Live, from Peoria, Illinois it’s Saturday Night starring this week’s host, Sugar Wood-Fired Bistro and featuring The Ready For Prime Beef Player, Marty Wombacher. This week’s special guest star is Jeanette Kendall! And now, from the heart of Peoria’s Downtown Warehouse District, please welcome this week’s host, Sugar Wood-Fired Bistro!
Off we go into what John Fogerty sang about years ago.
Here we are at tonight's destination, Sugar Wood-Fired Bistro. A couple of week's ago, I took a dinner from here to The Red Barn and I ate it with Jeanette Kendall, but I forgot to take pictures of the food, so I thought I'd meet Jeanette back here tonight and we'd get a dinner and do it up right with pictures and a proper MBIP review of the place.
And so let's go in and start tonight's Saturday night adventure!
Here's the front counter at Sugar where you place your food order. Of course I'm early, so Jeanette's not here yet, so let's take a look around for a minute or three.
I ran into these three fellows while asking if I could take a picture of the imported wood-fired oven in here. They are (from left): Vince, Andy and Martin. Vince is a chef here and at owner Travis Mohlenbrink's other two restaurants, Cracked Pepper and Salt, Andy is the Executive Chef and Martin is a cook who started here a few months ago. Great to meet all of them!
This is the imported wood-stoked oven that's the centerpiece of the front kitchen. The food gets slid into this oven and tasty and magical delights get slid back out after getting all fired up.
Below the oven is the wood that fuels the flames that cooks the food.
They have eight selections of beer on tap here and a nice selection of wine as well.
And here's the special guest star of the evening, Jeanette Kendall looking pretty as always! This is Jeanette's third appearance on MBIP, she was on the other week when we went to the Red Barn and we had lunch at Carl's in East Peoria a while back. Great to see her again and now this post is officially underway!
We were both hungry, so we stepped over here to where you order your food at the front counter.
Before you get to the ordering station you have to pass by this glass case of tasty looking pastries.
I forgot to write her name down, but I think this is Amy who took our order. If I screwed up and that's not your name, you're just going to have to change it. Sorry about that!
Jeanette ordered a Margherita pizza and here's Martin sliding it into the wood-fired oven.
After you order you get a number and someone brings your food to you after it's prepared, so it's back to our table we go.
And through the magic of the internet, here's our food served up by our pretty server, Megan.
There's Jeanette's Margherita pizza. I've had the pizza here and it's fantastic. In fact it was the second stop on our year of pizza tour and we baked Gumby in the oven. Memories...
I got the bourbon marinated steak which comes with roasted baby potatoes and wood-fired vegetables.
The steak was so good, you can read more about it in the review below.
The chicken wings were wood-fired, smokey and delicious. That oven really churns out a unique taste for food.
Megan took a photo of Jeanette and I enjoying our meal at our table.
We split the dessert pizza at the end of the meal, this looks and smells positively decadent.
Again, you can read about this in the review below, but it's like a S'more pizza and it is so good!
Looks like there's a party going on in the back room, let's go crash it.
They told me that this was a birthday party for Erin, so of course I had to find out who Erin was...
And here's the birthday girl herself looking cute as a button. Happy birthday, Erin!
Jeanette came back and took a photo of the entire back room party.
And here they are in all of their birthday party glory!
Megan took a photo of us on our way out. Thanks to Jeanette and everyone at Sugar for a fun Saturday night. We'll see you all tomorrow!
My Meal
I got Bourbon Marinated Steak for my main course along with an order of Sweet Chili Chicken Wings. The marinated steak is served kabob style on wooden skewers on a bed of roasted vegetables and wood-fired potatoes. The steak was lean and tender and the marinade made it juicy with a sweet and smoky flavor to it. I don’t eat steak a lot, but when I do, I hope it always tastes like this. If you order chicken wings at Sugar, you’ll learn on valuable lesson in eating chicken wings and the lesson is this: Chicken wings and wood-fired ovens go together like wool socks and chilled feet. I had the Sweet Chili wings and they too had a nice, smoky taste from the wood along with equal doses of sweet and heat from the chili sauce. They were plump, juicy and wonderful, as was the whole meal.
Jeanette and I split a dessert pizza which is a cinnamon dusted flatbread crust topped with chocolate hazelnut drizzle, marshmallows, graham cracker crumbs and chocolate and then fired up in the oven to a crispy delight. Need I say more? I didn’t think so.
SN Rating
Three and a half Galloping Gourmets—If you want to sample some unique and delicious wood-fired tasty treats, get over to Sugar toot sweet!
Related posts: SN @ Agatucci’s, The Red Barn and The Fish House.
Sugar, I never cheat on my Sugar,
Cause I'm too sweet on my Sugar,
That sugar baby of mine
Surprise link, click on it...I dare you!
------------------
Today’s post was brought to you by, of all places, Sugar Wood-Fired Bistro! And no, this wasn't planned, just a happy accident! Check them and all the other fine businesses helping to support this blog over at the MBIP Bucket List Page. Your Daily Random Linkage awaits you at the bottom of the that page as well!
------------------