Best Indianapolis Eats For Super Bowl XLVI

In this era where fantasy statistics are reported on as much during Sunday football as the actual players, consider a few interesting gridiron-related numbers: Super Bowl Sunday is second only to Thanksgiving in single-day food consumption in this country. This year, experts predict 70 million pounds of avocadoes will be smashed and 1.25 billion chicken wings will be consumed. Additionally, 3.5 percent of the annual total for beer sold occurs on this weekend.

It is a serious food and drink weekend to be sure. And that's all well and good for the armchair quarterbacks snacking and guzzling in the comfort of their own homes, but what about the thousands of people who flood into host cities each year without a clue where to grab grub before kickoff? And what if these football fans are discerning gourmands who desire something beyond mediocre hotel fare and restaurants that end in "eesecake factory"?

Thankfully, Super Bowl XLVI is being held in New Orleans, one of the greatest dining...wait, what? That's next year? Where is it this year? Indianapolis? Where is that? Near Idaho, right?

Oh, brother.

Quick, what comes to your mind when you think of Indianapolis and food? Nothing. (And don't you dare say, "Race Car Cake.")

As a proud Hoosier (yes, that means someone from Indiana) and a native of its capital city, I've created the following all-too-brief walk-through of some of the best restaurants and markets in downtown Indianapolis. For the most part, I limited the choices to places within walking distance of downtown Indy, which is oriented around a large roundabout ("the circle") and is very easy to navigate. As an unwitting tourist to my beloved city, it is crucial to note how spread out the rest of Indy is, and how nonexistent public transportation is. Don't even count on cabs. If you flew in and couldn't secure a rental car, stick close to the circle or your feet will soon regret it. In the song "Indianapolis," alt-country troubadours The Bottle Rockets summed up this frustration best with their lyric "Is this Hell or Indianapolis/With no way to get around."

I will start with the obvious. Indianapolis' most famous restaurant is St. Elmo Steak House. It has been in the same location for more than 100 years. They have this legendarily spicy shrimp cocktail and the most extensive wine list in town. It is truly a beautiful restaurant — waiters in tuxes, Jack

(Photo courtesy of Flickr/Intiaz Rahim)

However, if a restaurant with a little history does interest you, then head a few blocks northeast of the circle. Kurt Vonnegut's family used to run this town, and their legacy is best preserved in The Rathskeller, a massive and ornate German social hall and gymnasium that his grandfather designed in the late 1800s. It's a handsome facility that contains both a great Bavarian-style restaurant and an authentic biergarten.

As you pass the dining room to walk up to the courtyard to grab a liter of Spaten Optimator, you walk through a woody, high-ceilinged barroom draped in the historic flags of Deutschland.  On your right you will see a gorgeous ballroom that has hosted generations of weddings, family reunions, and much more during its 100-plus years in existence as a place where Indianapolis eats, drinks, and celebrates. And after next weekend, that long list of celebrations will also include...ahem... "Jim McMahon's Swang N' Super Bowl Bash." Yes, that Jim McMahon.

Speaking of beer, you would be remiss to not enjoy a cold one or two from Sun King Brewery Company. Though still a very young company, I've never seen a city embrace a brewery like Indianapolis has done with Sun King over the past few years. Their Sunlight Cream Ale is poured all over town, and is in just about every home fridge. It will be easy to find around town (some restaurants even pour their own exclusive Sun King brews), but should you desire to see the operation up close, the brewery is located just a few blocks south of the Athenaeum. All week long, Sun King is hosting tent parties outside their tasting room. Though I don't believe the parties will feature any stars of the original "Super Bowl Shuffle" video, if that's a dealbreaker.

Every town has a decent microbrew, but not every town has a good micro-yogurt. See, it's easy to be a serious locavore in Indianapolis. It may be a city of a million people, but it's surrounded by farmland. If you are blessed with a car this trip, you can get from the circle to Trader's Point Creamery, a working organic dairy farm, in the time it takes to listen to the first four songs off the Jackson 5's "Back to Indiana" album. Once there, you'll savor rich, decadent ice cream and drink

(Photo courtesy of Flickr/jasonpearce)

As far as our reputed Indiana pork goes, I know a great hog farm I could take you to, but I promise you it's nowhere near as whimsical as Charlotte's Web. The farmers mostly just stand around and talk about tax breaks. You are better off checking out Goose: The Market. This amazing little gastronomic paradise is located on a quiet street corner in the middle of Fall Creek Place, a beautiful neighborhood located about a mile north of downtown, built on a former stretch of vacant lots. In just 10 years, the area went from a bombed-out crime zone the police referred to as "Dodge City" to an actual neighborhood of new homes built in a neo-Victorian style.

Goose is the center of community life in Fall Creek Place. Inside the shop, the city's best butcher trims Wagyu beef, local duck, and other delicacies. The shop is also home to a serious in-house charcuterie program, which can be enjoyed along with a glass of red douro. Everything they cure is spectacular, but the Sassaka, or Slovenian "bacon butter," cannot be missed — chopped-up pork belly mixed with garlic, onion, and peppercorn, then spread on top of hot toast so that the bacon fat starts to render on the plate. By this point, you've forgotten all about the horrible potato skins you had at last year's Super Bowl party.

Though Indiana has been in the driver seat of the bacon revolution, most food fads creep slowly inland from the coasts and are usually passé by the time they arrive. BBQ chicken pizza was stale by the time California Pizza Kitchen finally arrived in 1995. We got our first cupcake shop a year before the first Sex and the City movie premiered. And Starbucks even opened a location in Kuwait before they set up shop in Indy.

One recent trend that's currently oversaturated in major markets is the speakeasy, signified by waxed mustaches, homemade bitters, and an ersatz nostalgia for a better time, when men had to buy shirt collars separately and only lived to be 43.

Thankfully, when the Ball & Biscuit opened on hip Massachusetts Avenue a year and a half ago, they eschewed all the Katzenjammer corniness of the movement and embraced what made it exciting in the first place — damn good cocktails. At B & B, you can get a perfectly prepared Aviation (with Death's Door, a fabulous Midwestern gin) and chitchat with the bartender, not once having him mention that he makes his own suspenders. But above all this, the most appealing features of the Ball & Biscuit may be that they have no TV and one cannot smoke within its walls, two of the three ubiquitous Hoosier bar features. The third is the jukebox playing John Cougar Mellencamp's "American Fool" album on repeat.

The same street that has Ball & Biscuit is also home to downtown Indianapolis' two most innovative restaurants. When Regina Mehallick opened R Bistro in 2001, it was pretty much the only place in town doing "new American" cooking. The restaurant's straightforward presentation of seasonal, local ingredients focused through an unpretentious, weekly-changing menu was barely noticed during a boom in flashy chain concepts throughout the affluent suburbs. Eleven years later, R Bistro is better than ever, while many of the chains died within months. Massachusetts Avenue is where you go in downtown Indianapolis if you want to eat somewhere with personality, perspective, and real taste.

The newest member of this scene on Mass Ave. is Black Market, helmed by Micah Frank, a former sous chef at R Bistro. When it opened last summer, the gastro-pub was quickly praised by the local media as a candidate for best restaurant in the city. Micah's menu is beyond eclectic. You feel like roasted marrow bones or fried mozzarella sticks to start? And for mains, would you prefer sausage and cabbage or Korean chapchae noodles? They are unusual combinations, to be sure. However, it is the execution of these dishes and the clarity of flavors found within them that makes this place worthy of all its early praise. The atmosphere is even a new treat for Indianapolis. Sure, you've probably seen a long communal table like that in Chicago, or you might say the clean, linear design of the back bar is no different than any bar in the West Village. But there is not here. This is Indianapolis. And we are pretty excited to call Black Market our own.

Truth be told, Indiana has very few food traditions to call its own, and you've probably never heard of any of them anyway, because they are pretty boring. Hoosier pie? Persimmon pudding? Corn casserole? (Crickets...) They are all basically bland remnants of the sort of Laura Ingalls Wilder-type cookery of the mid-19th century. There is one sandwich, however, that we hold dear to our Hoosier hearts: the breaded pork tenderloin. It's not much more than a schnitzel on a bun, but damnit, it's ours! (Actually, where the Austrian counterpart is pan-fried, this pounded-out piece of pork is breaded and dropped in a deep fryer.) But when cooking is complete, the golden brown disk should be laughably too large for a hamburger bun. (Bonus points if it hangs over the plate as well.) And accompaniments should be limited to mayonnaise, mustard, lettuce, and pickle.

My favorite is at Bourbon Street Distillery, a cozy bar in a quaint flatiron building a five-minute walk from the circle. Purists debate that the pork is too thick and the breading is not a traditional mix, but no one argues over the fact that it is one of the best sandwiches in the city.

But, it's not kosher, and Indianapolis is synonymous with two things: auto racing and Judaism. Well,

Shapiro's Delicatessen has been a fixture since 1905. It functions more as a cafeteria than a deli, but no one complains. You can't say much about Shapiro's that hasn't been said already, and you'll hear plenty about it once your plane lands anyway. However, it definitely bears a mention because in all honesty, I will tell you that Katz's, Langer's, and Zingerman's combined can't hold a Shabbat candle to the Reuben sandwich at Shapiro's. (Photo courtesy of Flickr/The West End)

I could go on, about the titular Macedonian mélange at John's Famous Stew, the red sauce at Iaria's, breakfast at Maxine's Chicken & Waffles, deep-fried pickles at English Ivy's, the Scotch whisky selection at MacNiven's, and I didn't even mention the historic City Market. There is actually too much good food here. I'll save all that for the next time you come back. Now go have fun at the game. And please whatever you do, don't waste your time at the chains. Eat our food.
Drink our beer.
Enjoy our city.

Oh! And you can't buy beer on Sunday. Might be useful to know....