Live, from Peoria, Illinois it’s Saturday Night, starring this week’s host, Alexander’s Steakhouse with special guest star Ben Lowrey A.K.A. B Löwd and featuring an assortment of other guest stars you’ll meet as you scroll on down the post! Now please welcome this week’s host, Alexander’s Steakhouse!
Alright, we missed last month’s vegetarian meal due to the holiday madness, but we’re back on track and this is our sixth meal in six months, so six more and this series is all done! As usual, I’m being picked up at work by the man who thought of this idea, Ben Lowrey A.K.A. DJ, B Löwd. You can keep up to date on upcoming dates where B Löwd is playing live by checking out his facecrack page and you can hear some of his music right here. Ben/B Löwd is also working on a DJ blog, so stay tuned for that, I’ll let you know when that goes live. But now, on to our vegetarian meal for this evening and this month we’re hitting Alexander’s Steakhouse for our meatless meal. A Steakhouse may seem like a strange choice for a vegetarian meal, but keep on scrolling and you’ll see that this steakhouse can also be a wonderful stop for vegetarians and meat eaters alike!
I love the wooden stairway that leads up to Alexander’s! Once we were in the lobby we were greeted by four friendly people at the front desk who’s names I didn’t write down, but they were friendly and welcoming and since we were somewhat near closing time, we managed to get a table without waiting. Nice!
Here’s our view from our table up in the balcony area of Alexander’s. And there’s our pretty and friendly waitress for the evening, Samantha! We placed our meatless order and I took that as a queue to take a quick look around in here while the food is being prepared.
There’s the front dining area with a grill off to the side of it, that grill is turned off as the evening is starting to get late in here. However in the main dining room, there’s steaks on view in the refrigerated cooler and the grill is in full operation in here! There’s two gentlemen cooking up their dinner and it looks and smells so fantastic in here. It always looks and feels like a mid-summer backyard barbecue and that’s a nice atmosphere for a winter evening! Check out the tower of buttered Texas toast on the grill!
There’s more tables and seating on the other side of the grill and yet another dining room to the back of that. There’s even more dining rooms than this, Alexander’s has tons of seating in it! And there’s my favorite place to sit when I come here solo, the bar! Behind the bar is my favorite bartender, Joe standing with...I think his name is Eric, I didn’t write it down, so I hope I’m correct here! I really need to start writing this shit down here!
Right after I took that shot of Joe and the bar I heard a voice call my name and it was none other than the owner of Alexander’s, Steve Shaw along with Ron Helms who’s the Vice President of Operations. Great to see both of them and Steve was excited about our vegetarian meal in here and said he’d send over a complementary order of the sauteed mushrooms that are a signature item in here, nIce! Great to see both of them, but now I better...
Head on back to the table as I’m guessing the dinner order has begun! And I guessed right! We started off with an order of Onion Strings. As you can see, it’s a generous portion and perfect for sharing! The onions are breaded in a Cajun spice mixture and served with a homemade dipping sauce that really compliments the onions nicely! The onions and the sauce have a nice amount of spice happening and they’re really crispy and tasty. A fantastic start to dinner!
One of my favorite things about Alexander’s Steakhouse is the salad bar in the restaurant. You can dish up your own salad here and as you can see there’s a lot of items and selections to create a wonderful salad with. One thing I wish people would realize though is that you can come back here and get a second and even a third salad if you like, so there’s no need to dawdle and create some sicking, giant abstract monstrosity of what you believe a salad should be. So many times I get stuck behind some...how should I gently put this so I don’t offend anyone...uh...well, let’s just say I get stuck behind some big fat, lard-ass slob of a chowhound that takes forever because they’re loading about a half a pound of bacon on top of three strips of lettuce and then slowly topping it off with a gallon of Ranch dressing and enough cheese on top of that to feed a colony of overweight mice. This really pisses me off and some of the salads I’ve seen people create in here really make me want to barf up someone else’s lung! I mean why don’t you just stay at home and suck down about three pounds of lard down your gullet, let your heart explode and then we’ll bury your sad, sorry explosive fat ass in a Bubba dumpster because there’s not enough wood in three forests to bury your obese mass of flesh in a coffin. Whoops...sorry about that, I shouldn’t have gone off like that, but what are you going to do? Anyway, our salads were delicious and there’s a shot of Ben enjoying his salad creation!
And now here comes our main course of the evening, a couple of grilled vegetable skewers with a baked potato and grilled, buttered Texas Toast. The vegetables were really tasty and the grilling really brought out the flavor in them! i've had the sauteed mushrooms in here many times and they are always so delicious, best mushrooms in Peoria! Easy to see why they’ve served over a million orders of these through the years!
Here’s a bird’s-eye-view of our table and our dinner! This was a great vegetarian meal and it’s a great spot to come to if you’re a vegetarian and part of your dinner party isn’t, because they can enjoy the wonderful steaks while you have a wonderful dinner like this and everybody’s happy!
After dinner I ran into Jim and Karen Schwindenhammer, who we just saw last Friday at Karen’s surprise party! I swear I’m not stalking them, they were there for the Waugh Food Christmas dinner. My friend Tim Waugh was also there and there he is with his fiancee, Laura! Great to see all of them! Oh and just a little reminder for next year’s Christmas party...Christmas is in December! Ho ho ho!
On the way out, Ben and I looked at the members of the Beefeaters Club and then I saw MBIP pal and local author, Ken Zurski represented on the wall! Love that! Thanks to everyone at Alexander’s Steakhouse for a great evening and a wonderful veggie dinner and to Ben for driving, hanging out and for the idea for this vegetarian series! We’ll see you all tomorrow!
On paper, it sounds a little weird to go to a steakhouse for a vegetarian dinner, but if you look at the menu at Alexander’s Steakhouse it makes perfect sense!
You could make a meal at their famous salad bar alone! It’s got all kinds of vegetable goodies and you can make return visits so you can have your fill of a tasty vegetable salad and then some! And a baked potato and buttered, grilled Texas Toast comes with the salad bar and that’s enough to fill up anyone! But add a heaping plate of the crisp and spicy onion rings and a sizzling tasty skillet of sauteed mushrooms and you’ve got one of the best vegetarian meals in Peoria! And nothing on your plate has ever uttered the word, “Moo!”
SN Rating
Four Galloping Gourmets—This is a great place to come if you have part of your group that’s vegetarian and part that isn’t because between the salad bar, the non-meat items on the menu and the wonderful steaks available here, everyone will be more than happy! And the service, people and atmosphere in here is wonderful!
Alexander’s Steakhouse
100 Alexander Avenue
Peoria
309-688-0404
Related Posts: Saturday Night Vegetarian SEries @ Last Chance Bar & Grill, Oliver’s Pizza & Pub North, Novu Sushi, PV II and Po-Boys On Frostwood.