Avanti's

After a lovely visit at Tanner's Apple Orchard, we headed to Peoria for a bite to eat. We stopped at a local chain restaurant that was started in 1966 by a Swiss immigrant who was well versed in the cheese-making business. Let's face it, he probably also an excellent chocolatier and fondue whiz.
Well this peaceful Swiss decided to start making pizzas and other Americanized Italian dishes. Luckily, he covered them in his fresh cheese and it all came together for the best.
Avanti's is well known in the Peoria area. If you're looking for "authentic" Italian and good looking waiters, you could blow 50 bucks at the Biaggi's down the street. If you're looking for cheesy goodness and haggard, but polite service, you'll find it at Avanti's.



















We visited the location at 4711 N Rockwood, which is a nice looking place, but I miss our old hangout on University and Main and seeing the crazy bike man.




This Avanti's is at least larger and more modern.










We were seated and served quickly, probably to keep the peace. (heh more Swiss jokes) Your meal always begins with a Matterhorn sized bread basket and little golden wrapped nuggets of butter.

The slightly sweet bread is warm, soft, and chewy. There's nothing better than slapping butter on a warm piece of bread and watching it melt into the pores.















Avanti's has a typical menu filled with pizzas, ravioli, spaghetti, and subs. Prices are cheap enough to keep the Bradley students satisfied. They also have a daily special, in which I partook.


































An Avanti's favorite is the Gondola, a boatload of layered meats and cheese on a sweetly singing bread roll.

Ham, Salami, American cheese, Lettuce and Mayo..Why is this famous?

 Richie likes to double fist his food, so he also ordered the pizza bread.














I went with the special which happened to be chicken cacciatore. A grilled breast of chicken concealed with tomato sauce, in a web of linguine.













My grandpa made some mean cacciatore and this one was pretty surly too. The tomato sauce is chunky and probably too sweet unless, like me, you enjoy eating frosting with a spoon.

Avanti's always ends your meal with a cheap bill and starlight mints. The hills are alive with the smell of garlic and, honestly, the mints do little to mask it, but it's a nice gesture. For a cheap meal that satisfies the American palate, flee through the Alps and check out Avanti's.

Van's Pizza

Van's Pizza, Pub, and Grill is a relatively new place in town. It's located in the old Pat McGuire's at 3333 Harrison Street. McGuire's was a well loved Irish bar and grill that had been operating since 1986. The business was sold in 2009, but the offer to keep the name was available to the new owners. Because they already owned an Irish pub across town, they didn't want to open a second in Davenport. So they chose to open a pizza place. Just what Davenport needs, more pizza. This begs the question, can you have too many pizzerias in one town? Well, yes, you can.

However, Van's isn't JUST a pizza place. They kept the bar and have quite a selection of beers for the party boys from Palmer. They also tacked on the 'grill' so they can still serve burgers, appetizers, and other typically blah bar staples.

Suffice it to say, I'd really like a new concept to come to the Quad-Cities.

Exterior was slightly remodeled. Inside, the Irish paraphernalia is gone and replaced with generic bar shit. The menu looks suspiciously similar to the Jersey Grille.

Though I was pessimistic about the quality of pizza coming from this run-of-the-mill pub, it was surprisingly delicious.

The garlic cheese bread was properly garlic-y, blanketed with stringy cheese and spices. They serve it with ranch, marinara, and that green thing. It'll set you back 4.99.

Not wanting a traditional pie, we split a personal sized Iowa Farmhand's pizza.


I was most pleased that the sauce was actually ketchup and mustard mixed together. Makes for a burger-like taste and satiates my sweet tooth. The toppings were loaded on, a bit precariously, I might add. Some pieces were loaded with onion, others with pickles. Also sprinkled on were big chunks of pork tenderloin- this is an Iowa pizza after all. The crust was a good consistency, thin and slightly chewy.
The price wasn't as nice, $8.99, but if you're eating out, I suppose that's on par. A plain cheese is only $4.99 and a one-topping is $5.99.

I would probably make a return visit to try another specialty pizza. However, until the rest of the menu gets some originality, I'll pass on that.

P.S. The cold leftovers were fantastic.

Wordless Wednesday- Grinders take out

Italian Beef

DP Dough

Believe it or not, this nondescript red awning serves as the gates to cheese heaven.

















DP Dough: The Pizza Alternative is the cheesiest joint ever. They don't serve pious pizza in heaven, but they do serve some consecrated calzones.


Place your order with St. Bartholomew, patron Saint of cheese merchants.






DP Dough has 2 Locations in Illinois located in the pre-obesity student-filled college towns of Champaign and Bloomington. It's good to hook em before they realize their eating habits will leave them with diabetes and stretchy pants.













You can customize a calzone in the Construction Zone. But this may be difficult when you're wandering the streets after a bar crawl. So you can just choose one from their menu which includes the following categories of zones- Breakfast, Steak, Beef, Veggie, Chicken, Premium, and Classic. Within each category are around half a dozen calzones such as School Zone with steak, mushrooms, and mozzarella, the Speed Zone with chicken, spinach, garlic, and mozz and the Titan Zone with pepperoni, pineapple, spinach, and mozz.













Beatify the sacred special for lunch. $7.99 for a huge 'zone, cookie, and pop. For the devoted, try the faithful 420 special- 4 calzones for $20 on Thursdays.
















Righteous Richard entered the Gates of Cheesedom and reunited himself with his beloved Mozzarella in the form of a Roni Zoni.



A calzone stuffed with Pepperonis, mozzarella, and ricotta cheese.






As you can see, the cheese could not be entombed by the cavernous dough. It resurrected itself to the box in one gelatinous heap.




























Yes those are thick cut fries on the side, because a monstrous satchel of cheese was not enough to satisfy reverent Richard

















It is quite evident that these calzones are meant for two very hungry cheese zealots.
They DO NOT have pizza, but their stix are pretty close to being pizza. The dessert ones are filled with apple and come with a caramel dipping sauce. Praise the lord! The price is reasonable and it's a fun and tasty alternative to impious pizza.

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...

PIZZA TUESDAY

I decided to declare today "Pizza Tuesday." So I ordered a medium pepperoni from Paul Revere's and a small bubble bread from Winners. Both are in Eldridge and both are locally owned. Paul Revere's is a chain with locations mostly in Iowa. The Eldridge location opened in 1991. It is located next to GiGi's Dance Studio at 1084 E. LeClaire Rd. I imagine GiGi's either smells really delicious or like sweaty pizza.
Paul Revere's is most famous for their 20 inch Terminator pizza. Most people in Eldridge are very familiar with the place, few in the actual Quad-Cities have ventured out to try it, but it's worth the trip. Though, they have a small very 90s looking eat-in dining room. Yes, that's Ryno and Gracie adorning the walls.











I can't get Richie to eat pizza from anywhere else. So why does it stand out among the multitude of pizza joints? The sauce isn't sweet, it's very greasy and garlicy, and it's very cheap.


















The special today was a medium for 10 bucks. They also offer the greasiest, most buttery breadsticks around.






PR pizza (top) and Winners bubble bread (bottom)









But today we decided to try the bubble bread from the newest pizza place in town, Winners.
















Winners opened in March of this year. It took over the old Maid-Rite on LeClaire Rd, almost directly across from Paul Revere's. The inside is sort of retro beach themed, I guess. I mean, they have a checkerboard floor and surfboard on the wall. Anywho, the parking lot is almost always full- a good sign.


















Winners pretty much offers the same food as PR- pizza, pastas, and sandwiches. They do have some different specialties like mac n cheese pizza, which i have yet to try. Their pizza tastes similar to homemade pizza if you know what I mean. Satisfying, but nothing special. We heard the bubble bread was yummy so we tried it out.
















As you can see, it wasn't bubbly at all, so that was a bit confusing. It's really what I would call "cheesesticks", but that wouldn't be.. retro? They are basically grease and cheese on thin crust. they were pretty good but honestly, we prefer PR's breadsticks. If you're looking for a place to dine in with the fam, check out Winner's. (285-pizza) If you want to pick up a yummy no frills pie, check out Paul Revere's, (285-9000) TATER DID!

Grinders and Spaghetti House

Having lived in Peoria, we needed to find a QC restaurant comparable to Avanti's. Well I remembered Grinders from my days as a broke college student at Ambrose. (Most of their lunch specials are $2.50 for a real home cooked Italian dish.) Tonight we stopped at the old 1208 W. Locust location for sandwiches.














Richie got a meatball sub with mozzarella. All the subs are served on an 8 inch bread loaf. It is sooo sweet and doughy. eat it, love it.














I got a baked chicken sandwich. This does not even compare to the limp chicken breasts served at Subway. It's warm, juicy, and hasn't been sitting there for hours.














I believe their most popular sandwich is the Gondola- ham, salami, cheese and lettuce. The pasta is also very delicious and reasonably priced. Many families were there sharing a meal. Here's the yummy cheesy garlic bread.















Afterwards we hit up Whitey's which is a regular stop for us and most people from the QC. A few guys traveling through from Alabama were there for the 2nd time this week and have plans to stop again on their way out of town. It's that good.
I deviated from my usual blueberry yogurt and got two scoops, one smurf, one gummy bear. For those completely out of the loop, Smurf ice cream tastes like fruity pebbles. Richie got a sherbet freeze- a mixture of watermelon sherbet, cherry flavor, awesomeness, and Sprite.