Rheinland

Rheinland is a German restaurant located in Independence.  I have not had much exposure to German food even though my Great Grandparents are from Germany.

We ate here for lunch on Saturday.  The restaurant has a cozy feel to it.  I think many of the customers were regulars.

There are many decorations throughout the restaurant. The glass case at the front reminds me of an old store.

The ceiling

A piano sits in one corner.

I decided to order a tenderloin sandwich with fried potatoes. The sandwich was supposed to have swiss cheese.  I am not fan of swiss cheese, so I ordered it without it.

Tenderloin sandwich, yes there is a bun under it.  LOL 

The sandwich was really good.  It had mustard on it, but could have used an onion.  The fried potatoes were excellent.

Jeff ordered FleischKäse ( Bavarian Loafer ) open-faced which is a thick slice of German loaf, topped with sauerkraut and served open face on German rye bread.

FleischKäse

Jeff said the sandwich was good.  He thought it would be more like a meatloaf, but he thought it tasted like Spam.  He agreed that the fried potatoes were good.

We enjoyed eating here.  It was fun to be "transported" to Germany for an hour.

Granite City Food & Brewery

Jeff had heard good things about this place, so we decided to eat here on Saturday night. We arrived at 6 p.m and had to wait about ten minutes.  We left a little after 7 p.m. and there was a long wait for a table.

Jeff started his meal with a Caesar salad.  He said it was good.

 

Caesar side salad

He ordered the Grilled Chicken and Asparagus Linguini which was made with chicken, prosciutto, garlic, asparagus, sun-dried tomatoes, oregano, onions, fennel, linguini, basil and pine nuts.

Grilled Chicken and Asparagus Linguini

 Jeff said it was good, but a little dry.  He expected it to have a little sauce to it.

I ordered the Grilled Salsa Verde Flank Steak which is a flank steak seasoned in a southwest marinade and topped with green chili salsa verde.  I ordered a loaded baked potato and seasonal vegetables as my sides. I really enjoyed this meal.  The flank steak was so tender and it was seasoned just right.  The seasonal vegetables were also delicious.  The loaded baked potato was so loaded that I had trouble finding the potato.  LOL

Grilled Salsa Verde Flank Steak and seasonal vegetables.  There was more flank steak hidden behind the vegetables.  It was quite a big meal.  My baked potato was left in the kitchen and that is why there is space on my plate.

Loaded Baked Potato

Our waitress was very good and the service was quick.

We enjoyed eating here.

Courthouse Exchange

This restaurant is located in Independence, MO and is across from the courthouse.  They say they have been in business since 1899.  The restaurant is located below street level.  The inside has rock walls, so it is very unique.  I bet these walls have some stories to tell.

The walls of the restaurant.

The bar

We were seated in the bar area, but there is a much larger dining area which filled up quickly when a busload of tourists arrived.

We ordered fried pickles as our appetizer. The ranch dipping sauce was really good which made the fried pickles even better.

Half order of fried pickle

I ordered the Courthouse Exchange Burger which is a burger with bacon, cheddar cheese, BBQ sauce, lettuce and tomato on a kaiser bun.  It was good, but not great.  I probably would order something different if I ate here again.

Courthouse Exchange Burger

Jeff ordered the Mac N Brisket which is creamy mac mixed with pulled BBQ brisket.

Mac N Brisket

Jeff said that his meal was good. It definitely looked different to me.

Our waitress was very friendly and the food was reasonably priced. We enjoyed eating lunch here.

Galena Steak House

Galena Steak House is located in Dixon, IL.  We were in town to visit the John Deere Historic Site.  We had been in Dixon a month ago to visit the boyhood home of Ronald Reagan.  It is a nice town.

I liked the decor in this restaurant. There is a fireplace in the center of the dining area.

We started out our lunch with fried pickles.

Fried Pickles

The batter on the pickles lacked flavor, but Jeff said the taste of the pickles came through better that way.  I would rather have some seasoning.

I ordered a cheeseburger with bacon and fries.  The fries were $1.   It came with a salad.  I could have ordered the salad bar for $3, but since it was lunchtime, I just had the salad.  The waitress prepared my salad from the salad bar.  When the restaurant became busy, she let everyone make their own salad.  I would have preferred that only because I could put on what I wanted.

Cheeseburger with bacon and fries

The burger was good, but not as good as I had expected from a steak place.

Jeff  ordered the blackened chicken sandwich and the salad bar.  The sandwich didn't come with cheese, so he asked to have that added. The waitress didn't ask what kind of cheese he wanted.  He didn't tell her because he told me he wanted to be surprised.  I told him I bet she put American on it and that is what they did.  It didn't seem like a good choice for that type of sandwich and he agreed. The waitress seemed surprised that he wanted cheese added.  He said the sandwich had good flavor, but it definitely needed cheese.  No picture of the sandwich since it basically looked like a burger.

We enjoyed eating here and I would love to go back sometime and try a steak.

Riganato Old World Grille

Riganato Old World Grille is located in Geneva, IL.  This is a very small restaurant and I was concerned that we wouldn't be able to find a table on a Saturday night. We were the only guests for about ten minutes and then the restaurant filled up.

I was surprised that the menu was just printed on a plain piece of paper, but I knew from the reviews that the restaurant was newer and maybe they plan on getting different menus someday...maybe not.

It took me a while to decide what I wanted to order.  I debated between the pork loin, rib-eye and pizza.  I ended up ordering the rib-eye since pork is sometimes a little too rich for me.

Rib-eye with Smashed Garlic Baby Red Potatoes

The rib-eye was good, but I didn't care much for the seasoning.  It was a little strong.  I know, normally I complain that rib-eyes are not seasoned enough.  The potatoes were very good.

Jeff ordered the Chicken Riganato and Lamb Chops.  The reviews of the chicken rigananto were excellent, so he wanted to try it.

Chicken Rigananto and Lamb Chops with Roasted Potatoes

As you can see, it had a lot of seasoning on it.  The seasoning was lemon, oregano and garlic.  He said it was a bit too much seasoning.  I tasted it and didn't like it at all.  However, this restaurant has a 100% rating on Urbanspoon and is also ranked very high on Trip Advisor, so other people really do like it.  It is just not our type of food.

Many of the guests ordered pizza while we were there and it looked and smelled delicious. I would order that if I ever ate here again.

The waitstaff is extremely friendly and make you feel very welcome here.

Pizza Villa

Pizza Villa is located in DeKalb, IL. We ate here on a Sunday evening and the place was busy. Food orders are placed and paid for at a window, but drink orders are placed at the table and paid for there.  It is a little odd.  They do charge for re-fills on soda and they offer beer, so I guess that is why they do it this way.  I just don't know why food orders are paid for upfront.

There are three levels of dining.

We started our meal with Parmesan Nuggets. This was the whole reason I wanted to eat here.  The nuggets are light, fluffy puffs of dough.  They can be ordered plain, but we chose the Parmesan/Garlic variety.  The order was huge!  I was not disappointed in the taste. The nuggets were so good!

Parmesan Nuggets

We ordered a thin crust pepperoni, mushroom, onion and crispy bacon pizza.  The bacon really took over the flavor, but it was good. 

We had so much food left over that I had it for lunch the next day.  The nuggets were even good re-heated.

If we are ever back in the area, I will eat here again.

Sycamore Parkway Restaurant

We decided to try this family restaurant because the parking lot is always busy and I was feeling like I wanted some home cooking.

As we expected, the menu was full of comfort foods.  I decided to try their fried chicken dinner.  It came with a salad, vegetable and I chose mashed potato as the way to prepare my potato.  The fried chicken was really good. I didn't care as much for the mashed potatoes, but they were okay. 

The salad was basically just lettuce and tomato.

Jeff ordered fried mushrooms as an appetizer.  They were good, but nothing special.

Fried Mushrooms

Jeff ordered a Western Skillet for his dinner. It had ham, onions, hash browns, green and jalapeno peppers, tomatoes, topped with three cheeses and two eggs.

Western Skillet

Jeff said the skillet was good.

The prices were average and the service was good.  I would eat here again.