If You Find Yourself in Valparaiso on a Tuesday...

...You would know this county seat of Porter, Indiana offers not one but two places that offer Serrano ham. In fact one could get a full blown Spanish meal at Don Quiote, whose owner, I learned has inhabited Valparaiso for 20 years but has also opened a shop importing Spanish goods. Valparaiso is also a town where one could get a bottle of Montalcino de Brunelo at the corner drug store, cupcakes with towering spirals of real buttercream, and more than a few choices for espresso. It was tropical night at Old Style Inn, with all that implies, but it should be noted that if one wanted to skip the pu-pu platters, there was genuine Northern Indiana fare like buttered perch and pan fried blue gills. Still, if one wanted to really taste the taste of Valparaiso, one would skip all of the above and head a mile or so east of town to the Strongbow Inn.

Strongbow Inn was at one time, really an inn or at least a motel with a restaurant or at least a turkey farm with a motel and a restaurant. One inspired the other which inspired the other. Still, over time, the restaurant has won the attention of the third generation of family owners.

Say chicken at the Strongbow Inn and they cringe the way witches and wizards cringe at the expression of Lord Voldemort. If you organize your existence around turkey, you stomach not mention of her squatter cousin. And if you organize your existence around turkey, you sell not just year round turkey dinners, you sell turkey soup, turkey pate, turkey pies, turkey wings and turkey legs. You get cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and bread dressing and gravy because these things go with turkey. You can, of course, jump ranks, and have chautebriand for two. I have never known nor seen anyone visit the right side of the menu, the evil non-turkey side.

I cannot vouch for the turkey pate. I can say everything else is satisfying in exactly the way it should. As a food writer might say, it is a true expression of its locale. I can also nip around the edges. The gravy is mostly just there, a moistener but not at all interesting or robust. The noodles for the soup are so clearly and visually homemade, and they have that toothsomeness that I love in homemade noodles, but they are also a bit mushy. The crust for the turkey pie lacks the structure or crispness of crusts made with butter or lard, but that does not mean it lacks for flavor. The potatoes are as real as that implies but a bit on the bland side too. The house rolls are yeasty and soft and not at all like bad white bread. Luckily they require no lubrication because I'm not a lover of the margarine served along side. I must confess that my favorite thing at Strongbow is actually their salad dressing. The house dressing, a mysteriously simple garlic vinaigrette with crumbled blue cheese, is gosh darn nearly the best salad dressing I know. Lest you think I am overly critical, I will tell you that I'd be happy to return to Strongbow Inn next time I'm in Valparaiso on a Tuesday.

Strongbow Inn
2405 E. US 30
Valparaiso, IN 46383

Have you been to Don Quixote? I'm about to make yet another weekend trip up to Windsor tomorrow, and I'm always looking for somewhere for lunch on the way there or dinner on the way back... and ever since Mike G mentioned his experience at Redamak's, I've been wary of unknown restaurants on that strip of '94