Two25

While my husband is still mourning the loss of Uno's in the Mark Twain Hotel, we took a chance on lunch at the restaurant now occupying the space: Two25.
Walking through the lobby of the hotel at 225 NE Adams Street in Peoria, I noticed it has been updated since I last walked through. I liked the decor, and the library looked like a great place to park myself and hang out for the rest of the day. Too bad I had to get back to work.
Stepping into the restaurant, we were greeted by a gal manning the hostess stand who showed us to a booth.
The dining room has seen some decor changes since Uno's as well, which were a nice touch.
With loungy hits by Louis Armstrong and Frank Sinatra playing in the background, we checked out the menu.
On the appetizer list, the crab & artichoke gratin sounded good, as did the baked Brie. There were a couple of salads that I would like to try: the pear and the spinach salad. Moving on to pizzas, the thought of the White Pie had me salivating: olive oil, ricotta, spinach,
artichoke hearts and garlic. The menu also featured steaks, chicken and seafood, burgers, pasta and sandwiches.
Being lunch, however, I went with something a bit lighter, the salad bar with soup. The lunch endless salad bar was priced at $7, and adding French onion soup or the soup du jour is an extra $2. We had scoped out the salad bar after noticing it on the menu, and it looked worthy.
StfRon went with the salad bar as well, and added a sausage pizza bread for $1.
This salad bar made its way to my list of top three in Peoria since it had three choices of greens, a tri-colored pepper mix, grape tomatoes, cucumbers, peas, onions, sunflower seeds, candied walnuts, a couple of fruit choices, broccoli, cottage cheese, several dressing choices and more.
Our food arrived fairly quickly. The French onion soup was served in a large cappucino style mug on a saucer and the rich broth filled with onions was topped with some bread and melted cheese.
StfRon's pizza bread was sprinkled with chunks of savory sausage and had a nice crispness to the edges of the submarine style bread.
Glancing around as we were finishing our meal I noticed the dining room we were in was almost full and the voices of the patrons floated up into the high ceilings, mingling and echoing down, lending a nice touch to the atmosphere.
Our waitress was bustling around and cheerful, johnny-on-the-spot with refills, even after we paid our bill of $22 before tip, which included two iced teas.
On our way back to work we declared the last-minute decision for lunch a nice success, and we'll be sure to come back to Two25 again soon.