Harbor Grill” 10601 North St. Road 13, Syracuse, Indiana (574)457-5711 instead of Blue Tomato on Maplecrest Road in Fort Wayne.

The food, atmosphere, and service was so good.

But it doesn't really matter now, does it?  The place is closed.