It's week number three of our seventh month steak tour and it's time for our first road trip of the tour! And like all road trips, this one starts with a knock at the door...
Jamie Lee Curtis! Oh...I get it, it’s Halloween and you’re the scream queen of Halloween. As much as I’d love to have you come along for a steak dinner, I don’t want to get Christopher Guest jealous, so you just run along now, maybe Michael Myers will go out to dinner with you!
Okay, let’s see...aaahhhh! More Halloween madness! This is actually MBIP pal, Contributing Writer and Wheelman, Scott Turley who came all dressed up for Halloween! It’s hard to see in the photo but the mask actually lights up! Very cool and I appreciate the Halloween effort, Scott!
And we’re off on our first road trip of the seven month steak tour! Today we’re headed to Galesburg for a steak dinner at...
The Packinghouse Dining Company! Scott found out about this place and it’s supposed to be one of the finest steakhouses in Central Illinois! I love the building!
As usual, Scott leads the way as he hightails it to the bar! I like the seasonal pumpkin cart out here in the front of the building. Okay, in we go to start our third week of slaughtered cow on a plate!
That’s Katrina flashing a pretty smile behind the hostess station. She showed me a photo on the wall of the building back when it was a Swift & Company meatpacking plant. The building has been standing on this block since 1912. Swift & Company closed their meaty operation in the mid-’70’s and in 1979 the Packinghouse Dining Company opened up its doors and they've been serving up their signature steak dinners ever since. Katrina led me through this door to the bar area where Scott has already got a beer in his hand!
This is Kara, who’s the lovely bartender this afternoon. She and everyone here is really friendly and happy to talk about the restaurant and Galesburg. Sometimes when we venture out of Peoria, people can be a little stand-offish because they don’t know what the hell this kook is doing running around taking a bazillion pictures and talking a mile a minute, but everyone here has been really nice and accommodating and I appreciate that!
Behind us is the original freight elevator and there’s tables for dining directly behind the bar. There’s Katrina flanked by her co-workers, Robert and Kylie.
Here’s the main dining room and it’s got a real old-school rustic steakhouse atmosphere with all of the wood and brick in it. It’s low-lit and there’s all kinds of vintage photos and art on the walls. Very nice!
One of the things the Packinghouse is famous for is their salad bar. There’s a huge selection of chilled food to sample and I filled up a plate and joined Scott back at the bar. He skipped the salad bar in favor of another beer!
As I finished up my salad plate, Kara brought out some bread and it wasn’t just your typical bowl of bread! It was homemade sourdough bread and fresh, warm cinnamon rolls! The sourdough was really good, but those cinnamon rolls were amazing! The rolls are bakery fresh, toasty-warm and so sweet and delicious! It’s worth the trip here to Galesburg just for these!
As we were enjoying the bread basket, Scott noticed something unusual behind the bar. All the liquor bottles are sitting on metal service ladders! We both agreed that we’ve never seen that in a bar before and it’s a cool design and unique way to shelf your behind-the-bar liquor inventory.
Aright, here’s Kara with this week’s steak dinners! Even from a distance I can see that we’re in for a meaty treat today!
These steak dinners look nothing short of fabulous! I got the smothered Ribeye with cheesy potatoes and Scott got the New York Strip with a baked potato. They look so good it was almost tough to slice into them and start eating them, but we managed to do that after marveling at them for a minute or so!
There’s Scott digging into his New York Strip. That’s his favorite cut of steak and he said it just melted in his mouth and was loaded with flavor. He told me that out of four stars he gives this steak dinner a five! Okay, now it’s time for me to slice into my meal!
Kara recommended the Ribeye and I took her suggestion and got it served, “smothered.” What that means is that it’s topped with grilled onions, mushrooms and a seasoned three cheese sauce. It comes with a heavy-duty steak knife, but it was so tender you could’ve cut it easily with a dull butter knife! The steak was cooked and seasoned perfectly with crispy grill marks seared on the outside and juicy and savory inside. The toppings complimented the marbled steak in a really tasty fashion and they created a festival of flavors tap-dancing on my taste buds! This is hands-down one of the best steaks I’ve ever had in my life!
The cheesy potatoes were really good too and as you can see, both Scott and I are members of the clean plate club after that fantastic steak dinner! We were full but we still decided to have a little dessert in the form of...
After dinner martini’s! This is a chocolate martini and it was a sweet ending to a wonderful meal at the Packinghouse Dining Company! Thanks to everyone there for the friendly atmosphere and delicious food! I’m definitely coming back for more! Thanks, as always to Scott for driving and suggesting this restaurant! We’ll see you all tomorrow!
Steak Rating
Four Elsie the Cows—This will be a hard meal to beat! From the plentiful salad bar to the sweet cinnamon rolls to the fantastic steak dinners, this was a meal I’ll never forget! And the service and atmosphere is definitely top-notch. It’s certainly worth the drive to Galesburg!
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The Packinghouse Dining Company
441 Mulberry Street
Galesburg, Illinois
309-342-6868
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Related Posts: Seven Months Of Steak @: Fresco and The Fish House.
Surprise link, click on it...I dare you!
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Bonus Photos: The MBIP Halloween Costume Winners!
We had hundreds of photos sent in for this year’s MBIP Halloween Costume Contest and here's this year's winners! This quartet of Halloween mischief-makers wins the first place award hands down! They dressed up as characters from the classic movie, The Big Lebowski and they did a wonderful job recreating the characters with their costumes and make-up!
They’ve all appeared on the MBIP blog in non-costume form and they are from left: Amber as Maude, Joe as The Dude, Brent as Donny and Danielle as Walter. Fantastic costumes and inspiring work from all four of you!
They not only won the MBIP Halloween Costume Contest, they were took the first place award at Last Chance’s Halloween party last Saturday night! Congratulations and Happy Halloween everybody!