Sometimes great restaurants can be hiding in places you would never expect. Such is the case with the Mill Tavern in Westfield Indiana. Sandwiched between a Pizza Hut and a Chinese takeout behind a Kroger gas station, sits this restaurant. Looking at the outside you might just pass it by. But that would be a mistake. My wife and I were visiting my in-laws in Westfield and they suggested dinner here. So the four of us headed there for a Sunday dinner.
There is a very impressive beer and wine list here. Especially given the somewhat small space.
The menu here is definitely heavy on pub foods. Wings, burgers, nachos, quesadillas and tacos.
We started out with some delicious egg rolls. They have three varieties:. Avocado, Buffalo and Reuben. We ordered the avocado and Reuben. And were not disappointed.
The Reuben had all the components of a great sandwich - just simply tucked into a deliciously crispy wrapper. Moist corned beef, slightly briny sauerkraut and nutty swiss cheese. The thousand island dressing on the side added some creaminess and the relish helped cut the richness.
My favorite was the avocado. A great balance of avocado, cream cheese and sun dried tomatoes in the same crisp packaging as the Reuben. We elected to get a sweet and savory sauce on the side and it really added to components. Although I felt this really stood by itself - no sauce needed.
We also had an order of onion rings. They have two styles of rings here. I had never been to a restaurant offering more than one style so lots of points to the chef to be able to manage that. There are beer battered ones. Those would have been a thicker coating. We sided with ones that were more like tempora.
A thin, crispy coating around a slightly Al dente onion ring. And salted when they came out of the fryer which is so important. So well fried that the delicate batter didn't fall off when you ate them.
We also got their Almost Famous Wings. I might ask them to change that title to remove the first word.
They have close to fifteen different sauces and preparations you can get. I normally like to get my wings "naked" - meaning they are just deep fried without a batter and served with sauces on the side. For these I decided to have them prepared in a spin of their parmesan garlic sauce. And was glad I did.
The wings were still crispy which shows the respect shown by the chef. And the sauce was a great balance of salty parmesan with just enough garlic to contrast that nuttiness. Not overpowering but certainly a starter you would hope your other table mates will share. You never want to be the only person at dinner eating garlic!!
The first main was fish and chips.
There were several small pieces of moist, delicate cod in a thin tempora-style batter. Not heavily seasoned so it didn't take away anything from.ghe fish. The chips (or fries, as Americans would call them) were also fresh from the fryer. These were what I would call battered fries. They have a coating on the outside that provides an extra crunch. Some very good potato flavor. Great by themselves or with a condiment. I didn't ask for it but these would have been very good with a little mayo.
The last main was one of their special burgers called the Jellystone.
Sometimes odd combinations of flavors are delicious together. This was a ground beef patty topped with raspberry jelly, American cheese and fresh sliced jalapenos. When you think about any dish, you always want there to be a contrast in flavors. Just eating a pile of french fries might be boring if it wasn't for ketchup, mayo or fry sauce for dipping. It was the same here. You had the sweetness of the jelly, creaminess of the cheese and the slightly spicy jalapenos that went so well together. If I ordered it again, I might ask for a more aggressive swiss cheese since I think that flavor would have paired better with the raspberry jelly. My one minor issue is that I had ordered the burger medium and it came out closer to medium well. It still had some juiciness and beefy flavor so this didn't detract from the overall dish. I would probably order medium rare next time or just double check with the server on what the different temperatures mean to the chef. Every restaurant can be a little different.
A great meal in a surprising place. Don't be afraid to try a new place you may never have heard of or seen - even if you may have driven past it many times.
