Community Bites: A Special New Year’s Eve Guide

Wondering what to do to ring in 2007 in style? Here is a list of area restaurants that are offering specials to help add some cheer to your holiday:

• The Artist’s Vineyard, 68 N. Ninth St., Noblesville, will host a
New Year’s Eve bash from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. on Dec. 31. The event includes live music, free appetizers, door prizes and champagne at midnight. Tickets are $30 per person or $50 per couple in advance. Call 317-219-3481 for reservations.

• Bourbon Street Distillery, 361 Indiana Ave., 317-636-3316. Live music with Michael Shelton and Matt Robers, dinner specials, no cover.

• Circle City Bar & Grille, 350 W. Maryland St., 317-405-6100. Special three-course prix fixe dinner from 6 to 10 p.m., $65/person.

• L’Explorateur, 6523 Ferguson St., 317-726-6906. Two special dinner seatings at 6 and 8:30 p.m. (with champagne toast), $65/person.

• Hard Rock Café Indianapolis, 49 S. Meridian St., 317-636-2550. Live music featuring Endobent from 11 p.m. to 2 a.m.

• Oakley’s Bistro, 1464 W. 86th St., 317-824-1231. Special three-course meal for $50 and a four-course meal for $65.

• The Oceanaire Seafood Room, 30 S. Meridian St., 317-955-2277. Special four-course dinner at 5 p.m., $75/person.

• R bistro, 888 Massachusetts Ave., 317-423-0312. Three special dinner seatings at 5 p.m., 7 p.m. and 9 p.m., $55/person.

• Rock Bottom Restaurant and Brewery, 10 W. Washington, 317-681-8180. $2 flutes of champagne and New Year’s Eve specials.

Readers’ recommendation

Once again, Mike Heneghan writes in to recommend one of Indy’s sweetest local treasures:
“We needed a treat. My wife Corrie and I are no strangers when it comes to the sweet stuff, regardless of season or time of day. On this Saturday, we’d lunched at Hoaglin-to-Go on Mass. Ave. — the country scramble of biscuits, gravy, eggs and jack cheese was dynamite — and continued our hunt for her birthday gift at Domont, Penumbra and Big Car art galleries. By this point the bulky feeling in my stomach had begun to wear off after the rigorous browsing. Dessert perchance? 4:15? Indeed! But where to go? Crawford’s and Long’s were a bit too far, and any Dairy Queens in the vicinity were surely of the walk-up, shut-down-for-the-season variety. “How about Rene’s?” I checked my mirrors and immediately did a U-turn towards Broad Ripple. Rene’s is a blue shack that has room for exactly three and a half humans. A locally-owned bakery run by Albert Trevino, its scrumptious lemon tarts are legendary in my own mind, doubtless in others as well. Everything is made from scratch here, and you can see it all happening just over the display case, today laden with clear jars of molasses cookies and chocolate brownies. Below were crème brulee, bourbon-chocolate-pecan pie, apple pie and the aforementioned tarts. Wanting a bit of everything, we left with a tart, the bourbon pie and a cookie for the road. Had to save room for dinner.”

Visit this wee bakery at 6524 Cornell Ave. or call 317-251-2253 for more information.