Thursday, January 10, 2008

Simply Sensational Tearoom

I noticed a coupon a while back advertising a tea room in East Peoria that I had never heard of, Simply Sensational Tearoom. Based on the coupon, I had a hard time imagining where the place was.
This week, my mom mentioned visiting a tea room in East Peoria, so I got out the GPS and off we went.
Located at 520 Bloomington Road, right near the River Trail of Illinois biking/hiking trail that runs near the Fon Du Lac park district building, the tea room would make a good stop when hiking or biking for some soup or a sandwich, and a refreshing beverage.
The decor is not girly tea room, but more like a casual local dinette, with some lattice, silk plants and lace vinyl tablecloths topping floral patterned cloths.
When we stepped into the restaurant, we noticed a sign that said "please wait to be seated". We waited about four minutes, and with the only visible person busily taking drink orders for a larger table of ladies, we led ourselves to a small table by the window.
The waitress finished taking drink orders and came over right away to bring us some menus.
Each day the tea room features a quiche, a sandwich, some soup and desserts, in addition to their regular menu.
The quiche of the day was spinach swiss, the soup was creamy potato, the desserts were bread pudding and peach cobbler and the sandwich was something called spinach feta bundles, the latter priced at $6.95. I asked what these were, and upon hearing the description, spinach, feta and cream cheese bundled up in crescent rolls and baked, I decided to give it a try.
My mom went for the seafood salad.
There was a little mix up when our order arrived, but it was remedied quickly, and the employees both apologized several times and were very friendly about the whole thing.
My spinach bundles were rich and good, served accompanied by a small garden salad with a little dish of dressing and a blueberry muffin. I enjoyed the dressing as well, but only had room for a bite of my muffin.
Both of the employees we saw were friendly and bustling.
It seems like many people have found the tea room, and were enjoying lunch on the day we were in. There were only a couple of vacant tables. And yes, there were even a few men dining there.
I peeked out the other door while we were paying our bill, and noticed a cement patio with a couple of tables on it, and a grill. I'll bet in the warmer months, the grill gets fired up and draws people in with enticing aromas.
Simply Sensational is available for meetings and showers, and also offers catering.

1 comment:

Jennifer said...

I'll have to stop by there next time I'm in EP. It sounds really nice and a good alternative to the chains in that area.