In Search of A Good Burger Review: The Stacked Pickle (Fishers)

Ok, I know I'm kind of late to the party on this one being that The Stacked Pickle has already been an existing restaurant in Carmel for some time and even the newer Fishers location has been open for quite a while now.  Even though I drive by it every day on my journey to and from work I have never once been inside.  I'm not sure why that was the case.  It's new and relatively close to my house.  Usually that alone is good enough for me to give it a try.  I think far too often that when we're deciding where to eat I have a tendency to forget about new places and fall into going to the old ones like warm comfortable blanket.  It is also the case that I have been pretty down on bar/pub food lately.  The last few of these establishments I've been to the food really hasn't been satisfactory.  I was really hoping to pull a Staind  and break the cycle (OMG late 90's pop culture!!) this time.

The Stacked Pickle in Fishers is located in an expanding strip mall on the corner of 116th and Allisonville.  It's conveniently located and has ample parking which is always nice.  My buddy and I went for lunch on a Saturday afternoon prior to a hellish fun day of Christmas shopping.  I was surprised at how empty the place was considering all the people that seemed to be out and about.  When we walked in there was no hostess in sight and no sign indicating what we should do so we grabbed a table.  It felt somewhat awkward when the hostess finally showed up and gave us our menus after we were already seated.  The interior is done in a lot of stained wood and the bar is featured promiently.  I have a feeling it's a pretty fun place to go at a later hour on a weekend. But since the reason for this journey was grub and not partying like a certain college basketball team that is undefeated and beat #1 Kentucky let's focus on the food.

The menu was pretty much what you'd expect.  Standard offerings of wings, sandwiches, and burgers.  I had a little trouble deciding, and considered ordering the breaded tenderloin, but I decided that I was in need of some cow in a bad way.  My buddy got the tenderloin, but I chose the patty melt with the standard side of battered fries.  When my food arrived I was definitely pleasantly surprised.  The swiss cheese was nicely melted, the onions perfectly grilled as to bring out their natural sweetness, and my burger was perfectly medium just as I had asked.  I'm so used to being asked how I want my burgers cooked and still getting a well done patty I almost went into shock when seeing that it was cooked correctly.  Furthermore the patty was very juicy and tasted incredibly fresh.  Even the rye bread that it was served on was incredibly tasty.  It was thick cut and had that distinct rye flavor that added a nice extra element.  The only mistake was that the Thousand Island dressing that was supposed to come on my sandwich was left off, and it took me a while to flag down our server to request a serving on the side.  The fries were just what the menu stated they were.  Standarded battered fries.  Nothing special here, but they were tasty.  If they had some sort of special seasoning it might bring them up a bit.

Normally I would just go into the taste and value ratings here as I don't often comment on service, but in this case I feel compelled to make an exception.  Now make no mistake our orders were taken, our food was brought out, and our drinks refilled in a reasonably prompt manner, but one of my pet peeves (especially in a not-that-busy restaurant with multiple servers) is not getting our checks when we're ready to go.  My friend and I waited an extremely long time after we had finished eating to get our checks while our server was having a lengthy animated conversation with the hostess.  Our server then walked right by us with our empty plates, and she was not prompt in returning.  Certainly didn't put a damper on the meal per se, or even prevented me from going back (definitely going back for the tenderloin) but it was annoying and fixable.   Alright enough of that.

Taste: 9/10 Not just a good patty melt, but a great one in my opinion.  Some special fries away from a 10 I would say.  I was kind of annoyed at the lack of TI on my patty melt, but it was supposed to be on there and the server did address it even if she was a bit hard to flag down.

Value 8.5/10 Of course I opted for a Diet Coke instead of a beer which kept the cost down some, but the meal was right around 10 bucks.  There was plenty of a food, and it was delcious.  I've paid 10 dollars for much worse meals in the past.