On the Road (Again): Freezing Saturday in Indy: Food porn

We are here in Indianapolis for the Big Ten Men’s basketball tournament (quick background: we attended 5 years ago in DC & Purdue was the 1 seed and lost the first game; deflating ):).

The day started with brunch with our niece and her SO at a place a few blocks from our studio VRBO downtown — Garden Table. Cool little place. Seems to specialize in juices, which come in a plastic bottle (I didn’t ask, didn’t get told). The cool kids had one. I had their “garden Benedict” which had no description, but turned out like this:

I don’t know what the SO had, but it looked like this.

This was followed closely by a 7 minute walk from the parking lot (I was told I didn’t really get closer than the day before with my choice 😡) in a 20 mph wind on a 25 degree day. Fun.

Then two games. The first with IU playing Iowa, was like an IU home game, much red and the annoying group in front of us who thought they had to jump up for every play. Thanks folks. But is that better or worse than the guys behind us, Iowa fans, who did play by play and commentary throughout the game, including nicknames for everyone (it was “Jay Bo” who hit the winning shot 😳). A lot of the field house cleared after IU lost.

The second game, the Purdue game, started well. They had the lead the entire game, including up 7 at halftime. and 13 deep into the second half. Then they did the 2022 “Purdue thing” (like IU did the 2022 IU thing) and let them back in it, to the point it was only a 2 point game near the end. But it was never tied and they ended up winning by 5. Whew! We have tickets for Sunday, so happiness.

Then home to change, then off to dinner with college friends (Indy was kind of our secondary hangout back in the day) at a place called Oakley’s bistro, which has won some Bobby Flay contests (so said the menu). The conversation was great — we closed the place (sorry, wait staff) and here is the food: short ribs, meat loaf (their specialty), pasta (who had that?), and trout risotto. With a chocolate torte and cookie dough with ice cream for dessert.