Louie's Cafe in LaPorte IN

On our way home last Sunday we stopped at Louie's Cafe for lunch. This is not your everyday Greek-owned family restaurant although it does have some of the usual features. There are two dining rooms separated by the kitchen. The nonsmoking room is around the corner and down a side street from the smoking room. The separation is even greater than at Taxco Restaurant on Elston and Montrose.

Our sandwiches came with a cup of soup. We both chose rosa marina over chicken noodle. The soup used a good beef broth with some tomato puree. In addition to the rosa marina pasta there were bits of beef and carrot. The beef seemed like trimmings from roast beef cut into small dice. They have a fair number of sandwiches using roast beef, so this was probably a good way to use the odd pieces. In any case the beef added a flavor dimension to the soup. The soup hit the spot as the day was rather chilly and we had been at Garwood Orchard's year round market in Laporte just before lunch.

The menu includes a section of sandwiches on pita. I couldn't resist the prospect of pork tenderloin on pita with cucumber-yogurt sauce. This proved to be rather different from the typical rural midwestern tenderloin sandwich. The tenderloin covered the pita almost exactly, which aroused my suspicions. I did a little dissecting and discovered what appeared to be some thin slices of tenderloin pounded together to make a real albeit slightly unorthodox tenderloin. Definitely not flaked and formed. The breading appeared to include crushed melba toast. Did Cook's Illustrated have some influence here? The cucumber-yogurt sauce was quite thick. I suspect they made their own yogurt and drained it well. I would have preferred slightly less stiff as it was a bit hard to spread. The sandwich was accompanied by the common lettuce, tomato, red onion and pickle and by three Greek peppers.

My wife had a fish sandwich. It was a typical decent fish sandwich, good but not outstanding.

We didn't have dessert, but the menu board had the assorted cakes and pies you would expect plus baklava.

Louie's Cafe
920 Lincolnway (SE corner at Madison)
LaPorte, IN 46350
219-326-9686


Garwood Orchard has a small market in Laporte in addition to the main market and U Pick at their farm. They also sell at some farmers markets (in Chicago only Hyde Park and Streeterville/Museum of Contemporary Art).

Garwood Market
206 Lincolnway
Laporte, IN
219-362-4381