I've always liked going out to Indianapolis and I'm starting to like it even more now that I've got a dealer who is doing some business and we're working with a distributor who has a warehouse in Indy. The guys at my dealer told me there was a great Mexican restaurant not far from their store called La Hacienda (see map). While I was in Indy recently, we met up there after work for some great Mexican food.
Now, I believe there are three or four La Hacienda's around the Indianapolis area. I believe all of them are connected in some way, but I couldn't find much information about the company when I did my research. In any event, La Hacienda may be the most popular Mexican restaurant in Indianapolis since El Sol de Tala shut down for nearly a year and a half doing renovations at their original East Washington location. I understand the place is now open again and I'll have to try it to see if it's as good as it was before.
I met three of the guys from Ovation Ultimate at La Hacienda off of Binford Blvd. after they closed the store for the evening. Duke, the store manager, was telling me how great this place was and he had me convinced that we had to give it a shot. He said, "Great food, great margaritas. Cold beer. La Hacienda has it all."
We sat down at a table in a 1/3 full restaurant around 8:30 one evening and we were greeted with menus, a basket of homemade chips and some great salsa that was loaded with cilantro and had a nice kick to it. I ordered up a Sol beer for starters while the others got margaritas. I knew I would get one of their margaritas later, but for now I needed a cold beer.
The menu is certainly authentic Mexican when it comes down to La Hacienda. It's not your typical American-ized Mexican restaurant. There are a lot of excellent choices on the menu with lots of pork, beef and chicken dishes. Duke wholeheartedly recommended the roasted pulled pork tacos with refried beans and Mexican rice. He said, "It's not on the dinner menu, but they'll make it for you."
They slow cook the pork in a number of spices until it literally falls apart. They have a pulled pork dinner, but Duke said, "Oh, man, the tacos at lunch are even better, I think. And if you ask them, they'll make 'em for dinner." So Duke and I went with that.
One of the guys went with the carnitas dinner - pork tips cooked in spices and served with grilled onions, guacamole, peppers, rice and refried beans and accompanied by three tacos to make them fajita style. And the other guy went with the Cancun special - chicken strips marinated then grilled and served with rice and hot peppers in a creamy cheese sauce. It looked damn good.
I had to have a margarita before they brought my food and I had to agree with Duke - the margaritas were great. In fact, I ended up getting a couple pitchers of them for the table during our meal.
And I have to say the meal was outstanding. The pulled pork was tender and tasty. Topped with goat cheese and lettuce, the pulled pork tacos were just killer. Along with the margaritas, it was a Class A "spot-hitter".
The bill before taxes and tip was about $100 bucks for the four of us. The margaritas were about half the bill, but they were worth it. I'm sure there are a lot of good Mexican restaurants around Indianapolis, but La Hacienda showed me why they're arguably the best and most popular of Mexican restaurants in the area.
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