Perfect May Day

Spring is my favorite time of the year. The days get longer, the temperature warms but it isn't too hot to be uncomfortable, and I love the spring time showers we get (not the thunderstorms so much, though). It is the best time of the year for sports too as racing starts, you get the NCAA tournament, and the NHL playoffs. In particular, May is a great time to be in Indianapolis with the 500 and all of its festivities. Unfortunately I will not be able to attend the race this year as I will be out of town for graduation. Carb day and pole day are out too as I have work and a wedding to attend next Saturday. So I decided to head down to the track yesterday to see and hear the cars for opening day of practice. It was a lot of fun to see (and hear) the cars going around the historic track. I think Sarah enjoyed it too as she has never seen the Indy Cars go around the track, just F1. It is nice to go on a day other than race day as it only cost $5 per ticket and the crowds are much, much less of a hassle. We stayed for a few hours until it started to sprinkle then we decided to take off.

Next we went to Broad Ripple with plans of attending the Broad Ripple Art Fair. It was quite overcast at this point and trying to rain so we decided to grab something to eat first. At this point I want to introduce a new section on my site about restaurants. There are a ton of good restaurants in the Indy area and Sarah and I like to go out and try new ones when we can. Broad Ripple has a lot of cool local restaurants and since we were already down there we had the opportunity to try a new restaurant. We decided to go to the Broad Ripple Brew Pub. It's a restaurant I have heard of before and it was mentioned in the most recent Indianapolis Monthly "Best Restaurants" issue.

Broad Ripple Brew Pub
Cost: $ (with $ = average price around $10 or less, $$ = $10-$20, $$$ = $20-$30, and $$$$ = $30 or more)

If you are going to go to the BRBP, I'd suggest going during a nice day when it is light out still and sitting outside. Sarah generally hates sitting outside and we elected to sit inside because there was no wait but the inside is quite dark. I think it would be better to sit out on the porch on a nice day, plus you get to do some people watching on the Monon trail. I decided to get the bison burger and Sarah got the Drunken Tortelloni. We were both satisfied with our food. My bison burger was cooked perfectly and was quite tasty. Being a brew pub, I decided to get a locally made beer. I ordered the Lawn Mower Pale Ale, which I was told was their Miller Lite equivalent. It was just OK. It tasted kind of like dish water honestly. The service was decent. The waiter was really nice but kind of slow. He apologized once about being slow. I think we was getting hammered at another table. I wasn't in any hurry and it really wasn't that big of a deal.

I am going to give the BRBP 3 out of 5 cheeseburgers. Let me explain my ranking system here since it is the first time I've reviewed a restaurant. One cheeseburger means it is awful and I would never go there on my own and would refuse to go there if I were in a group and they wanted to go there. Two cheeseburgers means it was pretty bad but I would probably be willing to return if I were with someone who wanted to go. Three cheeseburgers means that everything was fine and I would probably return if I were in the neighborhood but wouldn't necessarily go out of my way. Four cheeseburgers means everything was really good and would definitely return in the future. Five cheeseburgers means it is one of my favorite restaurants and would be a place I would take guests or families it is so good.