Here’s what you’ve all been waiting for: My list of where to eat (and not to eat) if you find yourself in Bloomington, Indiana. I’ve limited this to local restaurants (no chains), restaurants that are still in business (as far as I can discover), and I’m not including pizza joints–because Bloomington has more pizza joints than State College has restaurants, it’s amazing, every month or two, another one opens, and somehow, they all stay in business.
Well, there are a couple of exceptions to those limitations, and I’ll start with them.
Aver’s Pizza
1837 N. Kinser Pike
As a general rule, I object to the very concept of "gourmet pizza," but Aver’s does have one that’s extremely good, the Cream and Crimson (for you locals, cream and crimson are IU’s school colors, the Bloomington equivalent of blue and white), with thinly sliced roasted red potatoes, bacon (lots of it) and a gorgonzola cheese sauce. Really rich, and really good. Owned by the Lennie’s (keep reading).
Steak and Shake
I said local restaurants only, but God, I miss this place, not to mention the commercials (Why do we call it a milkshake? Because we can.) An Indiana chain, owned by Ed Kelley (RIP), the burgers are great, the fries are great, and they have the second-best milkshakes in town (for the best, keep reading). And speaking of chains:
Subway
Actually, Subway isn’t a Bloomington chain (and I don’t much like Subway), but yes, Jared Fogle is real, yes, he was an IU student at Bloomington, and yes, he lost over 200 pounds (supposedly) eating Subway sandwiches. I’ve met him. We had the same barber. As far as I know, he still lives in Bloomington.
Gray Brothers Cafeteria 555 S. Indiana St Mooresville, Indiana
Gray Brothers, one of the few still successful cafeterias in the US, largely because their food is so amazingly good, opened in Bloomington to great fanfare. After six months of incredible business (they were always packed), Gray Brothers suddenly closed with no warning. You’ll have to go to Mooresville, about thirty miles north, to the original.
Bears Place
1316 E 3rd St
On 3rd Street, which borders the south side of campus. Bears was a two-minute walk when I was in grad school, and I ate lunch there almost every day. There’s nothing phenomenal about the food, but it’s fine, it’s inexpensive, and you get it quick. It’s just down Jordan from the MAC (the IU opera house, the largest opera stage in the United States, and for locals, about three times the size seating-wise as the Eisenhower Auditorium).
Bombay House
416 E 4th St
Yawn. If you want Indian food, keep reading. There’s no point in going here.
Chapmans Restaurant & Banquet Center
300 S State Road 446
A reliably good, mid-century, nice restaurant, the kind of place you’d take your grandparents to if they were visiting and you wanted to go out for a nice meal with good service.
Chocolate Moose
401 S Walnut St
Okay, I’ve never eaten the food here (coneys, that sort of thing), but you’ve never had a chocolate milk shake until you’ve had one here, or at the Shakeburger in Paoli, Indiana. A tiny place the size of a carnival stand. And if you find yourself at the Shakeburger in Paoli, try the peanut butter milkshake–the broasted chicken rocks, too.
Cloverleaf Family Restaurant
2500 W 3rd St
A traditional diner, like Ladyman’s (RIP). It’s fine, but there’s better (keep reading).
Colorado Steak House
1635 N College ave
Also Ed Kelley’s, and so-so. The prime rib isn’t bad. Usually full of screaming, misbehaving small children (who for some reason love to come up and beat on you while their parents watch–this, by the way, seems to be more a Bloomington thing than a State College thing, since children here seem to be much better behaved).
Crazy Horse
214 W Kirkwood Ave # 416
Bar food. Okay for the genre.
Divino Mediterranean Cuisine
254 N Walnut st
We only ate here once, right after they opened (frankly, I’m surprised they’re still in business). The food was pretty good, actually, if a bit on the silly chi-chi side (you know, far too much attention paid to presentation). They had carpaccio on the menu when we went, and I ordered it. It had been marinated far too long, and was an unpleasant, soggy texture as a result–but the rest of the meal was quite nice.
Encore Cafe
3220 E 3rd St
This is one of the most overrated places in Bloomington. Go for the desserts, which are really good, and forget the mediocre, but way overpriced, food. It’s a silly, pretentious "Aren’t we artsy because we went for the warehouse look!" place, sort of a very small, chic and trendy take on the traditional cafeteria.
Gooldy and Sons Incorporated
926 W 17th St
Okay, this isn’t a restaurant at all, but a family-owned restaurant supply place. I really miss Gooldy and Sons. Not only do they have an amazing inventory, but when you buy something, it goes something like this. The price tag says, oh, $19.95, and the guy behind the counter looks at it and says, "I’ll let you have it for $14.95." And the price tag prices are really reasonable, too.
Hinkles Hamburgers
206 S Adams St
Hinkle’s is a Bloomington tradition, really, really, really great hamburgers.
Irish Lion
212 W. Kirkwood ave
I don’t know whether it’s me or what, but everybody loves this place and I just hate it. I mean, deep-fried pickles, are you serious?
Janko’s Little Zagreb
223 West 6th Street
I’m drooling just thinking about that ribeye. If you’re in Bloomington, Janko’s is a must-visit (but be prepared for IU Cream and Crimson basketball posters shrine to Bobby Knight decor–it’s IU after all,what do you expect).
Kilroys Bar & Grill
502 E Kirkwood Ave
More a bar than a grill , but they have really tremendous onion rings.
La Charreada
1720 N Walnut St
Eh, not bad for a northern Mexican chimichanga palace in the midwest. Not great, either.
La Torre
1155 S College Mall Rd
Vile.
Laughing Planet Cafe
322 E Kirkwood Av
I got dragged into this place against my will, kicking and screaming all the way. They serve only rainforest-friendly, transgendered-supportive, free-range and fair-trade vegan garbage food, like tofu burritos, nonsense like that. Everybody wears birkenstocks and stinks.
Le Petit Cafe
308 W 6th St
Very okay, little French place. I’m amazed they’ve been in business all these years, considering that you never see anybody there. I don’t particularly miss it, and I would never go there on my own, but if somebody wanted to go there, I wouldn’t object.
Lennies
1795 E 10th St
This is where the business school people lunch (beware–it’s small, and you’ll always wait until you go early or late), and they have one of the two best sandwiches in Bloomington, and the best roast beef sandwich in Bloomington, the Lennie’s Original (it’s the marinated red onions and the melted cheese, I think). And if you live in Bloomington and you’ve never had a Lennie’s Original, go as soon as you can and eat one.
Malibu Grill
106 N Walnut St
One of those uneven places where they have some good things on the menu and some not so good things. I’ve had pretty good meals there, and I’ve had a couple of unpleasant ones.
Mancinos Pizza & Grinders
916 N College Ave
The other of the two best sandwiches in Bloomington, the Italian Combo.
Mark Pis China Gate
3020 E 3rd St
This is one of the only two Chinese places I’ve listed, and for a couple of reasons. First, the turnover for Chinese places in Bloomington is very high, and the overall quality is much the same, mediocre, though there are always a couple of places that have some good things on the menu. Second, Mark Pi’s is not one of those places, but a sit-down restaurant with nice decor, and fairly good Cantonese and Mandarin food. As always, avoid like the plague Western Chinese items. And the other Chinese restaurant is:
Great Wall Restaurant
2038 N Walnut St
Another sit-down restaurant, with more traditional cheesy Chinese decor than Mark Pi’s (you know, plastic dragons, that sort of thing), but not bad at all (and after living here for almost two years, any Chinese place in Bloomington sounds good). Great Wall is where the local Republicans go for lunch, if you’re interested in making contacts (every time I went there for lunch, I saw the prosecutor).
Michaels Uptown Cafe
102 E Kirkwood Ave
The. Most. Pretentious. And. Overrated. Restaurant. In. Bloomington.
Opie Taylors
110 N Walnut St
A little sandwich place downtown on the square. Unremarkable, except that they have pretty good chili.
Runcible Spoon Cafe & Restaurant
412 E 6th st
The counter-cultural beatnik-y coffeehouse, full of intolerable excuses for human beings. I wouldn’t patronize this place if you paid me.
Shanti
221 E. Kirkwood ave
You want Indian? This is where you go. Pretty damned good.
Siam House
430 E. 4th St.
Sigh. This place opened to much fanfare back in the 90s, partly because the owner has an award-winning Cambodian restaurant in San Francisco. It was tremendous when it opened, and then the owner left town, and the quality rapidly declined. I have heard that she came back and whipped it back into shape, but I can’t swear to it. Once it got bad, we stopped going and never went back.
Snow Lion
113 S Grant st
As you may or may not know, the Dalai Lama’s brother lives in Bloomington (which has one of the largest Tibetan populations in the United States), and opened this restaurant. The fascinated-with-all-things-Tibetan hippie types love this place. For the moment, let’s forget that Tibetan food is the blandest, most boring food mankind has ever produced. The first of the two times I went there, right after it opened, the waiter–one of those hippie types–didn’t understand why I objected to a dead fly floating in my water. Need I say more? The restaurant is as dirty as its clientèle. The second time, the food was just as abysmal, and the restaurant (and waiter) just as filthy. Authentic, no doubt.
Trojan Horse
100 E Kirkwood ave
The successor to Zeus Gyros from the 70s. Pseudo-Greek, pretty good onion rings, and (no doubt because they don’t card too closely) a student hangout.
Wee Willie’s
1724 S Walnut St
Now that Ladyman’s is gone, this is the place to go for traditional. Great biscuits and gravy, great pies, great food all around (and when it’s on the menu, the beef manhattan is to die for).
dragonlady474 says:
I LOVE Gray Brothers Cafeteria! I always get the roast beef and pretty much every side dish you can imagine. Then there are the cakes and pies etc. I always gain about ten pounds lol.
The Amish restaurant you were talking about on my page is called Gasthof. We went there about two years ago when we were visiting Goldbloom. Awesome food, very sweet people.
April 28, 2007, 12:37 pmrightwingprof says:
Yup, the Gasthof (see here). And have you tried the HUGE pork tenderloin at Gray Brothers, with all that wonderful gravy? Amazing.
April 28, 2007, 12:49 pmMamacita says:
Two more words: Texas Roadhouse. It, like Camelot, is a silly place, but every steak I’ve ever had there could be cut with the side of my fork.
Waaaaah. . . . Ladyman’s. . . . .
April 28, 2007, 8:56 pmRobert says:
Actually I was thinking that Jared Fogel lives in Anderson, not Bloomington.
My wife’s an IU grad and she swears by the Chocolate Moose.
April 28, 2007, 10:24 pmXopher says:
Only one demur; like you, I prefer Shanti, but I’ve had perfectly good lunches at the Bombay House on 4th Street. You might want to note that while the cream and Crimson pizza at Aver’s is tasty, it’s also the saltiest pizza ever made. Not everyone would like it.
And Wee Willie’s deserves a little more kudos. It isn’t just a second-best replacement for the Ladyman’s of sacred memory. It was always a great place to get breakfast and to get away from college students.
April 30, 2007, 9:50 amtibet » Blog Archive » A Developing Program of Sichuan Province says:
[…] The fascinated-with-all-things-Tibetan hippie types love this place. For the moment, let’s forget that Tibetan food is the blandest, most boring food manking has ever produced. The first of the two times I went there, right after it … …Read More […]
May 2, 2007, 4:42 amtibet » Blog Archive » Bloomington Restaurant Guide says:
[…] populations in the United States), and opened this restaurant. The fascinated-with-all-things-Tibetan hippie types love this … …Read More […]
May 2, 2007, 9:54 amcambodia » Blog Archive » Bangkok thailand says:
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May 2, 2007, 10:18 amtibet » Blog Archive » Himalayan Cuisine - Nepalese - Indian - Tibetan - Durango, Colorado says:
[…] As you may or may not know, the Dalai Lama’s brother lives in Bloomington (which has one of the largest Tibetan populations in the United States), and opened this restaurant. The fascinated-with-all-things-Tibetan hippie types love this … …Read More […]
May 11, 2007, 5:06 amjon hunsberger says:
although i agree with most of your reviews, these seem to be just your political and social views instead of actual reviews of the places you have patronized. Also, the point of being a critic is to remain objective not to let your personal interests or beliefs sway your opinion.
May 11, 2007, 5:18 pmrightwingprof says:
Indeed they are my views, and they appear on my blog. However, politics has little to do with the fact that there is no such thing as a “tofu burrito,” except in some sick and twisted little mind, just as there is no such thing as “purple turnip-and-coconut chili.”
May 11, 2007, 5:25 pmtibet » Blog Archive » Tibetan rights still an issue after almost 60 years says:
[…] The fascinated-with-all-things-Tibetan hippie types love this place. For the moment, let’s forget that Tibetan food is the blandest, most boring food manking has ever produced. The first of the two times I went there, right after it … …Read More […]
May 13, 2007, 8:16 amtibet » Blog Archive » Bloomington Restaurant Guide says:
[…] hippie types love this place. For the moment, let’s forget that Tibetan food is the blandest, most boring food manking has ever produced. The first of the two times I went there, right after it … …Read More […]
May 13, 2007, 8:04 pmtibet » Blog Archive » Flying Wild says:
[…] As you may or may not know, the Dalai Lama’s brother lives in Bloomington (which has one of the largest Tibetan populations in the United States), and opened this restaurant. The fascinated-with-all-things-Tibetan hippie types love this … …Read More […]
May 17, 2007, 8:41 amcambodia » Blog Archive » Bloomington Restaurant Guide says:
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May 26, 2007, 6:51 pmcambodia » Blog Archive » Food Links says:
[…] This place opened to much fanfare back in the 90s, partly because the owner has an award-winning Cambodian restaurant in San Francisco. It was tremendous when it opened, and then the owner left town, and the quality rapidly declined. … …Read More […]
May 28, 2007, 6:12 amcambodia » Blog Archive » Bloomington Restaurant Guide says:
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May 31, 2007, 1:32 amtibet » Blog Archive » Can anyone help on this, please? says:
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[…] The fascinated-with-all-things-Tibetan hippie types love this place. For the moment, let’s forget that Tibetan food is the blandest, most boring food manking has ever produced. The first of the two times I went there, right after it … …Read More […]
June 10, 2007, 12:23 amtibet » Blog Archive » Manali to Leh says:
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June 11, 2007, 2:45 amcambodia » Blog Archive » "Watting" in Cambodia says:
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June 12, 2007, 9:40 amcambodia » Blog Archive » Cambodian Gold-diggers the sequel says:
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June 12, 2007, 6:08 pmtibet » Blog Archive » Happy Bday to Me says:
[…] The fascinated-with-all-things-Tibetan hippie types love this place. For the moment, let’s forget that Tibetan food is the blandest, most boring food manking has ever produced. The first of the two times I went there, right after it … …Read More […]
June 13, 2007, 12:28 amtibet » Blog Archive » Labrang Monastery says:
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