Hall's Castleton Grille, Indianapolis

Hall’s Castleton Grill is part of the Don Hall’s family of restaurants.  In 1946, Don Hall opened his first Drive In, in southern Ft. Wayne, Indiana.

Since then, Don Hall’s has expanded to other parts of the state, with various kinds of restaurants being part of the Hall’s family.

I generally avoid the Castleton area like the plague, but Hall’s is one of the few places that will tempt me to make the trip.  I’ve have their Prime Rib on several occasions, and it’s among the best I’ve ever had.

Inside, it’s essentially a bar surrounded by a dining room.  There is also a pleasant outside patio area, where live music is featured most weekend evenings.  Their food features all American sandwiches, some wonderful beef brisket, steaks, and prime rib.

I elected to try their breaded tenderloin, which I had never tried before.

The Don Hall’s breaded tenderloin is priced at $7.50, and that includes your choice of french or steak fries, onion rings, potato salad, baked potato,  and it also includes cole slaw.  We were off to a promising start, as most other restaurants include chips with your sandwich and charge you extra for fries or rings.  To have them included with the price of the sandwich was a good sign!

The sandwich arrived and it was HUGE.  Once again, it was pounded out a bit thin for my liking, but the quality of the meat was very, very good.  Moist and tender, with great flavor.

The breading was, well, different.  Don’t get me wrong…it was very good, but it wasn’t what what most Hoosiers have come to expect on their tenderloin.  It was nice and crunchy, and quite heavily seasoned.  I’m not sure what all the seasonings were, but I did detect some sage and dill in the breading.  It made for an interesting tasting sandwich, but quite different than what a traditional Indiana tenderloin is.  It was a very good sandwich, however, it wasn’t what I expected when I ordered a breaded tenderloin.

The bun was nicely toasted, and the condiments were brought exactly as I requested them, and the service was prompt and efficient.  The breading stayed crunchy throughout the life of the sandwich, and was evenly distributed over the sandwich…in no place was it too thick or too thin.

So how do I rate a tenderloin like this?  I really did like it for a change, and I’d certainly order it again if I were looking for a breaded tenderloin that was a little different.  But, if I had a friend visiting from out of state and wanted to introduce him to our state sandwich, this is NOT the place I would take him.  It’s kind of a Hoosier sandwich with a touch of the exotic.  Many words come to mind when I think of Hoosiers, but “exotic” isn’t one of them.

I’m going to give the Castleton Grill’s breaded tenderloin sandwich a 3.0 on a scale of 1-5 bites.  It’s certainly better than the frozen pork fritters that many restaurants pass off as breaded tenderloins, but it’s far from a bright spot in the tenderloin galaxy.

Don Hall’s Castleton Grill is located at 6028 E 82nd Street in Indianapolis, at the main entrance to the Castleton Mall.  You can also view their website here.

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