Central Illinois Oct 7-Oct 9

Oh, Central Illinois.  We've spent many moons together and you never fail to surprise me by how boring you are.  While I always enjoy mindless driving, I do wish you would give me more to look at than corn fields and those giant, creepy electric-generating windmill things.

I drug Jesse along on a work trip to install a few price patches at a dozen locations scattered around Central Illinois.  Of course, we took this opportunity to eat at a few interesting restaurants since that's pretty much responsible for 75% percent of the traveling we do.  We knew of a place called Bacaro Wine Lounge in Champaign, IL that our friend, Sunshine had mentioned.  She met the chef while working in New York and hadn't been able to make the trip herself.   The atmosphere was nice, though a little dark.  We sat at the bar only intending on ordering off the limited bar menu but opted for dinner instead.

The truffled fries were good as were the specialty drinks we ordered.  I ordered the gnocci, which was also good, but not better than Old Ebbitt Grill in Washington D.C., which is a shame since Old Ebbits is kind of touristy.  Jesse had the Risotto of the Day, which featured scallops.  Also, very good but lacking that push over to great.  I hate to say it wasn't good, because that wouldn't be true.  However, I think since it's located somewhere that doesn't offer a lot of competition, the dedication to perfection may be lacking.  If I ever end up in Champaign again, I will order an entree from the regular menu and see how that stands up.

The next day we hunted and hunted for a place to eat and almost ate at Hofbrau, an apparently really good German place in Peoria, IL.  I'm not a fan of German and it was a little expensive (despite what you see in that picture on their front page) for me to not actually want to eat anything there so after a drink we kept moving.  (Also, it was really early in the afternoon and it was full of creepy old guys that had been there drinking all day.)  After scouring Yelp, Jesse decided on Burger Barge.  Why, you ask?

This.

Yee haw, ya'll!  This is the Buy The Farm.

This thing was a 9oz. burger patty, butterflied pork chop and a chicken breast with all the regular burger toppings, plus something they call 'dock sauce', which Jesse asked them to leave off.  He said it sounded like it tasted stupid.  He's funny.  I had a 'Barge', otherwise known as a cheesesteak.  It was terrible.  I gave most of it to Jesse.  All was not lost though, the Cheese Blobs, though gross sounding were good, even if they were just battered and fried cheese cubes, I'll take it.

The next day we pulled over in Decatur and had lunch at Firewater Cafe.  The bubble bread was good and much less greasy than cheesebread typically is and I had a shrimp and bacon pizza, which doesn't look like it's still on the menu, but was killer, in a good way.  Seriously, shrimp and bacon were meant to be 2getha 4eva.  The service was slow, but don't let that discourage you.  It was really that good.  Maybe if you ask real nice-like, you can convince them to make that shrimp pizza for you.

Bubble Bread