HI,

Just off 80 (I think) is the home of the Ethyl as well as a promised pork tenderloin sandwich:

R Place Restaurant
Interstate 80 and Route 47 (northeast corner of this exchange)
Morris, IL 60450
815/942-3690

They claim to have freshly pounded pork tenderloin. I tried to order one on a Sunday evening to find they were out.

Regards,

Davydd wrote:I will be starting my 2007 tour Monday and will sample a lot of new tenderloins.

One of the best that I have had
was at the Pawn Shop Pub in Indy.
The place closed a few years ago,
but recently re-opened in a
different location, but with
the same staff. I might have
to give it a try this weekend
and report back.

Pawn Shop Pub 2222 E 54th St.
Indianapolis, IN

The Pork tenderloin sandwich is easy to find just west of Chicago. In Morris, IL. off route 6 there is the Rockwell Inn which has it on its lunch menu:

www.rockwellinn.net

Further west on I-80 in Ottawa, and Marseilles most of the bars have a decent version, and many use Polancics pork tenderloins from a local butcher(who also has some of the best steaks in the Chicago area).

Bill Polancic's Meats & Tenderloins
412 W. Norris Drive
Ottawa, IL.

Last recommendation out west is The Cherry Supper Club, good pork tenderloin sandwich, and some of the best fried chicken in the state

www.cherrysupperclub.com

Ron's Cajun Connection in Utica, just off I-80 and I-39 has pork tenderloin on the menu but I've never made it past his cajun delights like the etouffee! Oh, and Amy's pecan pie!

http://www.ronscajunconnection.com/

likestoeatout,

Ron's is excellent & is my favorite restaurant to go to in the area

I live in Marseilles, and Rons is just a quick 10 min drive. In my opinion the best Cajun food in the Chicago area, much better than Heaven on Seven, or Maple Tree Inn.

jimswside wrote:likestoeatout,

Ron's is excellent & is my favorite restaurant to go to in the area

I live in Marseilles, and Rons is just a quick 10 min drive. In my opinion the best Cajun food in the Chicago area, much better than Heaven on Seven, or Maple Tree Inn.

I envy you, I'd be there every night! It's a half way stop from my home and the in-laws in Peoria so, a little over an hour for me. I see I just missed his crawfish boil.

likestoeatout,

I just moved outr here from Naperville about a year and a half ago, and am glad I stumbled upon this gem.

any chance I get I go to Ron's although sometimes I dont go if I know I am going to be there after 5 p.m., when the line is out the door.

The crawfish boils he has are excellent like everything else I have had on his menu.

Ron talked about getting a bigger place further west on 6. That's the only bad thing about word getting out about his good food and personality, it's no longer a "hidden" gem!

We will be driving down I-39 and then east on I-80 just about in time for lunch Monday. So, if we stopped for a tenderloin who has the best between Peru, Ottawa and Morris? We are going that way to miss Chicago as much as possible with our camper van but more so to to find a tenderloin.

My vacation travel karma in and around Chicago toll roads has not been pleasant. I totaled one car in being rear ended by a semi and had a fender bender with a semi last year. Another time I just missed being booted sideways by a semi moving over and coming within a inch of my rear view mirror before realizing I was there. Three semis behind me were blaring their horns to warn the guy and he figured it out just in time. On that one I was caught in the middle. Three semis in front of me, one on each side and three behind me. I must be a semi magnet.

Davydd wrote:We will be driving down I-39 and then east on I-80 just about in time for lunch Monday. So, if we stopped for a tenderloin who has the best between Peru, Ottawa and Morris? We are going that way to miss Chicago as much as possible with our camper van but more so to to find a tenderloin.

Ron's is not open on Monday but it fits your criteria as it's the first exit on I-80 going east of I-39. Next best bet would be jimswside's suggestion of the Rockwell Inn in Morris on US 6, exit at Rte. 47, then south to US 6 and then west a mile or so. It's open daily and it's worth a trip to see the beautiful hand carved bar that was made in 1893 for the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

Sweet Willie wrote:Take a look at Davydd's pork tenderloin website , he lists a few that are close to Westfield, such as: The Red Onion, Sheridan, IN and Muldoon’s Pub, Carmel, IN

Just called Muldoon's and they open at 11am (Central Time), looks like I'm having pork tenderloin sandwich for lunch.

--

traffic on Friday am was virtually non-existent so I was near Muldoon's about 10am so didn't get to stop there.

Had a pork tenderloin at Big Daddy's Pub in Shelbyville, IN (exit 116 off of I-74, go south on 44 about 1/2 mile) Not one of the best I've had but fixed my jonesen.

There was another place in Shelbyville I wanted to try but somehow missed it, called Three Fiddler's or Fiddler's Three. Anyone been ?

--

I think we might try the Rockwell Inn Restaurant in Morris. We probably will eventually stop at the Indiana Dunes SP. The Port Drive-in in Chesterton claims a pork tenderloin and made on the premise rootbeer. Anyone familiar with the Port Drive-in?

HI,

Did you try the Pork Tenderloin at the Silo in Lake Bluff, IL? It happens to be close to my home. So if you are ever planning to go, then give me a holler.

Regards,

I just tried the breaded pork tenderloin sandwich at Mug N Bun Drive-in on the west side of Indianapolis (W 10th St / Lynnhurst). It's not very good. The pork tenderloin was a thin piece of very firm texture. I don't know why it was that firm. It's pretty big size but just didn't taste very good.

I also ordered the catfish sandwich and that's very good though.

Hi,

When pork tenderloind sandwiches are on the menu I often inquire, "Are they fresh from the freezer?" This quickly separates the made on the premises from those provided by a food service. I do this largely to avoid the heartache of getting a miserable sandwich.

Regards,

docinthebox wrote:I just tried the breaded pork tenderloin sandwich at Mug N Bun Drive-in on the west side of Indianapolis (W 10th St / Lynnhurst).

A shame that you didn't
try Billy O’Neal’s on West 10th
and Girls School Road (in Speedway).
http://www.roadfood.com/Forums/topic.as ... hichpage=4
Anything but flat and dry.


Oh, and for future reference,
I'd say pass on the food at Mug 'n' Bun,
and just grab a bag of tamales
from the near-by Tamale Place
to enjoy with your Mug 'n' Bun
Rootbeer.

Thanks for the recommendation re: Billy O'Neal!

Mug N Bun's parking lot was packed full on Sunday night! Lots of customers. Boy, who would have thought their pork tenderloin was so messed up.

I think I figured out why the pork tenderloin at Mug N Bun is so messed up. Reason: price = $3.20. I just checked out the pork tenderloin at Billy O'Neal and it's $7.99. I think as a general rule, you need not check out places that sell pork tenderloin sandwich for less than 5 bucks. No wonder it tasted like a compressed piece of who-knows-what-misc-meat.

There's also a Ritter's Frozen Custard place near Billy O'Neal. And all these places are just 5 minutes drive from my apartment. I've been living here for almost 2 years now and I'm about to relocate elsewhere in two months. Just when I'm about to leave the area, all these wonderful eating places pop up. This is just great.

I guess I am totally off topic, but..
It sounds like the owners are very nice(at both places)-maybe someone in the know could ask if maybe they'd consider adding a PT Sand. to their repertoire for LTH'rs??? I bet it'd be guud.

The Depot American Diner
5840 W. Roosevelt
(773) 261-8422

Laschet's
2119 W Irving Park Rd
Chicago, IL 60618
http://www.laschetsinn.com/menu.html

Louise wrote:I guess I am totally off topic, but..
It sounds like the owners are very nice(at both places)-maybe someone in the know could ask if maybe they'd consider adding a PT Sand. to their repertoire for LTH'rs??? I bet it'd be guud.

The Depot American Diner
5840 W. Roosevelt
(773) 261-8422

Laschet's
2119 W Irving Park Rd
Chicago, IL 60618
http://www.laschetsinn.com/menu.html

Resi's (across the street and a little east from Laschet's) has long had pork schnitzels on the menu.

Geez, I feel silly. I should known that. I haven't been there in ages,

Cathy2, I have not been to the Silo yet. It is on my list. Right now I am on the road and just got to Washington DC. The last 5 days we have been camping near the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina sans Internet and even cell phones.

We did stop at the Rockwell Inn Restaurant on US 6 in Morris, IL. They had a great tenderloin. I highly recommend it.

Mug'n'Bun lives on a past reputation. Morris May, the longtime owner sold the business in 1998. In and around Speedway there are more than a half dozen better tenderloins. We will be there this week sampling some.

That Billy O'Neal tenderloin picture is mine. Billy O'Neal, an Indiana Basketball All-Star in high school, was a classmate of mine. He died a few years ago and the owner's renamed the pub after him. Billy O'Neal was not an owner.

81 posts and still on topic. Give this thread an award

Davydd, glad you enjoyed Rockwell Inn, it's a special place and worthy of a visit just to see the 1893 ornate carved bar. They have a lot more to offer than a good BPT. On your way home maybe divert north on Rte. 47 to visit the Blackberry Inn, just south of Elburn. It's just a bar pretty much out in the middle of nowhere ( well rampant growth will hit it soon, I'm sure) but has a great BPT as well as reubens and burgers at bar food prices.

We stopped at the Rockwell Inn on our way to North Carolina. It was a little out of our way but it was worth it and we missed most of the Chicago rush hour traffic.



Rockwell Inn Restaurant
2400 West Route 6
Morris, IL 60450
(815) 942-6334
http://www.rockwellinn.net

I don't know how many emails I have gotten to try The Igloo Drive-In in Peru, Illinois. So I did. I must sadly report they are but average and nothing to rave home about. It only took me about 10 miles off my route and it was lunch time anyway. This is yet another breaded pork tenderloin sandwich that has a reputation that exceeds delivery. I don't know if it is because the sandwich itself has changed or memory embellishes. There was nothing special about it in appearance, size, taste, preparation or tenderness. Culver's does it better. As you know I don't believe in words. I take a picture for comparison.



The Igloo Drive-In
2819 4th St.
Peru, IL 61354
815 223-0848

That's a pretty sad looking BPT, Davydd. I'm glad you enjoyed Rockwell Inn, it's long been a favorite stop on the trek to Champaign.

Davydd wrote:We stopped at the Rockwell Inn

That one looks really good.
Not too thin and not over-cooked.
One that looked similar in your
photo gallery was titled:
The Gnarly Pork Tenderloin Sandwich 9-3-06
Where can this be found?

The gnarly pork tenderloin sandwich was a pan fried pork loin of my own creation. I was experimenting trying to figure out how some restaurants get them so big. The answer is simple. They are frying pork loins not pork tenderloins. The taste is not all that indistinguishable but there are a lot of misnomers out there. Almost all deep-fried breaded pounded pork sandwiches are called tenderloins by restaurants. If they can pound one out to dinner plate size and still have some meat thickness it is a pork loin.

And then there are a few cheater restaurants that serve fritters or compressed made up pork patties. The Mug'n'Bun in Speedway, IN, Frisch's Big Boy in Xenia, OH and Tony's in Angola, IN on my web site can be classified as fritters.

We made our fourth trip from Minnesota to or through Indiana in our Class B campervan this year in my continuing pursuit of the breaded pork tenderloin sandwich as part of our travels. Previous trips were for the ICS Indianapolis 500 race, the NASCAR Brickyard 400 race and passing through on our way to Washington DC.

Our first stop on they way was in Baraboo, Wisconsin. We did not have a pork tenderloin but did sample the hamburger's at Monk's Bar in Baraboo. Sorry no photo of the burgers but on our way out of Baraboo we visited the International Crane Foundation where they have over 15 different cranes from all over the world and have taken on the task of saving the endangered Whooping Crane. Just a few short years ago there were only 21 in the wild. So let's start out with the rare Whooping Cranes for sheer enjoyment.



Moving on. Our next stop for lunch was the Igloo Drive-in that I previously reported on while on the trip. See prior message.

We reached Indianapolis Thursday night and cooked for ourselves. For lunch Friday we went to the Ale Emporium on Allisonville Rd just north of the 1-465 interchange in the Castleton area. They offered a grilled, breaded or beer battered pork tenderloin sandwich. For a change I had the beer battered along with a Bell's Oktoberfest beer on tap. This place is recommended if you are looking for a special ale or beer. The tenderloin was about average. It wasn't bad.



Then on Saturday for lunch we went out to the Mayberry Cafe in Danville right downtown on Main Street and the county court house square. Their tenderloin is a very worthy one and recommended. Note Andy Griffith's Mayberry police car parked out front.





Then Saturday night I attended my Speedway High School 45th Reunion in Parlour A & B at Brickyard Crossing on west 16th Street in Speedway. This was kind of special to me because it was also the 45th anniversary of working on my very first project in an architect's office and this building was it. It was known as the Speedway Inn and Motor Hotel at the time and was also a feature setting for the Paul Newman movie, Winning. It may be torn down soon for a major revamping of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and surrounding streets.



Dinner was a buffet of fried chicken, roast beef or turkey. I bribed the head waiter to prepare me a breaded pork tenderloin instead. I think they went out of the way with a special preparation. It was huge.



Sunday night we camped in Brown County State Park in southern Indiana and had dinner at the Brown County Inn Corn Crib Lounge in Nashville on State Highway 46 with friends. I again ordered the tenderloin.



The tastiest and best of this trip was the Mayberry Cafe despite the kitsch based on the old Andy Griffith TV show. After all that I was tenderloined out despite driving back through the tenderloin heartland of Illinois, Missouri and Iowa and passing up other known opportunities. So I leave you with this.

We had an interesting sunrise/sunset day Monday. We departed Brown County State Park very early to capture this shot just minutes before the sun came up. Brown County could best be described as a miniaturized Smoky Mountains. I love the place.



And we arrived at Lake Darling State Park near Fairfield, Iowa to catch this sunset from our camp site.