We broke the streak of heading to the downtown/campus area this week and stayed a little closer to home. For all of the times we’ve been to the Easton area the kids had never been to J. Alexander’s yet. They have mentioned going several times so this week they finally got their wish.

We were able to get seated right away as we are usually early diners. We had prompt attention from our server and looked over the menu as she went off to get our drinks. There was also a specials menu that we had to choose from that had one appetizer, a few entrees, and one dessert. We were all in the mood for an appetizer and the Smoked Salmon Dip sounded just too good to pass up. I’m a huge fan of smoked salmon and this didn’t disappoint. I told the kids I could have had that as my meal!

While Chloe said she didn’t know what she wanted, I instantly knew what she was going to get as soon as I saw the special’s menu. There was a grilled salmon on there that was in bang bang sauce that she considered for a second, but ultimately went where I thought she would and got the crab cakes. In true Chloe fashion, she was worried about the cost and didn’t want to get them because of that, but I assured her to get them as I know how much she loves them. The only deal was that she let me have a bite. And I’m glad that was the deal because they were delicious! They were FULL of crab with very little breading which is in my opinion the best crab cake. She really enjoyed them and made comments several times about how good they were, and the fact that she ate them all. The cole slaw was great too and I got most of that as she isn’t a big fan.

Alex was a bit undecided for a while. I’m not actually sure what all he was deciding between but he eventually went with the Steak Maui. Obviously he ordered it medium rare, as I taught him well on that. I probably should have warned him about getting a rib eye as he was doing quite a bit of carving to try to get no fat in his bite. He’s used to getting filet’s or NY Strips so this was a bit different for him. But he did like it and in fact brought the rest home so it must have been good enough for him. He let me try a bite and it was delicious. It had what I would describe as a pineapple tasting glaze on it which I liked.

I was trying to decide between a few dishes. Not to say that I choose by price, but to keep our bill in a somewhat manageable one, I did intentionally go with something more on the cheaper side since the kids went higher on theirs. I balanced it out by going with the Pork Tenderloin. I’m so glad that I did as I was pleasantly surprised by how smokey the flavor was! And the bang bang sauce was delicious. Alex was laughing at me as I would circle a bit of the pork in the sauce several times to get as much on there as I could! The smashed potatoes were just as delicious. I would definitely get this one again!