On Wednesday, the Iowa Pork Producers Association released the finalists for this years Iowa’s Best Breaded Pork Tenderloin. For us blue-collar-to-no-collar folks this is the equivalent to the Beard Awards or Michelin stars. You can have your fancy pants restaurants. Give me a pork tenderloin a side of onion rings and a Pepsi to wash it all down and I’m a happy guy.
Here are the finalists:
https://www.iowapork.org/community/contests/breaded-tenderloin-contest
- The 1854 – Gilbertville
- Dexfield Diner & Pub – Redfield
- Hometown Heroes – Grinnell
- Sugar’s Lounge & Diner – Council Bluffs
- Walker’s -Salix
But you know your guy will give you a little bit more info than that.
I’m sure your first question is, Mr. Bennett, have you ever had any of these tasty tenderloins?
The answer is, first, don’t call me Mr. Bennett. We’re all friends hear on the Photography 139 Universe. Second, no. But you can bet dollars to fried mushrooms that I will in the future.
But I promised you a more detailed breakdown.
THE 1854
- 1406 5th Street – Gilbertville, Iowa
- 1 hour 50 minute drive from Photography 139 headquarters.
- $10.25 for the Tenderloin Basket.
- Also an ice cream shop!
DEXFIELD DINER & PUB
- 1119Thomas Street – Redfield, Iowa
- 54 minute drive from Photography 139 headquarters
- $17.00 for the Tenderloin Basket
- The fried pickles look amazing!
HOMETOWN HEROES
- 908 Main Street – Grinnell, Iowa
- 1 hour 19 minute drive from Photography 139 headquarters
- $11.50 for “The Blind Side” – Tenderloin and choice of one side.
- All of the menu items have a sports themed name.
SUGAR’S LOUNGE & DINER
- 2725 E. Kanesville Boulevard – Council Bluffs, Iowa
- 2 hours 17 minutes from Photography 139 headquarters
- Had a hard time finding a menu – but I think $10.95 for the tenderloin.
- They also have live music some nights, but sometimes it is karaoke.
WALKER’S
- 301 Tipton Street #7717 – Salix, Iowa
- 2 hours 42 minutes from Photography 139 headquarters
- $7.00 for the tenderloin. At that price, I assume it doesn’t come with a side.
- On Friday nights they have all you can eat fish!
Hopefully I can make one or more of these in the near future. Happy tenderloining!
We woke up early on Saturday morning. After all, we didn’t have a car. It was eaten by the parking garage the previous evening. The hotel we were staying at was a fancy pants hotel. They had a nice breakfast that started at 6:30, so we got there right when it began. The walked back to the parking garage to get our car.
After we checked out, we hit up the Titanic Museum which was a “must see” for me as I have always found Titanic history fascinating. I also enjoy movies where boats sink. For example, LIFEBOAT. The Hitchcock movie. Great movie and also very online with the disaster of what is going on in our country right now.
After the Titanic Museum we hit up the Peace Wall. Then we drove back to Dublin for the Iowa State Pep Rally and then had supper before retiring for the night.
Here are the cruddy cell phone pictures from the day:
Irish sausage isn’t great.
The Irish version of bacon… not great.
I really wanted to like the tomatoes. I did not.
Andy really wanted to bring back some Irish honey for Shannon. I think he badly overestimates how much I see Shannon. It is like once a year (maybe) these days. Anyways, I have a thing of Irish honey for Shannon.
“Look kids, Big Ben!”
I’m going to gloss over this story. I almost forgot my camera on this car garage pay station. No big deal. Would have been a $5,000 loss (probably more because of the dumbass tariffs blowing up the price of everything or more accurately put – the largest middle class tax increase in United States history) including the lens and you can’t replace 3 days of pictures. But I hauled ass and long story short. No big deal. My camera was still there. No need to dwell on this situation.
The Titanic District has a bunch of these “Glass of Thrones” displays. Sweet!
Not many pictures inside the museum. Andy absolutely REFUSED to get on here with me. He thinks being on the front of a ship is “romantic” or something. He must have a difference experience on ships than I have.
Such a cool looking museum! Also we met a couple from Dubuque there celebrating their 20th Wedding Anniversary.
This is on the Nomadic. The last White Star Line ship still in existence.
It is still in the process of being restored.
Next to one segment of the Peace Wall.
“Polite Notice” – Irish people are the nicest people ever!
World’s Best Garbage Can?
I never saw a McDonald’s, but I saw lots of Burger Kings in Ireland.
There were something like 10,000 people at the Iowa State pep rally!
I believe the girl in the lower left hand corner is puking. She turned down water from Andy. Maybe she thought it was too romantic.
One of the highlights of the trip that wasn’t in the travel brochure was watching our worthless pile of dog slop governor get booed off the stage. I LOVE Iowa State fans!
We met up with a couple we met at the Fort Dodge Airport here. They flew to Dublin, but they were taking the Queen Mary 2 back to America. Which sounds like an amazing experience!
I bought this shirt for Brandon. He has yet to pick it up.
This sweet Oscar Wilde sculpture was on my list of things I wanted to see. It is as if the sculpture said, “We want to make sure that they know that Oscar Wilde is a gay icon!” And I’m here for it.
3 days in, and I still hadn’t gotten fish and chips. We went to this restaurant for fish and chips…. and it was sold out. No worries those. This Shepherd’s Pie was the best or second best meal I had in Ireland!
One thing I learned about Andy on this trip is that he is a fiend for garlic bread!
Not pictured, but we ran into the couple from Dubuque that we met at the Titanic Museum at the restaurant and we sat with them.
They were celebrating their 20th wedding anniversary, but were worried about the timing of the trip because their teenage daughter got a boyfriend a few weeks before they left!
They were relying on her younger brother to make sure there was no hanky-panky going down.
But from the sounds of it, he was more interested in playing video games than being an obstructive third wheel!
It was a great meal and afterwards we went back to our Airbnb in Oldbawn to try to figure out how we were going to get to the game on the morrow. But that is an adventure that we will explore next Sunday!