A few places along the way...

Oscar's Restaurant, West Peoria: Me and Don stopped over there for lunch last week. It was a small, chilly place that served cans of soda, rather than fountain. We both ordered cheeseburgers, which were not the garden variety frozen patty. They looked and tasted to be hand formed, which negates the bad feelings of not having an option for the free refill of drinky. We sat next to a lady with a big mess o' biscuits and gravy, which looked like they might be worth a taste.

Red Lobster, Peoria: You know me, not ever against a franchise restaurant. I wanted to get in on the last day or two of the shrimp-tacular all you can eat shrimp. I had the scampi, coconut shrimp, and the cajun shrimp, along with their yummy mashed potatoes. All good! I love Red Lobster! There is no real surprises here, just good seafood. And of course, the biscuits are worth the trip themselves. The staff there was really nice on a Sunday evening, playing and dancing with my kid.

Richard's, Peoria: Met up with some friends from the blog-o-sphere who share a common space on Peoriaspeaks.com, one of the local forums I like to visit and read every so often. Wonderful company, fair horseshoe (the zesty cheese is TOO zesty for a horseshoe) and shoddy service. Most of the people I talked to liked their food just fine. The big draw: their grill stays open LATE, and that trumps all things questionable in my mind.

Avanti's, Peoria: Yeah, me and Chloe went back after having been there not too long ago. I've got nothing new to add about the food, but only an interesting time was had. A kid a few booths down got his finger caught in the straw hole of his kiddie drink lid. Hilarity ensued. To karmically pay for my laughter, Chloe proceeded to ignore her napkin and instead wipe her hands on her shirt. What comes around goes around.

Fedora's, Peoria: I wanted to write about this place, located on the corner of McClure and University, but I forgot. Me and Chloe joined Don, Jason and Rob there on a Saturday afternoon a few weeks back, remembering how good their pizza was 10 years ago. It hasn't changed, all still VERY good!!! We had a sausage pizza and a "Sicilian", which had a bunch of meat on it. What crust!! If you haven't gone there before, go now. If it's been a while for you too, go NOW!!! Additionally, the owner came out and once again made friends with my daughter, and that always gets a place high praise from me.