Eating Brain Sandwich – An Indiana “Delicacy” – At Hilltop Inn In Evansville

When staying in New Harmony, IN recently, one of the restaurants we ate at had brain sandwich on the menu. Having tried Rocky Mountain Oysters – bull testicles – while visiting Denver back in 2021, we figured brain sandwich would be an interesting thing to try, but we weren’t feeling it that night.

We looked up where the quintessential place to get a brain sandwich in Indiana was and the answer seemed to be Hilltop Inn in Evansville, IN. That was perfect as we were due to drive that direction a couple of days later on our way to Indianapolis, so we decided to stop there for lunch in order to try Indiana’s “delicacy”.

There was lots of seating available indoors, but seeing as we had our dog Truffles with us, we took a seat at one of the outdoor tables. It was late February, but we were fortunate that it was warm enough to sit outside without being too cold.

Despite being there for the brain sandwich, we took a look at the menu anyway.

You might have noticed that Hilltop Inn has a couple of different brain sandwich options on the menu. The one in the ‘Sandwiches’ section is a jumbo brain sandwich. For two people that were apprehensive about the concept of it in the first place, adding the word ‘jumbo’ before ‘brain sandwich’ didn’t sound appealing.

Thankfully we had an alternative option. They also offer this unusual item as a starter, served as a brain sandwich slider, with the option to get one, two or three of them. Assuming that we wouldn’t want to eat even an entire slider of a brain sandwich, we ordered a solitary brain sandwich slider.

Unsure about whether we’d feel like we’d need something to wash it down, we each ordered another appetizer each; fried cheese cubes for Shae…

…and three Marx pork barbeque grenades – bacon wrapped pork sausage with BBQ sauce – for me.

The reason for our visit was served at the same time as the other appetizers. Calling it a slider was a little misleading as it was much larger than we were anticipating. It was the size of a regular burger, so I’m curious quite how jumbo a jumbo brain sandwich would be!

I was a little relieved when it came out though as it didn’t look as unappetizing as I’d pictured it in my mind. For some reason I was imagining it being like a Sloppy Joe, with wet slices of brain dripping out of the sides of the bun. Having it be fried in some kind of batter made it look more akin to a regular burger.

To get prepared for the taste testing we cut it in half, as if we were both going to eat as much as that! In case you’re wondering what kind of meat is in a brain sandwich, it’s pork brain.

With the sandwich readied, we prepared ourselves for the taste sensation we were about to experience. Here’s a video we recorded of us trying a brain sandwich for the first time:

Ultimately, it didn’t actually taste terrible. In fact, there wasn’t much flavor at all, but the knowledge that we were eating pork brain made it icky nonetheless and so we didn’t eat any more after a bite or two and ate our other appetizers instead.

Just because Shae and I weren’t keen on it doesn’t mean there wasn’t someone else who’d find it delicious. When trying Rocky Mountain Oysters a few years ago, Truffles really enjoyed them when we gave some to her.

Well, sure enough – she’s a big fan of pork brain sandwich too! She’d have happily eaten the entire thing, but we cut her off after a few small pieces as we were a little creeped out on her behalf.

I’m glad we made the effort to stop at Hilltop Inn to try their pork brain sandwich, but I don’t think we’ll be returning anytime soon 😉

Address

Hilltop Inn, 1100 Harmony Way, Evansville, IN 47720