Nick's Kitchen

506 N. Jefferson St., Huntington, IN - (260) 356-6618

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Posted By Michael Stern on November 21, 2008 11:02 AM

The tenderloin is one of America’s great regional sandwiches; historians believe it was invented here in Huntington, Indiana. The story is that Nick Frienstein started frying breaded pork cutlets in 1904 to sell in sandwiches from a street cart in town; four years later he opened a small café called Nick’s Kitchen. His method of preparing the fried pork cutlets was finessed one winter shortly after Nick moved to the café and his brother Jake suffered such severe frostbite that he lost the fingers off his hands. Jake, whose job it was to bread the slices of pork, found that his stumps made good tools for pounding the meat to make it tender. Since then, a tenderloin (no need to say pork tenderloin) has been defined as a sandwich of pork that has been either beaten tender (with a wooden hammer) or run through a mechanical tenderizer (or both).

Now run by Jean Anne Bailey, whose father owned the town café starting in 1969, Nick’s Kitchen lists its tenderloin on the menu with a challenge that’s more than a little ironic considering its culinary history: “Bet You Need Both Hands”. Two hands are barely adequate for hoisting the colossal sandwich, which is built around a wavy disk of audibly crunchy pork that extends a good two to three inches beyond the circumference of a five-inch bun, virtually eclipsing its plate. Soaked in buttermilk that gives a tangy twist to the meat’s sweetness and tightly cased in a coat of rugged cracker crumbs (not the more typical fine-grind cracker meal), the lode of pork inside the crust fairly drips with moisture. Jean Anne tells us she buys the meat already cut and cubed. She pounds it, marinates it, breads it and fries it.

Nick’s Kitchen isn’t only a tenderloin stop. It’s a wonderful three-meal-a-day town café with big breakfasts and a noontime blackboard of daily specials. We loved our plate of ham, beans, and cornbread; and we were bowled over by Jean Anne’s pies. “My father served frozen ones,” she says. “I knew I wanted something better.” Made using a hand-me-down dough recipe that incorporates a bit of corn syrup, her fruit pies have a flaky crust that evaporates on the tongue, melding with brilliant-flavored rhubarb or black raspberries. Butterscotch pie – which she learned to cook from her grandmother – is more buttery than sweet, nothing at all like cloying pies made from pudding filling. Sugar-cream pie, an Indiana signature dessert, is like cream candy in a savory crust.

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tenderloin

apple dumpling

Sugar cream pie

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Posted By Jason Warren on February 2, 2004 11:09 AM

A local favorite you will most likely the only out of towner to luck out into dining at this decades old staple of Huntington. Even though I was there are breakfast time there were nice enough to start up the fried so I could sample a tenderloin sandwich. And it was certainly worth it. Crispy outside, tender flavorful outside. All served on a soft chewey bun that with the size of the tenderloin, makes you wonder how much of a sandwich it really is. Of course you can't leave without having some sugar pie, a regional must have. Moist and sweet eat it slow enough to savor.

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