The Lucky Pig Pub and Grill winning tenderloin.
A restaurant in the central Iowa town of Ogden is serving the state’s best breaded pork tenderloin, according to a contest run by the Iowa Pork Producer’s Association. The Lucky Pig Pub and Grill has won the 12th annual contest and was presented with $500 and a plaque.
Craig Christensen and his wife, Carol, own the restaurant. Craig gives credit to their employees. “We have a great crew that works there in the kitchen and the front of the house,” Christensen says. “We take a lot of pride in what we do and how we prepare stuff. It’s a nice reward to all of the hard work we do in making this food.”
The Christensens purchased the restaurant three years ago and provide the pork from the hogs raised on their farm near Ogden. “One of the things you have to have here in the Midwest is a great pork tenderloin, right? So, that was our first effort and our first big push was to add the best tenderloin we could,” Christensen says. “It took a little while and a little trial and error, but boy, we came up with a good one and we think we’re serving up something people seem to like.”
Judges noted that the Lucky Pig’s tenderloin is hand-pounded in-house and double coated in a batter and bread crumb mixture. It also has “an ideal meat-to-bun ratio and a unique spice.”
The second place winner is this year’s contest is Brick Street Butler Café in Bondurant, followed by TC’s Point After in Dewitt, B & S’s 529 in Carroll, Go Fish Marina Bar and Grill in Princeton, and Menlo Café in Menlo.
(Reporting by Pat Powers, KQWC, Webster City)