Alright, here we go on the maiden voyage of a brand new MBIP food tour! This is going to be a short tour, just six weeks, but it should be interesting as I’m going to feature six different soups around town. One thing I want to do is sample different and unique types of soup that are available and stay away from the soups that are commonly featured at restaurants, bars and pubs like chicken noodle and French onion soup. One soup that I’ve heard nothing but rave reviews about is the Kilkenny Irish Cheddar Soup at Kenny’s Westside Pub. We’ve stopped at Kenny’s for every one of our food tours and have never been disappointed, so I thought this would be a perfect place to start the MBIP Six Weeks Of Soup Tour! Hey...what’s that noise over there...
Someone’s knocking on my door in perfect Tony Orlando and Dawn syncopation, who, oh who, could it be?
Why it’s Scott Turley, MBIP Pal, Contributing Writer and Wheelman showing off some pretty fancy fingerwork there! Okay, time to hit the road and start this first soupy week!
Off we go! We’re headed down Sterling Avenue to...
Kenny’s Westside Pub! I love that mural on the side of the building painted by local artist Devon McGlone.
As you can see from the lower right hand corner, we’ve come to the right place as soup is prominently featured in the front window!
Let’s go inside and get this first week underway!
As usual, Scott has made fast tracks to the bar, let’s go join him!
Friendly bartender John serves up a Bud and a smile!
And there’s our buddy, Cramer...hey, it’s Sunday night, shouldn’t he be home smoking mad weed on his couch?
Here’s the main man of Kenny’s Westside Pub, Sean Kenny! Sean’s showing off his Willie York t-shirt that are exclusively available at Kenny’s, we’ll have more about the shirts at the end of this post, but for now we’ve placed our soup order and while Sean and Cramer get that order cracking, let’s wander around in here a little bit and take a look around.
I love the lit up bottle display behind the bar, it’s colorful and sparkly!
Hey, the mermaid’s got shades on tonight...I’m guessing she was on Cramer’s couch earlier! I gotta get over there some Sunday!
As you can see, there’s a good crowd in here for a Sunday evening, all the booths are filled up with people enjoying a Sunday night dinner and drinks in here.
I have to spotlight the Bob Whitaker Grateful Dead/Kenny’s Westside painting on the wall over here. I love the way the colors mirror the Irish flag hanging overhead.
As I was taking that photo, MBIP pal, Relyn came up to say hello. Hello Relyn! Relyn's working at Biaggi’s now and invited us to stop by there for a Saturday Night dinner, so I told we would some night when she’s working. So stay tuned for that!
I love the way the colors bounce around on the classic tin ceiling, it's kind of flashback inducing and I always welcome that!
As I was wandering around Nathalie came up and told me she reads the MBIP blog every day! That’s so cool, so I asked to take her picture and she said I could if only I was in it with her, well I don’t have to have a pretty woman ask me that twice, so I gave the MBIP camera to Scott and he snapped this photo of the two of us. Nathalie is gorgeous and I appreciate her reading the blog, wonderful to meet her!
Here’s a shot from the other side of the bar with the greeting, “CEAD MILE FAILTE,” hanging over the bar. That means, “a hundred thousand welcomes”...okay, I had to Google that and look it up on Wiktionary, but hey, give me an “A” for effort at least! Sheesh! Let’s go say hi to that couple at the end of the bar over there.
This is Sarah and Tobias and they told me they’ve been watching football and drinking since noon! They’ve got more stamina than me! Both of them work at Alexander’s Steakhouse and it was nice to meet and chat with them, but in the middle of our conversation I had to cut it short because...
It’s soup time at the bar! Here’s Sean delivering a piping hot bowl of Kilkenny Irish Cheddar Soup!
It looks and smells amazing! Let’s dig in and try out our first bowl of soup on the MBIP Six Weeks Of Soup Tour!
Holy screaming shitballs, this is so fucking good! The soup is creamy and rich and there’s homemade croutons floating on top which adds some flavorful crunch to the creaminess. And if that wasn’t enough there’s smoky thick cut bacon from Raber’s and fresh green onions (straight from Sean’s garden, it doesn’t get much fresher that that!) which adds savory flavors and textures to the soup.
Sean told me that another ingredient that adds to the unique flavor of the soup is a generous dollop of Kilkenny Irish Beer from the taps over here.
This soup is a meal unto itself, so many satisfying flavors going on at once! What a great start to this soup tour!
No wonder Sean snagged a first place prize for the soup at the International BeerFest!
Hey, check this out, Sean’s serving us up a bonus bowl of their homemade Irish Stew for a second course! Nice!
The Irish Stew here is a seasonal dish, only available in the fall and winter and Sean has just put it back on the menu this week. I can’t wait to try this!
Wow, this is wonderful Irish stew! There’s tender and tasty chunks of beef intermingling with vegetables in a rich and robust gravy. And there’s a nice surprise when you dig into this, at the bottom of the bowl is a slab of fresh, dense sour dough bread that has sopped up some of the gravy goodness! This is so satisfying and a perfect dish as the temperatures start to drop outside. As I said, it’s just now back on the menu, so stop by and try it out. This and the cheese soup perfectly compliment everything and make for a wonderful dinner combination!
I told you earlier I’d tell you more about the Willie York shirts available exclusively at Kenny’s and here we go. Sean got these shirts from Big Perm who had them made up for a fundraiser and had some left over. The design of both of the shirts is done by artist, Abigail Calderon. As you can see, there’s two styles available and there's a limited number of these left, so if you want one, you should stop in soon to get one. These are soon going to be collector’s items!
Here’s Scott and I modeling our Willie t-shirts! Thanks to Sean for the shirts and the wonderful soup and stew, this was a perfect start to this soupy tour! We’ll see you all tomorrow!
Soup Rating
Four Soup Nazi’s—The Kilkenny Irish Cheddar Soup is so much more than just a bowl of cheese soup, it’s a bowl of rich and creamy flavorful explosions! And the Irish Stew was a real savory and tasty treat too! Try them both, they’re great as a combination meal together!
Kenny’s Westside Pub
2016 West Farmington Road
West Peoria
309-676-1693
Related Posts: Twenty Tenderloins In Twenty Weeks: Tenderloin Number Six at Kenny’s Westside Pub, The MBIP Year Of Pizza—Week Number Five @ Kenny’s Westside Pub and Twelve Weeks Of Wings - Week Number Two At Kenny’s Westside Pub.