The Ice House, Indianapolis, Indiana

I was invited to the Ice House by a friend who had been here several years ago, and remembered the tenderloin as excellent, so we made arrangements to meet him for lunch.
The Ice House is located just south of downtown, along the river, in an old Ice House.  It’s a VERY cool place, with a family dining side, and a 21 or over side.  The walls are decorated with everything from international flags to old neon advertising signs, and one could spend several hours inside just looking at all the stuff on the walls.

The menu is pretty much standard bar fare, with burgers, steaks, wraps, and a little bit of everything else.

The breaded tenderloin is featured right in the center of the menu, and it’s advertised as “hand breaded and hand cubed”.   That caught my attention right away.  After my last tenderloin, which was less than stellar, I was really for a real, honest to goodness, hand breaded Hoosier tenderloin.

What I got, instead, was a frozen pork fritter.  yes, it was big, as advertised, but it was NOT the sandwich pictured on the menu, which was a wonderfully misshapen, hand breaded piece of meat.  This was something I could have purchased at the local supermarket and it would’ve been just as good.

It was cooked well  (as well as you can cook a pork fritter) but it was not the tenderloin advertised, nor was it the one that my friend remembered.

Since the menu proudly proclaims a “hand breaded, hand cubed” tenderloin, and this one was not, I can’t give it any higher than a 1 out of 5 bites.  It’s edible, but that’s about it.

The Ice House breaded tenderloin sells for $7.95, and that includes chips.  Fries  (which were excellent, by the way), will set you back another $1.25.

I like the atmosphere here, and everything else on the menu seems fine, and we’ll go back.  We’ll just try something else and pass on the tenderloin.
The Ice House is located at 2352 S West Street in Indianapolis.

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