Blind Lady Ale House

My birthday was this weekend! To that end, I ate what I wanted, and got to pick anywhere that we dined (we still did a lot of meals at home!). I’ve wanted to try it forever, and this weekend was it. I finally sampled the pizza and beer offered by Blind Lady Ale House.

Located in the heart of Normal Heights, BLAH has some fierce competition in the food department. However, they have managed to situate themselves nicely to become a mainstay of the Normal Heights/Kensington restaurant scene.

We went in for lunch, and after perusing their menu, decided to order the Salsiccia, which includes homemade Italian sausage, rapini, oregano, fontina cheese, and tomato sauce. Since we like a lot of cheese, we added mozzarella. To make it totally healthy, we ordered the house salad, which was surprisingly good! Simple greens with homemade croutons and dressing, but excellent in its simplicity.

The pizza came out next, and was worth every calorie. The crust was nice and thin, but still nice and chewy. It stood up well to the fresh ingredients. There was just enough basil and rapini to make things interesting, and the homemade sausage was excellent.

The other thing that BLAH specializes in is beer. An ever-rotating selection of about 20 beers on tap is available, and patrons are allowed to sample before ordering (within reason, of course). It was really hard to decide which one we wanted, and of course after ordering the Pilsner, I noticed that they had an Evil Dead Red that sounding intriguing. Next time, I hope! My one problem was that the signs detailing the names of the beers were a bit too small to discern from the other side of the bar. Perhaps bigger signs or a disposable list?

The service is extremely casual – patrons order their food at the counter, and it is brought out by the servers. I know that most people prefer full service, but I kind of like counter service, particularly when the servers are friendly and the counter is clean (BLAH is extremely clean!).

Highly recommended!!