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Photo TR: Jason's Roadfood Adventures

Update: Fat Daddy's BBQ, Georgetown, DE
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Re: Photo TR: Jason's Roadfood Adventures

Postby printersdevil78 » Sat Aug 18, 2012 12:42 pm

The quest for good food continues in Kentucky and moves north into Indiana. Enjoy!
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Still full the next morning, I drove into downtown Metropolis and spent a couple hours at the Super Museum, which was awesome! Because the town’s annual Superman Celebration started just a day or two later, they were already welcoming guests. I got to meet an actor who played Superboy in an unsold TV pilot in the 1960s.

But that’s a topic for another thread (which I may or may not ever get around to starting). With half the day behind me and my Doe’s meal finally settled, I headed out in search of more. First restaurant of the day: Marion Barbecue in Marion, KY.
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This is where the magic happens.
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And this is where you sit after ordering the magic. The screens to keep the flies away were a nice touch.
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This was really good! For reasons I don’t quite understand, they tend to dress most pulled pork sandwiches in Kentucky with pickles and onion. I’m not a fan of raw onion, so I usually opted out of those. As for the pickles, when in Rome (or Kentucky)….
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I drove a little out of my way to get to my next stop, in Sebree, KY: Bell’s Drug Store.
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It’s been here for a long time….
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As I was on my way in, a regular customer on his way out, obviously noticing I was from out of town, smiled and said, “Get ready to step back in time.” It was a cool experience.
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They like Coke at this place. They really like Coke at this place!
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Do what the window says and no one gets hurt!
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However, I did not do what the window said. Instead, I ordered up the house-specialty orangeade. It was pretty good, but probably not worth driving a half hour out of my way for. I also probably should have tried the store’s other specialty, lemon ice: a cup of ice pellets filled with fresh lemon juice and salt, which somehow is supposed to give the lemons a “sweet” taste. With a number of restaurants left on the day’s agenda, I wasn’t feeling quite that adventurous.
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Next up was a place I had been wanting to try for quite some time. The outside of the Bon-Ton Mini Mart (which is really a restaurant, not a store) is nothing to write home about, and it’s located smack dab in the middle of Nowhere, USA (actually, Henderson, KY… but the “nowhere” part of Henderson), but the fried chicken served inside supposedly is the best to be had in the United States according to numerous polls.
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I was a little nervous about taking photos inside, as my entrance prompted one of those mass “You’re not from around here, are you?” stares from just about everyone in the restaurant. But I did sneak this one in. Notice that the tables and chairs are actually old kitchen and dining room sets. Unlike at Lynn’s Paradise Café, this wasn’t necessarily done for atmosphere; it’s just what was available.
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And here’s the main attraction. Only… I didn’t think it was that great. Now, I’m not much of a fried chicken person most of the time, and maybe that had something to do with it, but for the “best” fried chicken in the country, this didn’t impress me too much. The coleslaw, on the other hand, was my favorite kind… but since it was served at room temperature, leading me to believe it had been sitting out for awhile, I didn’t really trust it much beyond the first bite. The fries were fries, and the bread was a grilled hamburger roll.
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Afterward, I tried a slice of the Bon Ton’s chess pie, which was good, though not as good as what I got in Louisville. I had hoped they might have had Kool-Aid pie that day, as well, as I understand it’s an occasional special, but alas, they did not.
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After my somewhat disappointing experience at the Bon-Ton, I drove to the other side of town to sample some more mutton barbecue at Thomason’s Barbecue.
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Having a smoker door that opens right up into the order area is usually a good sign.
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And it definitely was in this case! The mutton was leaps and bounds above what I got at Moonlite (and the Moonlite version was pretty good itself, sans the bones). The beans were amazing, complemented with little bits of pulled pork… and even the lemonade was good! The ingredients: water, lemons, sugar. No preservatives here!
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Piggy says, “Thanks for ordering the lamb and not mama!”
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From there, it was a long drive to my next restaurant destination: the Mug ’N’ Bun Drive-In of Indianapolis, IN.
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Indy’s oldest drive-in has a lot of components. First, there’s the drive-in itself.
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Then there’s another building just for pizza…
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...as well as a separate dine-in area.
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After a short wait, my food appeared. In case you’re wondering, the root beer wasn’t as good as Frostop or Stewart’s… but it was still pretty good.
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The “bun” in the drive-in’s name doesn’t allude to hamburgers (though they do serve burgers), but to the breaded pork tenderloin sandwich, a Midwestern specialty. This was my first sampling, and I definitely want to try some more the next time I’m in that part of the country! The breading was so flaky and delicate, a small portion of it literally fell off inside the wrapper. As for the toppings… mustard and onion are traditional, but since I don’t like raw onion, the carhop suggested I try pickles instead. They were good, though next time I would take about two-thirds of them off; they sort of interfered with the goodness that was breaded pork.
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Believe it or not, after all that I still had one roadfood stop left to make for the evening: the Triple XXX Family Restaurant in Lafayette, IN. I’d actually tried to stop at one more place in Indianapolis, called Workingman’s Lunch, which was supposed to have really good hamburgers. However, when I got there, it didn’t look like it was open, and if my read of the neighborhood was correct, it didn’t seem like a great place to get out and start pulling on locked doors.
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Outside the Triple XXX, lighted, covered parking areas are for carhop service on the weekends. During the week, they’re just for parking.
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The Triple XXX, by the way, besides being redundant, doesn’t stand for what you might think. It’s actually America’s oldest commercial root beer brand, now only served in a handful of places. Like Frostop, the once-industrious Triple XXX drive-ins have all but faded from the scene, with only a couple independently owned examples left.
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Inside, everything is in “root beer” orange and brown (not sure how those came to be the nationally recognized colors of root beer, but they are, even though Triple XXX’s logo colors are red and yellow). Want a table or a booth? Tough. This counter snakes throughout the restaurant and provides the only seating. Not that that’s a bad thing.
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Like many good roadfood restaurants, the walls were covered with autographed photos of local “celebrities,” mostly Purdue University coaches and athletes.
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All the online reviews raved about the double “chop steak” sandwich (that’s a cheeseburger to you and me) and the root beer. Unfortunately, I thought the burger was just average, and the root beer was probably the worst I had the entire trip. I thought maybe the syrup in the machine was just low, but alas, a replacement beverage proved otherwise.
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Looks like Guy beat me again!
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A note about the root beer: My father likes to sample different soft drinks from around the country, so I got him a carton of Triple XXX to try. He’s not the biggest root beer fan, but he really liked it. So maybe there really was something wrong with the fountain the night I tried it. I don’t know; he’s supposed to be saving me a bottle so I can find out.
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Re: Photo TR: Jason's Roadfood Adventures

Postby gisco » Sun Aug 19, 2012 8:27 am

Cool report. I like stopping at these out of the way places when I vacation. Not a fan of the big chains when traveling.
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Re: Photo TR: Jason's Roadfood Adventures

Postby x2isawesome » Tue Aug 21, 2012 9:39 am

Just read the entire thred from start to finish and I am now really hungry for some reason. Really enjoy seeing some of these quirky out of the way places that usually have awesome food.
Last edited by x2isawesome on Tue Aug 21, 2012 7:16 pm.
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Re: Photo TR: Jason's Roadfood Adventures

Postby ginzo » Tue Aug 21, 2012 5:20 pm

Back in May we made a detour after Holiday World to Henderson and had chicken from the other well known place in town: Mr. D's (the Bon Ton Mini Mart was closed). We thought it was excellent. Much better than Willie Mae's Scotch House, which made good fried chicken, but seemed to be milking the heck out of their fame.
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Re: Photo TR: Jason's Roadfood Adventures

Postby printersdevil78 » Tue Aug 21, 2012 7:42 pm

^Yep, I had Mr. D’s address saved in my GPS in case the Bon Ton was closed (or out of chicken, which I understand happens sometimes). When I was planning the vacation, I originally thought about trying them both, but I would have had to have missed out on the Marion Barbecue or Mug ‘n’ Bun to do so due to their opening and closing times, respectively. Since I’m not a big fried chicken person to begin with, I figured I’d pick one or the other, and the Bon Ton had the better reputation.

Now I’m curious as to what I missed. Probably won’t drive all the way back to Henderson to find out, though!
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Re: Photo TR: Jason's Roadfood Adventures

Postby ginzo » Tue Aug 21, 2012 8:34 pm

^Yeah, if you're not into fried chicken, then it's definitely not worth going all the way out there. I think it was like a 100-mile detour from Holiday World. Thankfully, we were hungry and there aren't many good food options around there.
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Re: Photo TR: Jason's Roadfood Adventures

Postby printersdevil78 » Wed Aug 22, 2012 5:55 am

^If I ever make it out to Holiday World again, I'm hoping to take the same detour to Jasper, IN, that we did in 2009 after we saw a brochure for Schnitzelbank. It's still the best German resturant I've been to.
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Re: Photo TR: Jason's Roadfood Adventures

Postby Hilltopper39 » Wed Aug 22, 2012 6:14 am

For whatever reason there are a LOT of really good little hole in the wall BBQ joints in the western part of Kentucky. I went to school in Bowling Green and there were probably 7 or 8 really good spots in that little town alone.
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Re: Photo TR: Jason's Roadfood Adventures

Postby jray21 » Wed Aug 22, 2012 11:40 am

Great reports! Love all of the places you try. That pork tenderloin looked so good!
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Re: Photo TR: Jason's Roadfood Adventures

Postby printersdevil78 » Sat Aug 25, 2012 12:39 pm

In this installment: Indiana Beach and onward into Michigan. Enjoy!
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I don’t usually include theme park food in the roadfood thread, but in the case of Indiana Beach, I’ll make an exception… mostly because I discovered the park itself contained two limited Roadfood chains that I’d wanted to try for awhile. First up: Dog ’N’ Suds.
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Let me say that the service here wasn’t great, nor was the root beer. But the hot dog was… decent. The chili seemed to be a sweet version of Cincinnati style instead of the savory Texas variety I was expecting, so that was a surprise. I probably would have left off the mustard had I realized that in advance.
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Then came Pronto Pup. No problems with the service here.
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And the dog was good, too! It had been more than a decade since I last had a corndog (at the Maryland State Fair in 1999, I think), and this one did not disappoint. For the record, I also tried one of IB’s “world-famous” tacos, which was… a taco, nothing more, nothing less.
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Back in Lafayette, I had read about the Pizza King and wanted to try it for ambience as much as anything else. Kelly told me there used to be one near her when she lived in Indiana, and it wasn’t very good, so I didn’t have high hopes about the food.
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What’s this? Looks like the king is eating a crispy thin-crust pizza cut into squares… one of my favorite styles! I came here with the intention of getting just a soda and maybe some fries, and then leaving for my “real” dinner destination, but seeing the king’s pizza of choice sort of changed things.
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I actually arrived a half hour before the train room — the main reason for adding Pizza King to my itinerary — opened, so I sat in the parking lot and read a book (I always keep one in the car for just such an occasion). And what is the train room? Why, it’s a room shaped like the inside of a train, of course! But wait… there’s more!
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Each booth was its own private compartment, like the sleeping car of a train. The coin-operated TV in the center provided a half-hour’s worth of real-time cable programming for just 25 cents. Mine was broken, unfortunately, but I heard the people in the next booth over watching “Auction Hunters.” And when it came time to order, why, there was no wait staff; you ordered via intercom!
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But the real reason I wanted to stop by Pizza King… is that a model train actually delivers your drink to your table! (You have to walk to the counter in the back and pick up your food when it’s ready; they call you on your intercom.)
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Sausage and pepperoni pizza and a train-delivered drink. Who could ask for anything more?
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I hadn’t planned on the hot dogs at Indiana Beach or the pizza at Pizza King, so by the time I reached my final restaurant destination of the day, South Street Smokehouse in West Lafayette, IN, I really wasn’t that hungry. But I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to try what have been called some of Indiana’s best ribs!
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Meat wagon!
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It’s the Easter Piggy!
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I had to stand in a long-ish line to order these ribs, and seating in the restaurant was at a premium… but boy, they were good ribs! Maybe the best I’ve had outside of Memphis and St. Louis (though to be fair, I haven’t had ribs in Kansas City or Texas yet). The sauces weren’t bad, but not really necessary, either.

A sign up front advertised deep-fried pecan pie, which I would have liked to have tried because… deep-fried pecan pie! Unfortunately, the line was even longer by that point, I was nearly as stuffed as I had been at Doe’s Eat Place, and I doubted deep-fried pie would taste that great in the morning, so I skipped it.
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Noted!
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The next day, I left West Lafayette at 6 a.m. and made the drive up the Michigan coast to Nelis’ Dutch Village in Holland, MI. It was a really nice little park with a few adult-sized rides, but mostly a lot of fiberglass statues and demonstration areas showing the history and tradition of Holland. I really enjoyed the park, as well as the shops, and was looking forward to a nice Dutch lunch at the Duchman Café, which is adjacent to the park. It turned out to be the perfect way to end my visit there.
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I always make a point of doing what shoes tell me to do.
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This place is delicious… and educational!
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At the park, I got to see how edam cheese was made…
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…so, of course, I had to try some at the restaurant! That’s an edam cheese (from the park) and currant bun sandwich to the right. To be honest, it was kind of bland… but everything else I had here was phenomenal! My main course was mettwurst with red cabbage and sauerkraut.
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It was so good, I decided to sample a few other things I had been eyeing on the menu, like this pig-in-a-blanket… AKA sausage wrapped in phyllo dough. It was the best thing at the restaurant… and at this restaurant, that’s really saying something!
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This pig-in-a-blanket doppelganger is actually a babka. Seinfeld fans will note that it is not a chocolate babka, but the “lesser” cinnamon variety. I was pretty stuffed after the pig-in-a-blanket, so I saved the babka for a snack later that evening.
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At the candy store next door, I also got some cashew brittle to try. It wasn’t half bad, but got a little gummy in the heat after sitting in my car for a few days. The clerk also gave me a sample of the store’s fudge, made with real butter and cream.

They had signs everywhere proclaiming that it had been voted the “Best in Michigan,” but fudge is kind of the same as ice cream to me. With the exception of one really good place I’ve found in Ocean City, MD, and the clotted cream variety I had in England, one place’s fudge is just as good as the next, in my opinion.

Up next: more pie, more hot dogs and a $6 candy bar!
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