River City Cafe, Peoria

For Bosses Day a few weeks back, me and some of my co-workers took our boss, Corey, out to lunch at the River City Cafe, located in the Associated Bank Building. Crowded place, it was. We managed to pull together a few tables and got to looking at the menu. They had a pretty wide variety of cold and hot sandwiches, fried items, and salads.

There were a variety of things ordered by my fellow diners-Kati, Lyuba, Corey and Audrey-that ran the gamut of the menu. A cheeseburger they called the "Steamer" (and then jokes were had), a grilled chicken sandwich, a barbecue sandwich were among them, along with some onion rings. But my dish was the most interesting, I'd like to think. They offered two scoops of various salad, ranging from tuna salad, chicken salad, pasta salad, and perhaps seafood salad. I opted for a scoop of tuna and a scoop of chicken, thinking it would be served in a bowl with lettuce and the acoutrements that usually come with a salad. Nope.

This dish looked like someone rescued it from the revolving glass refrigerator at the Howard Johnson's, circa 1976. It was some leaves of lettuce on a plate, with two scoops of salad and a few pieces of tomato. The salads were good, but it just wasn't what I was expecting. The presentation looked like one of the many plates Bluto piled onto his tray at the cafeteria in Animal House.

I would probably give the place another go, because it's so nearby work. Next time, however, I'll get me an egg salad. On bread. Which is what I was gonna get until Kati threatened to vomit from the smell that would surely come along with it. 8-)