Indiana-Kentucky

My wife and I made it back to this region earlier this month. There wasn't a whole lot of sight seeing on this trip, as the main purpose was to spend time with friends in Indiana, but I was able to get a lot of good eating in. Here are some of the highlights:
 
We actually started the trip in Pittsburgh, spending the night there with friends so we didn't have to drive to Bloomington, IN in one shot. The morning we started out for Indiana started with breakfast at the new Pamela's location in the Squirrel Hills section of Pittsburgh (it just moved around the corner from the old location to a spot with more space ... a good move since the old place could get pretty cramped.
 

 

 

 
I had a short stack of their delicious thin pancakes with a side of better-than-average corned beef hash. One of my friend's had the strawberries and whipped cream pancakes. I usually get the banana-nut pancakes at Pamela's, but it's a very heavy meal and I had a lot of eating ahead of me that day.
 
From Pamela's, we headed west, eventually moving from Rt. 70 on to the Old National Road (Rt. 40) after passing Columbus, OH. I'd have liked to have spent more time on Rt. 40, but we were on too tight of a schedule. However, there was no way I was going to bypass trying some pie at Henry's in West Jefferson (my apologies for the double posts to those who saw these Henry shots on the dessert board thread):
 



 
As we still planned to get to Gray Bros. Cafeteria in Indiana for a relatively early dinner, we skipped lunch and just went for the pie. Our choices were coconut, blackberry and custard. The crust of the blackberry pie was the best I've every had. The coconut was also a major standout. You don't find pie like that in my part of the country.
 
Unfortunately, a bad accident that resulted in Rt. 70 being closed down east of Indy ruined our plans to get to Gray Bros. for dinner. By the time we were free of the jam, we'd have just gotten there before closing. Rather than rush through our meal, we decided to put off Gray Bros. until later in the trip.  We settled for dinner at Steak 'n shake. I took no photos, but I do like Steak 'n Shake's burgers and shakes and wish they'd move into the Philly area.
 
More to come.

Maestro, did you drive US-40 in Indiana at all?  I used it from Knightstown to Richmond last year and it was an enjoyable drive...kind of a cross between a 2-lane highway and the interstate.
 
Pamela's CBH looks pretty good.  Is it a specialty of the house?
 
Brad

Brad,
We were eventually funneled onto Rt. 40 just east of Indy via a connector road after we got out of the jam on Rt. 70. The section we went through wasn't anything special, although the connector road took us through a nice little town.
I'd love to be able to spend more time on the old two and four-lane highways (we took Rt. 66 through Illinois last year), but it's usually not an option because of time restraints (not to mention that my wife is less willing than I am to spend many hours in the car to see sites and eat).
 
On the corned beef hash, I enjoyed it more than what I usually get when I order it at diners. I'm not sure about it being a specialty of the house. I saw a photo of it on hollyeats.com and decided to give it a shot.

phlmaestro-
You need not apologize for double posting beautiful pie pics!  I had no idea that the Squirrel Hill Pamela's had moved.  They really needed the additional space. 

I know this is a bit repetitive from the last trip's photos, but as I alluded to earlier, we did get to Gray Bros. Cafeteria later in the trip:
 



 
As big as that pork tendereloin that my wife and her friend shared looks in the photo, it just had our jaws on the floor in person. You can see the sugar cream pie on my tray; the one with the fried chicken. Butterscotch and cherry pie slices are on the other trays.
 
For dinner, later that night, we went to a place in Bloomington called Mama Bear's Pizza. It seems to be the most frequently cited place when the topic of the best pizza joint in Bloomington comes up. It was a solid pizza, but if that's the best they've got in town, they're not in great shape as far as pizza goes. I think living in the northeastern part of the country spoils me a bit when it comes to pizza.
 
After leaving Bloomington, we drove south on Rt. 65 past Louisville and made our way to Hodgenville, KY for the one real sight-seeing stop on this trip: The Lincoln Birthplace Memorial (I'm a big Lincoln fan, so when I'm near KY, IL, or IN, I need to see the Lincoln sites):
 



 
 

We were hungry when we left the Memorial. The closest place I could find to that area on-line that looked like it could be decent was The Whistle Stop Cafe in Glendale, KY. They served traditional Kentucky food:
 






 
My wife tried the hot brown sandwich. She wasn't nuts about it, although I don't know if that's because it wasn't well-made or because she just doesn't like hot brown sandwiches (it was her first one). I had the country ham with biscuits and red-eye gravy. The ham was both salty and tough, but not overwhelmingly so, except for the one darker spot on the ham, We also shared a slice of the Kentucky take on sugar cream pie that I mentioned on the Henry's thread.
 
From Glendale, we drove east to the Beaumont Inn in Harrodsburg, KY:




 
We stayed over at the Inn on a Tuesday night. They don't serve dinner on Tuesdays, so I made a lunch reservation for Wednesday before we hit the road. I love the yeast rolls they serve at the Inn. Yeast rolls are another one of those things I can't get around here. My wife had the soup of the day; bourbon-corn chowder. I had a taste and liked it very much. Again, based on the photo at hollyeats.com, I had known for a long time that if I ever made it to the Beaumont Inn, I'd be ordering the fried chicken and country ham combination. There was no disappointment. I admit to having somewhat limited experience with eating real southern fried chicken and also country ham, but I can say without hesitation that both were the best I've had. The ham was sliced very thin. It was easy to chew and had a wonderful aged flavor. The corn pudding on the side was also fantastic, as were the very porky tasting green beans.
 
After spending a final night with our friends in Pittsburgh, we made one final food stop the next morning on our way home. It's our usual stop off of the PA Turnpike: the Summit Diner in Somerset, PA:
 




 
I enjoyed my breakfast sandwich. The coconut pie was good, although not in the same class as the slice I had at Henry's. The filling was more like pudding in this case.
 
The good news for me is that we're bound to be back out in this region at least every couple years to visit our friends in Bloomington. I know that if we drive, we'll always be stopping at Henry's! 

buffetbuster


phlmaestro-
You need not apologize for double posting beautiful pie pics!  I had no idea that the Squirrel Hill Pamela's had moved.  They really needed the additional space. 

Yeah, the more pictures the better.

Some thoughts on country ham:
 
It's more than a couple of hundred miles away from me, but I've been to the Beaumont Inn many times.  I especially like the pull candy that you can buy in their gift shop.  Talk about something rich!  It took me three days to eat just a piece of it.
 
As to the Beaumont Inn, in the first half of the 20th century it was Duncan Hines favorite Kentucky restaurant, and their country ham was his favorite food.  Indeed, he thought it was the best served in that state.
 
Hines was crazy about country ham; he even cured them--first in his Chicago apartment in the years 1905-1939, then in a building beside his home in Bowling Green, Kentucky from 1940 to the late 1950s.
 
The best place to get country ham in Kentucky is in Trigg county, near Kentucky Dam in the far southwestern part of the state.  I believe there is a country ham festival down that way each year.  That county is known for their high quality country hams.
 
I don't remember off-hand how the Beaumont Inn prepares their country ham, but I've found the best way to enjoy it is when it's served paper-thin and slightly cool or room temperature.  This is the way the Old Talbott Tavern in Bardstown, Kentucky prepared it before it burned down about 1998; when the building was rebuilt, the new owners abandoned serving that delectable morsel.
 
Many places fry their country ham, but I think when you do that one misses the opportunity of savoring the ham's natural flavor.  (And when it's served paper-thin and cold, it's also not as hard to get it out of your teeth.)
 

Some thoughts on the Whistle Stop and on Beaumont Inn:
 
We used to love the Whistle Stop, but I think it changed hands a few years ago.  Before that, the hot browns were exemplary and the brown sugar cream pie was fantastic. After it did, they opened an outpost at a strip mall in Elizabethtown.  Although the brown sugar cream pie there was  good, the hot brown wasn't. It looked like the one in your photograph. It was very disappointing, but I chalked it up to being in a "branch" location. We haven't been back to the original in Glendale since then. 
 
Although I know pictures can be deceiving, if yours is accurate, then I'm sorry to say that, at least in my opinion, the hot brown at the Whistle Stop in Glendale is probably no longer worth ordering.  That bright yellow cheese is really off-putting. There are far superior hot browns in Kentucky -- my favorites are at the Greyhound Tavern in Fort Mitchell and at the Science Hill Inn in Shelbyville.  Many people swear by the original at the Brown Hotel in Louisville, but I prefer the others I listed above.  But I'd eat the one at the Brown anytime rather than the one at the Whistle Stop.  And I'm very sorry to say that, because Glendale is a fun place to visit and has great antiquing. 
 
As for Beaumont Inn, this is one of my favorite places in the world, and I've been going there since I was a small child. I almost always have fried chicken, green beans and corn pudding, but on my last visit, my brother raved about the chef's special pasta of the week, with sun-dried tomatoes, black olives and artichokes.  They've kept some of the old traditional food on the menu, but have been expanding it to include other things, and many of the items are quite good. 
 
A cautionary note:  those fabulous yeast rolls (and they are intoxicatingly yeasty - yum!) are served only at lunch and Sunday brunch, not at dinner.  At dinner they serve some kind of white dinner rolls which are OK, but not really worth the calories, in my opinion.  In the olden days, they used to serve biscuits at dinner, but now they are only available at breakfast.
 
They've been experimenting with a menu Sunday brunch, instead of their buffet which they had had for many years.  I wasn't sure about this (I generally don't like buffets, but I loved the Sunday brunch one because they disjointed the fried chicken, rather than serving it in quarters as they do at dinner, so I could eat nothing but wings, which are my favorite part), but I have to say that when we had it there recently (Palm Sunday 2012), we really enjoyed it.  They had a special that day of fried frog legs which were out of this world. 
 
I'm not a country ham fan, but my husband is, and he loves the ham at Beaumont Inn. They age the hams in their own aging house on the premises.   http://www.beaumontinn.com/kentucky_ham.htm
 
  

Good pics,, my friend!Love your comments on whats great and not so great.

Great trip report and photos. Thanks!

Louis

 I don't remember off-hand how the Beaumont Inn prepares their country ham, but I've found the best way to enjoy it is when it's served paper-thin and slightly cool or room temperature.  

 
That's how they served it at the Beaumont Inn.

rumaki

We used to love the Whistle Stop, but I think it changed hands a few years ago.  Before that, the hot browns were exemplary and the brown sugar cream pie was fantastic. After it did, they opened an outpost at a strip mall in Elizabethtown.  Although the brown sugar cream pie there was  good, the hot brown wasn't. It looked like the one in your photograph. It was very disappointing, but I chalked it up to being in a "branch" location. We haven't been back to the original in Glendale since then. 

Although I know pictures can be deceiving, if yours is accurate, then I'm sorry to say that, at least in my opinion, the hot brown at the Whistle Stop in Glendale is probably no longer worth ordering.  That bright yellow cheese is really off-putting. There are far superior hot browns in Kentucky -- my favorites are at the Greyhound Tavern in Fort Mitchell and at the Science Hill Inn in Shelbyville.  Many people swear by the original at the Brown Hotel in Louisville, but I prefer the others I listed above.  But I'd eat the one at the Brown anytime rather than the one at the Whistle Stop.  And I'm very sorry to say that, because Glendale is a fun place to visit and has great antiquing. 
 

 
I'll add that The Whistle Stop had a slightly touristy feel to me. I don't regret going there, given my difficulty in finding other places in that region that looked appealing, but it wasn't the type of truly memorable experience that my meal at The Beaumont Inn. was.