Dine & Dash: Beers, burgers, pastor and more 🍽
Mini reviews of Southpark Brewing, Zapata Mexican, Gurkhas Kitchen, Red's Sunset Grill and Briar Mart
Consider this a bigger batch of shorter shoutouts to recent meals had. I don’t turn all my meals out into formal reviews, but I always try to do some social media at the least, and this is an attempt to do one better than that with some quick impressions. Two spots below are newer, and the others are throwbacks. Cheers. — Schniper
Southpark Brewing
I ran this reader-contributed guest review from my good pal Carrie Simison last June when Southpark opened, having moved into the former Smiling Toad after relocating from Fairplay. But I finally visited myself recently, ordering two sample paddles to taste through eight of the dozen available beers that day. We divided the flights into mostly hoppy brews and then fruity/sweet ones. Here’s some details and tasting notes:
The Ranch Hand Ale is a sessionable cream ale that drinks similar to a Pilsner. The New England-style Mad Juicy IPA leads with grapefruit notes and holds hints of orange peel bitterness, otherwise tropical in character. Open Range IPA has the color of an amber brew, with caramel in the nose and a malty, bready flavor mixed in with the hops (Cascade and Chinook in this case); it’s sweet on the front end, bitter in the closing. While Chasing the Elephant (the biggest of those four, at 7% ABV) is a DDH hazy style that’s very much on the highly bitter side of IPAs, finishing a bit drier on the palate, too. Overall: a nice, diverse showing, and I’d probably order a full pint of the Mad Juicy IPA first.
To the less modernly traditional brews, the Orange Blossom Honey Wheat has a clean straw nose and honey wheat bread taste, easy and light. Southpark’s Cherry Blond Ale tastes like real fruit thanks to 300 pounds of cherries that go in the second fermentation; we appreciate the lack of synthetic flavoring (despite a bit of lactose utilized to heighten sweetness) and especially that it doesn’t evoke any cough syrup associations (like the worst of offenders out there in the cherry spirits realms). The S’mores Imperial Stout, by contrast, cloys with more added lactose plus graham cracker and marshmallow flavorings; we taste some cinnamon and vanilla essences in there as well, and as a whole it’s just too sweet for me. I worried that the Mornin’ Fix Cream Ale might be equally saccharine, but it’s balanced by toasty roasty dark coffee notes (hence the name), with flavors of hazelnut and vanilla added. We dig it.
Mark Southpark as a place to grab a decent bite, and not just drink, as they run a small in-house menu of chicken sandwiches and smash burgers (plus fries, cheese curds and tenders). We order the Nashville Hot Chicken Sandwich and German Smash Burger, both coming on quality brioche buns that make a difference. The chicken’s marinated for a day in buttermilk and spices and has a nice crunchy breading, popping with topping pickle acidity. The house slaw rates good, as do the side of not-limp fries.
What makes the burger German is bratwurst ground in with the beef, then it gets sauerkraut, cheddar and mustard. We add caramelized onions for $1 and that only brings the total to $14.75 (yay for an awesome sub-$15 burger, especially with fries included!). As for meeting the textural demands of a smash burger, it holds up, with crispy edges and a juicy interior. For brewery fare, we’re impressed, feeling like the food’s not an afterthought, but part of the outfit’s focus.
Zapata Mexican Taco Shop
With three locations now, relatively newer brand Zapata has quickly become rooted around the Springs. If you go for one thing, make it the excellent house pastor. Having had that on tacos during my first visits to the OG Rockrimmon location in 2019, I wanted something different when I dropped into the Voyager location recently to cover Goat Patch Northgate’s opening.
I found that something different on the menu by ordering the Arrieros — a word I learned translates to muleteer, which is a person who drives mules, like for more primitive transport explains a staffer to me. Anyway, it’s a flour tortilla quesadilla-like construction, but thick, with a rich tri-mix of pastor, carne asada and chorizo. That gets all melted together with Mexican cheese, beans, onions and cilantro.
Expectedly, all that results in a really rich, slightly fatty, lightly salty, hugely filling plate of yum-yum. (In other words, it nails all the savory bliss points.) I hit the salsa bar for condiments and pick up the extra spicy red sauce, the medium roasted salsa and an avocado crema, which comes in handy to cool my mouth after I happily overdo the extra spicy; it’s no joke. Everything’s bright and fresh and I’m reminded why I liked the place when I first danced with it. (That’s a playfully veiled reference to the art over the salsa bar in the below image, if you’re really paying attention.)
Gurkhas Kitchen
I gave Gurkhas a favorable writeup in the CS Indy a few years ago when it first opened. (I’ll keep saying it: RIP Indy online archives of my career, ugh.) I had reason to go back recently when I was in the neighborhood and seeking a lunch spot on the fly (as another spot was closed when we didn’t expect it). I was super glad to find a $15.99 lunch buffet — putting me at $41.60 out the door, post-tax and -tip, for lunch for two. And it being a buffet, we properly stuffed ourselves.
I didn’t take notes as we were having another meeting, so I’m not going to list off items one-by-one here with critiques. But I do recall having a broad impression that all items were delicious and on-point for their styles, with a diverse array for vegetarians and omnivores. The food was bright, fresh-tasting (especially for things under heat lamps), and seemingly just as well prepared as if they’d been ordered à la carte during evening service. I also appreciated that the chai was included in the price, so I filled several cups up from a big carafe near the buffet’s hot line. In two words: can recommend.
Briar Mart
By contrast to Gurkhas and Zapata Mexican, my return after many years to Briar Mart was not as promising. After 32 years in business — inside of an old Mexican restaurant that itself operated for four decades, I’m told — the place feels very dated. The parking lot is an odd mess, poorly marked and hard to navigate (and seriously how often do I comment on a parking lot?). The beat up bathroom had no hand towels (also, how rarely do I comment on bathrooms?) The entryway puts you into a tiny retail market which you must pass through to reach the rear counter for a dine-in or to-go menu; we look for a bell to ring or something at first, because nobody’s there. It all feels awkward.
A friendly enough person does appear quickly enough to take our order. I get a vegetarian combo plate (the actual name of which on the menu I can’t recall, and can’t find online). Everything’s just serviceable through and through, from dolma to spanakopita, hummus (Hamsa has ruined me for life) tzatziki, falafel, salad and pita. Nothing pops such that I’d tell anyone about it or think about returning. Again, just serviceable, perhaps barely so. Whether it is or not, the place gives the impression it’s just maintaining status quo, or potentially even on its way out. Bygone is the word that comes to mind.
Red’s Sunset Grill
From the folks behind Back East Bar & Grill, Abby’s Irish Pub, Atmosphere Gastropub and Red’s American Grill comes Red’s Sunset Grill. It’s in the former Beasts and Brews spot, with the pour-your-own-beer stations removed and a big new bar partly in their place. Red’s Sunset overlooks the backside of the Ford Amphitheater and of course has a great mountain view.
Again I’m having lunch with a friend so I don’t take lots of notes, but I do scribble a few thoughts. The deviled egg shooters appetizer reads great with pork belly lardons and seasoned egg filling inside a phyllo cup. But the wilted lettuce they are perched on foretells our disappointment with the final execution. Smoked paprika is absent in the taste and even with the chicharrón-like pork bits they just don’t deliver a whole lot of substantive flavor.
Our burgers are pretty bangin’ though, on good brioche buns, and I dig the grilled asparagus option as a side. I don’t taste my dining mate’s, but he’s happy, ditto with his tots. My lamb burger gets chimichurri and a goat gouda plus mushrooms and piquant pickled red onion. It holds a nice mix of the gamey protein, earthy topping elements and vegetal backbone. I need to return to try more of the expansive menu — which has various entrées and a raw bar list — before I would pass more judgment, but for now I think it lives up to the wider brand’s reputation for generally more gourmet and high quality pub food, call that an elevated sports bar or whatever.
Oddly (unfortunately?) found myself at Briar Mart last week. You’re spot on. Looking for a good middle eastern spot on north academy. Let me know if you’ve got one. Can’t wait to try the Southpark spot.