Live, from Peoria, Illinois, it’s Saturday Night, starring this week’s host, Jim’s Steak House with special guest stars Brian and Courtney Hennessey and featuring the Ready For Prime Beef Player, Marty Wombacher! And now please welcome this week’s host located in beautiful downtown Peoria, Jim’s Steakhouse!
My ride’s here! When we had the MBIP Bowling party a few weeks ago, my Godson, Brian and his wife Courtney and I talked about going out to dinner some night, and as luck would have it, tonight is that very night! They said they could pick me up at work and sure as shit on a shingle, here they are!
I took a shot of Brian and Courtney from my seat in the back, but the goddamned MBIP fuzzed it out. I couldn’t even fix it in Photoshop. HATE the MBIP camera!
Off we go into the darkness of the night!
We have arrived at the place with the familiar green awning: Jim’s Steak House! Good food and drink are just scant minutes away!
If you look really closely you can see a barely visible obligatory front door mirror shot going on here.
Usually I eat at the bar at Jim’s, but since there’s three of us, I thought we’d get a table in the elegant main dining tonight. It’s going to be a rare table-side adventure, so tighten your belt, pull up your socks and let’s get seated!
And within seconds of being seated, our pretty waitress, Lisa is pouring an ice cold beer into a tall beer glass. Courtney’s pregnant and can’t drink, so she’s ignoring this process and is doing a Vulcan mind-meld with her right kneecap.
Alright, the drinks have been poured and cheers from our table of three! Salud!
We’ve placed our food order and I walked over to the piano bar area to see who was playing and it turns out it’s the duo that bill themselves as Three And A Half Men. They play jazzy, adult rock and it’s nice dinner music that you can chew along to in 3/4 time and who doesn’t love that?
Bob and Dottie are seated at the piano bar and they’re regulars in here, in fact we saw them and took their photo the last time we were here in January of this year. Great to see them again!
When I returned to our table, our appetizer of stuffed mushrooms had just arrived. Perfect timing and boy howdy do those look tasty. They’re large mushroom caps stuffed with crab meat and covered in rich melted cheese.
Courtney dug in as Brian played an imaginary snare drum at the table. I hate it when he does that, but what are you going to do?
Just as we polished off the last of the mushrooms, Jim’s Steak House owner Tim Comfort came by to say hi. He told me he had just been reading MBIP the other day, which was nice to hear. All of a sudden I knew what had to be done: Jim’s Steak House MBIP Group Portrait! From left, Al, Brian, Tim, Courtney and Lisa.
The salad portion of the meal has begun and Lisa deftly adds ground pepper to mine. Outstanding work!
The salad looks wonderful and is very colorful. It was delicious.
And now it’s time for the main event! Courtney and I both got the English Cut of Prime Rib and it looks and smells heavenly! The English Cut is the smaller portion, I can’t imagine what the large portion looks like. Maybe they just walk a cow to your table and you dig in! Moo!
I got the au gratin potatoes for my side dish and I’ve had these before. The dish consists large chunks of potato swimming in zesty melted cheese sauce.
Brian got the salmon and he hasn’t touched it yet as he’s still playing that damned air snare drum!
You can read more about the meal in the review below, but it was tasty treat and everything was cooked to perfection. It’s always a great meal at Jim’s!
And here’s the man responsible for our wondrous feast, Chef Todd! I complimented Chef Todd on the food he prepared and he sat down and we had a chat about local restaurants and food.
As Chef Todd chews the fat with Brian and Courtney, I snuck off to...
Take a photo of this table in this festive nook over here. I love festive nooks and I’m quite pleased to have captured this one for eternity via this photograph.
Alright, dinner’s over, so we hiked over here to the bar area for an after-dinner drink or two. Or maybe even three, who knows?
I love the old school, highly-polished wooden bar. It’s got a classic look and feel to it.
Here’s the back of the bar complete with a fancy decorated mirror that’s flanked by two guitars. The guitars were given to the restaurant from two musicians that played at the Civic Center. One was a country artist and the other was in a rock ‘n’ roll band. I can’t remember the names and I should’ve written them down, but what are you going to do?
There’s a quartet of taps in the middle of the bar.
I think I see a familiar face back there in the shadows...
It’s pretty bartender, Karen! She’s served us many drinks at this bar through the years. In fact she was our bartender when we made our MBIP maiden voyage here when this blog was just 14 days old! Wonderful to see her again!
Karen raises horses and this is the latest addition, A black Arabian Philly baby horse. Horses for courses!
Cheers! We had a great time at Jim’s and thanks to Brian and Courtney for driving and for being fun dinner companions and to everyone at Jim’s for another great Saturday night dinner and fun times! We’ll see you all tomorrow!
Our Meal
We started out with the stuffed mushrooms for an appetizer and Lisa told us that they’re the best selling appetizer on the menu and after scarfing a couple of them down, I understood why. They’re large mushroom caps stuffed with rich crab meat and topped of with zesty melted cheese. A perfect starter for a Saturday night dinner.
Both Courtney and I had the English Cut of the Prime Rib for the main course. The prime rib is a signature dish at Jim’s Steak House and it’s a beautiful and tasty cut of meat. Brian had the Norwegian Salmon, it looked really good, but he was so preoccupied with that damned imaginary snare drum, I couldn’t get a comment from him about it, but I’m sure it was just as delicious as it looked. It was a perfect Saturday night dinner, as always at Jim’s!
Four Galloping Gourmets
Every meal I’ve ever had at Jim’s has been extraordinary and this night was no exception! Thanks to Chef Todd for preparing such an exquisite feast of tasty treats!
Related posts: Saturday Night @ Seven On Prospect, Castle’s Patio Inn and Troy Ummel’s Connected.