Restaurant Review: Eleven at the Pyramids
By Susan McKee
The Road Trips Foodie
Indy has its landmarks, and a trio of ’em sit side-by-side on the far northwest side of Indianapolis. The Pyramids, designed in the 1960s by Kevin Roche John Dikeloo and Associates as the headquarters for College Life Insurance Company of America, now house an eclectic mix of uses.
One major tenant in the middle of the three (which are, indeed, reminiscent of the Egyptian pyramids) is the Art Institute of Indianapolis, 3500 DePauw Boulevard, Indianapolis, Indiana. Tucked into Pyramid 2’s top floor is Eleven at the Pyramids, the student-run restaurant at The International Culinary School that’s part of the for-profit, post-secondary school. Yes, you can see all the way downtown, some 12 miles to the southeast, through the angled windows that run from almost floor-to-ceiling.
During the summer, the restaurant was open to the public for the first time — to give the students a real-world taste of their chosen career. Your Road Trips Foodie made a stop there for dinner in August. (Plans are to open it toward the end of each series of classes.)
Theme for the week was Germany, so one of the choices was a salad inspired by that favorite German vegetable, the cucumber. Of course, I had to try it — and it tasted as lovely as it looked (see photo, above left). Deftly sliced as thin as paper, the delicate veggie was offset by shreds of red cabbage and half-circles of white onion.
For my main course, I had Green Curry with Chicken (Kaeng Kiew Warn Kai). It was tagged on the menu as part of World Cuisine and allocated to India, although it obviously was Thai in origin — as the name attests. There was way too much jasmine rice in the bowl, but the chicken and vegetables were complemented by a curry sauce with nice touches of coconut, basil and fish sauce (see photo, at right).
My dining companions had the Macadamia-Crusted Mahi Mahi that was served with wasabi cream sauce, couscous and asparagus, which they pronounced excellent.
If your travels take you through Indianapolis, check the website to see if you can drop in to see what they’re serving next semester.
The Art Institute of Indianapolis is one of The Art Institutes, a system of more than 45 education institutions located throughout North America.
(Photos © Susan McKee)
