Northside Social - Revisit

Hubby and I were having a hard time deciding where to eat the other day, but we wanted a nice sit-down place, not too far, locally owned, and where we could get in without a reservation.  So we settled on Northside Social. It had been awhile, and I have heard a few good things lately—and the last dinner I had was pretty good even though it was a long time ago. I like the low country bent of the menu—southern coastal food with a fair amount of Cajun type flavors. 

I appreciate the upscale interior of this place—particularly in Broad Ripple. Sadly, it was pretty empty when we got there—although it picked up somewhat while we were there. Our server was very friendly and knowledgeable about the menu. 

We started with the mushroom tart ($13). It was a tart crust topped with a whole lot of sautéed (local) mushrooms, a big slab of Capriole Kentucky Tomme cheese, petals of pickled red pearl onions and crispy fried kale. This was truly delicious. Honestly, I couldn’t get over how good it was. The buttery tart with the rich, slightly pungent cheese, earthy mushrooms and kale and the perfect hit of acid with the onions was tremendous. I would get this every time.

For our main dishes, we got the fried chicken (shocker I know) ($23) and a special pasta dish with shrimp. The fried chicken was pickle brined and buttermilk marinated and had more of a corn meal sort of breading. It was served with pimento mac and cheese and bacon braised collard greens. I loved the very mild sour flavor from the pickle and buttermilk, the crust was unbelievably crisp—normally I don’t prefer a cornmeal crust, but this was really tasty. And we didn’t eat it all that night and it was almost better the next day. I was super impressed by how moist and tender all the chicken was—even the breast, which was very large—which I find to be notoriously dry usually. The mac and cheese was a large portion and extremely decadent with pimento cheese. The collard greens weren’t bad either, although compared to everything else, they weren’t as impressive. 

Sadly, the pasta was not as tasty as everything else for me, although it was still good. It was pasta with a light buttery pesto-type sauce with spring peas, pine nuts and some large shrimp. The shrimp were not overcooked, which was nice. Hubby liked it more than I did—or I guess I just preferred the other things. 

All in all, I was quite impressed with the food we had and the various flavor profiles in each dish. If you haven’t been in a while, you might want to check it out again. 

Northside Social

6525 N. College Ave

Indy.  46220

317/253-0111

www.northsidesocial.com 

Posted in: Indianapolis Restaurants