Pleasant Hill Antique Mall and Tea Room

A couple years back, a friend of ours claimed he had the "best steak ever" at Pleasant Hill Antique Mall Tea Room, 315 S. Pleasant Hill Road in East Peoria. I've yet to try the steaks, but it's an interesting claim.
This weekend, StfRon and I enjoyed breakfast in the tearoom at the mall. The crowd wasn't huge, but not terrible, either, considering the snowfall, and the later breakfast hour.
Our waitress came over right away, before I perused the drink menu and asked if we wanted coffee, so instead of making her wait, I said yes. Normally, since I had coffee at home, I probably would have had some sort of juice. But, much to my surprise, they had a decent cup of Joe here. Some breakfast places seem to chintz out on the coffee. I'd rather drink juice or chocolate milk than subpar coffee, but this was good.
Trying to be good, I went with oatmeal and wheat toast, with a side of brown sugar. To hell with being good, StfRon ordered biscuits and gravy with a side of corned beef hash, which of course, for the sake of blogging, I sampled.
Our food came out very quickly, which was good because we were very hungry. The gravy with the biscuits was not your standard fare, quite tasty. The hash was a little different, too. We couldn't tell if it was homemade, but it was good.
My toast was nicely doused with a butter or butter-like substance, and smeared with strawberry jam, was good. The oatmeal was piping hot and not too thick.
The two waitresses we saw were hustling, and didn't have a lot of time to run by with the coffee pot, but did a great job nonetheless.
After our breakfast, which set us back around $12 before tip, we spent about an hour browsing through booth after booth of furniture and collectibles.
Pleasant Hill Antique Mall seemed huge on this visit. By the time I got to the third section of the building, I was sure they had added on, but StfRon assured me they had not.
We saw a few blast from the past toys and books, and lots of neat furniture. Despite their name, not everything sold here is from Grandma's attic; there is newer merchandise throughout, too.
All in all, this was a great way to spend a chilly morning.

On a side note, we finally put up our tree this evening. I got the tree (made in USA) last year on sale after Christmas, from Christmas Depot. If you're looking on their site, scroll down on the left sidebar and look for made in USA or click on the banner ad right below the text links on the left sidebar.
I also got some new lights for half price last year, the LED clear strands of lights. Whoa, are these lights psychedelic!! While stringing them up to drape on the tree, they were pulsing in some sort of strobe effect. Once they were on the tree, they stopped pulsing, but they have an odd bluish purple light to them. Our dining room looks like it's bathed in blacklight or something.
I'm sure we'll get used to it. If other people make the switch to LED lights, ours won't look so out of place, either. And, I can leave them on longer and not feel like I'm going to send the CILCO bill sky high.

August, 2009 — The tea room in the antique mall has closed.