Roadfood_ Revised Edition - Jane Stern [155]
Like all the top tenderloin restaurants, Smitty’s is a humble setting. It has a scattering of tables and a friendly counter where locals sit and shoot the breeze at lunch hour. Although the menu includes a handful of other lunch-counter meals—hamburgers, double hamburgers, Coney Island hot dogs, a lovely corn dog, a bowl of chili—“King Tenderloin” is the dish to eat. Available in small or large sizes (small is large; large is nearly a foot across), Smitty’s tenderloin is served on an ordinary burger bun. The bun is virtually irrelevant except as a method for keeping ketchup, mustard, onions, and pickles adjacent to the center section of the ten-inch-diameter cutlet, and as a kind of mitt to hoist the vast tenderloin from plate to mouth. It is a marvelous disk of food: its inside a soft and flavorful ribbon of pork succulence, its crust brittle and luscious.
For homesick Iowans who live in a place where pork tenderloins are not part of the food scene, Smitty’s can ship them frozen by the dozen, ready to fry, to any of the lower forty-eight states.
Tastee Inn and Out
2610 Gordon Dr.
712–255–0857
Sioux City, IA
LD | $
No one but the staff goes inside Tastee Inn and Out. Meals are procured at either a walk-up or drive-through window, and they are eaten either in the car or at a picnic table in the parking lot. Run by the Calligan family for over a half-century now, this ingenuous eatery specializes in what it calls a Tastee sandwich, known elsewhere in northwest Iowa as a tavern or a loosemeats: seasoned, barely sauced ground beef shoveled into a bun with a slice of bright orange cheese, pickle chips, and onion. It is sloppy and addictive; its only possible companion is an order of onion chips, which are bite-size, crisp-fried petals of sweet onion, customarily served with a creamy dip similar to ranch dressing.
Michigan
Bortell’s Fisheries
5510 S. Lakeshore Dr.
231–843–3337
Ludington, MI
L (summer only) | $
You catch it, they’ll cook it. BYO seafood to this old fish market and smokehouse where the menu includes walleye, catfish, trout, and whitefish from nearby waters. Bortell’s also imports ocean perch and Alaskan salmon; so even if you don’t have your own catch, you will have a wide variety of flavorful smoked fish from which to choose. It is sold by the piece or pound.
On the road between Pentwater and Ludington and identified by a simple sign that says, “Fish,” Bortell’s is easy to drive right past, but if the car windows are open, you will likely smell sweet wood smoke in the air. Step up to the counter, place your order, and pay. There is no dining room and business is strictly take-out. Once you get your fish, find a picnic table outside to eat in the shade under the grove of ancient beech trees. Bring your own bread, beer, and cream cheese.
The Cherry Hut
246 Michigan Ave.
231–882–4074
Beulah, MI
LD Memorial Day–mid-Oct | $
Comfort-food lunch is grand at this 1920s roadside eatery: sandwiches, turkey dinner, lovely cinnamon rolls, and turkey salad brightened up with cherries. But it is pie baked from locally grown cherries that is the destination dish. Bright red fruit spills out the sides of each unwieldy slice—the cherries are a little sweet, a little tart, and the crust adds a luxurious savor. With a scoop of creamy vanilla ice cream, it’s a perfect, all-American dessert.
Dining facilities include outdoor picnic tables as well as indoor tables, and part of the Cherry Hut experience is buying things to take home. The restaurant shop sells not only whole fresh pies (five hundred per day), but also jellies, jams, and a wide array of Cheery Jerry, the Happy Pie-Faced