Sterling Family Restaurant

A recent trip to Peoria brought us to Louie's Sterling Family Restaurant. Sterling Family Restaurant has mostly home-style foods with a few Greek dishes thrown in for good measure. Opa!














Who is this Louie fella? He is a mustached Greek immigrant who opened the restaurant just over 20 yrs ago in 1989. Apparently this mustached mushroom cloud logo represents him.














The seating in the main room is similar to a dining car, just one long row of booths and a counter.




























We sat at the counter with chunky Danny Glover.














Most of the time when you mention Sterling, people will respond with one of two statements-- "I haven't eaten there in forever" or "President Bush ate there." And indeed he did.














They seem quite proud of that visit, one wall is dedicated to their encounter. I was more excited that Karl Rove ate there. He actually eats food to supplement his blood-sucking.

So what do the Greek Titans eat? Apparently they eat sausage, eggs, hashbrowns and toast.




Before:










After:



















Needless to say, Richie conquered the Mount Olympus of breakfast and shall hereforth be known as Richetheus.

I'm guessing Persephone feasted on such evil foods as the incredible edible egg (substitute)...















A malicious and delicious omelet with spinach and ham. I will refer to it as a nomelet because when it first came out I said, wow that is huge! And then I proceeded to eat it all because it was delicious. nom nom.














The menu included quite a few sweet potato dishes. Not sure why...they aren't really Greek in nature. A food of the gods perhaps. Or maybe there was a surplus this year. Okay they were probably on sale at Kroeger. Anyway, the sweet potato pancake beckoned me like Sirens of the Sea.














I took a big bite and it was like Thanksgiving all over again. Minus the kid falling down the stairs and mom yelling at me for not stirring the gravy. I would recommend serving this with marshmallow fluff.






Gravy robber






So the Sterling Family Restaurant...Zeus smiles upon ye. Good enough for a President, good enough for me. I really enjoyed the cozy atmosphere and fresh hot food. Service was fast as Hermes and, though the waitresses were no Aphrodites, they were very sweet.

Apparently they thought Obama might stop by when he was in town, but he didn't. He probably went somewhere expensive and ran up a HUGE bill. Let's hope he had the cash this time.

Coyote Kitchen

We hit up The Coyote Kitchen one night in Boone. I sort of snuck it in there and kept the fact that it was organic and vegan-friendly from Richie. I looked up the menu in the phone book and decided it had enough meat to satiate him.

It ended up being a very small place located in a strip mall that was otherwise closed.














The inside looked sort of Mexican or Tuscan. The clientele was very odd and our waitress was a hippie with a stoner laugh. This lady in this picture took down her hair later, and it was PAST HER BUTT. freaking GROSS. She was also wearing shiny bright blue leggings.

The food took a long time to come out of the kitchen. I imagine it was my pasta, cause it takes a while to boil water. Or it's just the way things are done down south, because pretty much everywhere we ate took FOREVER.

In the meantime, Richie enjoyed his 'natural' root beer.















And here was his feast, kobe beef with chipotle cream cheese, sliced lettuce, romas, caramelized onion, roasted corn, pico de gallo and jack cheese...
















And my parmesan covered tortellini. There was also some chicken chunks in there. I wasn't very hungry so I started by picking those out and eating them, but then the tortellini was so good, I kept going and going. I brought my leftovers home and ate them the next day.















So the food turned out to be really good and every one thoroughly enjoyed it. And we all got our meat in for the day. It was one of the few meals in which someone did not eat a hamburger.

We didn't eat until like 8 p.m. so no good outdoor pics of the place, but you can kind of make out the coyote...

Gramma's Kitchen

Well my parents made me clean out my old room (bummer), but the good news is that I found a huge ziploc bag full of change. Add it to our change jar, take back some cans, and bam, $50 for a nice dinner out. We considered the Machine Shed, but decided to try something new instead. So we decided Gramma's Kitchen must have some good homestyle cookin.

When I eat in my grandma's kitchen, it's usually Heavenly Ham or Happy Joe's Pizza, but I get the concept. Grandmas are supposed to be great cooks who spend hours toiling away in the kitchen, making everything by scratch. You'd think this restaurant would serve similarly prepared food. You'd think that, wouldn't you?

Gramma's Kitchen is located across from the World's Largest Truck Stop in Walcott, Iowa, a short jaunt down I-80. The truck stop opened in 1964 while 80 was still being constructed. It currently encompasses over 75 acres and houses everything from a dog wash to a dentist.

Gramma's Kitchen was built in 1984 by Heart of America restaurants. It caters to truckers and older folk. We should've known...

The menu sounds pretty good. Down home classics like chicken fried steak which Richie ordered, chicken pot pie, steaks, turkey, etc. Prices are around 10-12 dollars for most dinner items. That includes unlimited trips to the salad bar.

First we decided to try the fried sweet corn balls, but the waitress came out and said they no longer had any sweet corn. We tried cheddar curds instead, which were decent, but probably not fresh.




























We took our trip to the salad bar to discover a giant bowl of bagged salad and then some bowls of dressing, cheese, and pudding. Pretty disappointing. If theyre going to do that, why not just bring the side salad to you?

I'll be honest, I really liked the blob of green jello salad





Finally, we got our meals and Richie complained about the potatoes being lumpy. I happen to enjoy lumps and chunks in my potatoes, so I tried mine and they were flavorless. I added some gravy, but it was so salty, I could hardly stand it. Unfortunately, I had to use more gravy on my turkey because it was too dry to eat otherwise. Also, the bread that came with my meal was like two slices of cold Wonder bread. Really, gramma?

I had been excited to try a dessert, but by that point, we were both so anxious to get out of there that we just paid and left. I drove over to the truck stop to get a Blizzard from DQ.

So there you have it. Gramma must be a real winner. I think it's time she checked out of the kitchen and into a home. Try the Machine Shed instead.