Breaded Pork Tenderloins–Elders Family Restaurant and O’Griff’s Grill & Brewhouse

Part 1 is here | Part 2 is here | Part 3 is here

I recently took an unplanned trip to my hometown for a couple of days for the funeral of my best friend’s father.

“Jim,” you might say. “You’re 45. Aren’t you a bit old to have a ‘best friend?'”

“Go fuck yourself,” I might respond. Mike and I have known each other for over 30 years. He was the best man at my wedding, and I was best man at both of his. He has been, and always shall be, my friend. (Though he would likely reverse the direction of that particular reference. To be honest, neither one of us maps very well to Spock, but we both think we’re Captain Kirk.)

And I wouldn’t mention the funeral except that it plays into the story of the two tenderloins I tried while I was in town. I went to town to spend a couple of days helping my friend through a tough time, but it’s not like I wasn’t going to eat any sandwiches while I was there.

Mike’s dad was pretty fond of eating too. It’s a fitting tribute.

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I had ridden the train into town, and borrowed my stepfather’s car to get around. Mike and I ran some errands the morning before the funeral, and quickly noticed that the passenger side door would only open from the outside. As a result, everywhere we went, I opened the door for Mike, and he took to calling me Jarvis. I resisted the temptation to call him Miss Carter in return.

Before we moved to Chicago 10 years ago, Mindy and I owned a house on 18th St in Quincy, a few blocks south of State St. As it happens, the corner of 18th & State is the location of a couple of Quincy’s heavy hitters when it comes to informal family dining. There’s Gem City Pizzeria, maker of Quincy’s only decent pizza (the Jeff’s Special; ham, pepperoni, crumbly sausage, and mushrooms with extra sauce on a standard Midwestern style party-cut thin crust–their sister restaurant Tower of Pizza also serves a Jeff’s Special but it’s garbage, accept no substitute!) and there’s Elders Family Restaurant, a local favorite for the type of person who enjoys fried tavern-style food in an atmosphere friendly to families and/or the elderly.

It’s also about a half block from Mike’s apartment. I’ve never been a huge fan of Elders–I lived 3 blocks away for years and only visited once or twice–but when we were done with our errands and looking for a place to eat lunch, there it was. “Elders is probably essential,” I said. “I guess.”

“It is an institution,” Mike half-heartedly agreed. Elders it was.

Mike got a burger with fries, and we split a perfectly fine order of mozzarella sticks, neither of which I photographed. I ordered the tenderloin sandwich and an order of onion rings.

I was shocked by what I received.

If you can’t tell by the absolute regularity of shape and thickness, this is not an actual tenderloin. What we have here is a formed patty of ground pork, breaded and fried. Tasty enough, I suppose, but I fail to see how you can get away with calling it a tenderloin. When I reported my disappointment to Mindy via text message, she agreed. “I would be ashamed to serve that,” she said.

Quincy has never been any great shakes when it comes to dining, but I hoped that such a popular local establishment would be better than this. It’s like something I might have gotten at Maid Rite (another local favorite). Do better than this, Elders!

The onion rings, on the other hand, were outstanding. Beer-battered and delicious. It’s possible they came out of a freezer box as well but they were good enough that I didn’t care.

So I’m still not super impressed with Elders, no matter how inexplicably popular it is in those parts. Decent mozz sticks, great onion rings, Mike seemed happy enough with his burger, and the service was incredibly friendly and welcoming–but that tenderloin is a deal-breaker.

For dinner that evening, Mike and I stuffed our faces at Best Buffet, probably the only restaurant in Quincy that I legitimately miss–Chinese buffets are a weakness of mine, but Chicago is terrible at them. (Luckily Chicago is good at actual Chinese food). It probably says something about me that as many people as there are going through that restaurant every day, the owner recognized me and wondered where the hell I’ve been for the past few years.

The following morning was the funeral. After the service, Mike’s father’s extended family–few of whom, it must be said, Mike much cares for–argued over where to go for lunch. Some other Quincy standards were mentioned. Sprouts. Mr. Bill’s. Chick’s on the River. “We should go to O’Griff’s,” someone suggested. “O’Griff’s was his favorite.” Consensus quickly formed.

“O’Griff’s wasn’t Dad’s favorite,” Mike confided in the car on the way there. “It’s just… they delivered.”

O’Griff’s isn’t my favorite, either. Twenty years ago, my friend Bob and I used to have a weekly “Liquid Lunch” there on Thursdays, when they sold bottles of imported beer for $1.50 each, but they stopped selling imports when they started brewing their own beer. And their beer is terrible.

O’Griff’s is Quincy’s only current brewery (though pre-prohibition, Quincy was home to quite the brewing tradition). Sadly, as a fan of beer, I cannot recommend it. I wish I could.

My drinking strategy at most brewpubs is this: start with the lightest beer, and work your way through the more agressively-flavored (hoppy and/or darker) and higher-alcohol beers. Try EVERYTHING. Get sample sizes if you can, but if they won’t pour less than a pint and they have a dozen beers on tap, you’d better make your way through as many pints as you can before you fall over.

My drinking strategy at O’Griff’s is this: Try a beer. If it’s flat, or infected, or sour from being poured through dirty lines, or just plain bad, send it back. Repeat until you find something you can drink. Stick with that until you can talk your friends into leaving.

Now I didn’t try the beer on this particular trip, as I’ve been taking a break from drinking for the past month. And I did notice that the food menu looked improved–it’s possible that some changes have taken place. But the same mother/son team are running the place that have been for the past 15 years or so, and I doubt that the kind of sweeping changes the place would need to overcome its issues have taken place. At least, I haven’t heard of Bar Rescue visiting the joint. I’ll give O’Griff’s beers another chance next time I’m in town. But my expectations are low.

We were there for the food, though, not the beer. Mike’s family filled up one long table, so Mike and I (and our third Musketeer Chris) took a smaller table off to the side–an arrangement that suited us just fine. As the main table ordered, I heard one of Mike’s cousins ask who was in the kitchen that day. When the waitress responded, his cousin said “Let me get those chicken strips just a little rare then, otherwise he might cook them too hard.”

“Did… she just order her chicken strips rare?” I asked Mike sotto voce.

He shrugged. We both boggled for a few minutes.

Our table split an order of fried cheese curds, which were beer battered and, I thought, pretty great. I single-handedly (single-mouthedly?) devoured most of them myself. I am a sucker for fried food though. Chris ordered a patty melt, and Mike, as usual, ordered a cheeseburger “dragged through the garden.” Without high expectations, I ordered a tenderloin sandwich with fries.

Hallelujah, it was an actual piece of pounded-out pork, breaded and fried, and not terrible! However, I’ll be damned if Mike’s crazy cousin wasn’t right–it had been fried too hard, and the pork was dried out just a bit. I should have made note of the cook’s name for future reference.

Still… who orders fried chicken strips rare? (Besides Tribunal contributor Greg?)

O’Griff’s, you make a decent tenderloin. I’ll give you that much. The fries are that style of frozen food-service thing that have some kind of coating to make them crisper than usual–they’re not terrible, but neither are they very good. I’d prefer a fresh-cut twice-fried skin-on potato but you can’t have everything. Tavern food in Quincy largely tends to come out of large bags or boxes straight out of Kohl’s Wholesale, and expecting better is a recipe for disappointment. But the tenderloin was a vast improvement over the one from Elders.

Still nowhere near the top tier, though. I know there are better tenderloins out there, waiting for me.

The quest continues…