Sushi Cafe

Sushi cafe is a restaurant in South Elgin on Randall road that offers all-you-can eat rolls for $24.95 per person during the week. This deal is not valid on Friday and Saturday for sure and maybe Sunday.
Let me start by saying, drive the extra 40 minutes and go to Sushi Para! Sushi Para is $17.95 and offers a lot more than just the rolls offered on this menu.
As far as the rolls at Sushi Cafe, they are very good and there are some interesting choices. My wife and son thought the rolls were spicier (hot) than "normal" rolls. My son thinks this is good, while it's a turn-off for my wife. This is also an order off the menu, all you can eat deal, so you can customize the food (we get rolls without avocado).
Overall, this would be my pick for sushi in the Tri-City area. While not cheap, the all-you-can eat aspect of it makes sure you are not going home hungry after spending good money for good sushi rolls. However, knowing about the Sushi Para option that also includes sushi & appertizers, it's hard to spend the extra money here unless we just don't have the time to drive to Sushi Para.

Sushi Yama

Whole family went there last night for dinner after football practice got cancelled because of the weather. This was the 2nd time for the whole family and the 3rd time for my wife and I. The sushi and rolls here are very good. I especially like the BEN roll while my wife really likes the TEMPURA roll. My son and I also got the SASUKA (?) roll which had a hot topping and might be my favorite roll yet. As you can hopefully tell, we really like the food here and their is some variance in the rolls to make it different from other places.
However, cost is a big factor here. We ordered a total of 8 rolls and two appertizers at $5 & $7 each with no drinks. The bill with tax and tip still came to over $100. My son and I barely felt like we had enough to eat and my wife was ok, but not full. Everyone had some snacks and/or desserts when we got home. That's just too much money for not enough food for me to really recommend this place. While I might go back when I really want to splurge, it's not a place we'll go for regularly. I would still have to pick Sushi Para as "THE PLACE", if only it wasn't a hour away.

Citizen Kane

Ever heard of The Radio Shopping Show? I had used it several years ago, but had forgotten about it until talking about saving money in my church's Financial Peace University class. Basically area businesses trade gift certificates to their establishments for radio advertisment. The radio stations then sell the gift certificates for 40-70% off the face value. For example you might be able to buy a $20 gift certificate to a restaurant for $8-$10. The only limitation is that you can only use 1 certificate at a time and only once every 30 days. There are two radio stations in this area out of Elgin and Aurora, so both get certificates for the Tri-City area (AM 1410 & 1280).
Well I ordered a certficate for this restaurant and my wife and I went for lunch when she took some time off of work for her birthday. The appertizers are a little on the high side with all of them being about $10, but they did have a seared Ahi Tuna on a chip which was excellent. It's 3 big portions of tuna in a very mild (almost tasteless) sauce, but the tuna is prepared excellently. I also had a lunch special of chicken and sausage jambalya which was great and spicy enough for me! My wife had a corn chowder soup which I just barely got to taste because she liked it so much. She ordered a crab lunch portion salad which she also liked and ate the whole thing. We shared a key lime pie slice for dessert which we both thought was NOT tart enough (too sweet). The lunch pricing was in line with a full service restaurant and I'm glad I got another certificate (from the other radio station) so I have an excuse to go back soon!

Sushi Para

Ok, it's not in the Tri-Cities, but that is good since I might be tempted to break my ideal of not having credit card debt if this place was closer!
This is a sushi restuarant on Dundee Road right off of Route 53 in Palatine (?). They do have a regular menu, but we go for the All-you-Can-Eat sushi. What's really nice about this place is that it's not a buffet, but you actually have a special menu that lists all the items you can order. You mark down what you want and then the food is brought to your table as if ordering "entrees" off the menu. What's even nicer (compared to the Sushi Cafe in S. Elgin) is that the menu contains more than just rolls! It has salad, soup, appertizers (try the shrimp dumpling and won-ton things), rolls, tempura vegetables (we ask for all brocolli), sushi on the rice (tuna, eel, salmon & more) and of course all types of rolls (our favorite is the Michigan)! Now you would think this would be up there with the $40 price tag of Todai (a sushi buffet chain) or more expensive then the roll only deal at Sushi Cafe of $24.95, but no - it's only $17.95! While it's a nice meal out, the value is AWESOME! While the drive is long and the price is out of our range for weekly meals, we find excuses to go back to this place. We have been 3 times since I discovered this place when looking for an alternative to Todai.
The tempura chicken dinner is great also! This is what my youngest son gets who doesn't like sushi (even though that is slowly changing - he likes the pre-packaged sushi from Sam's Club now). The dinner comes with soup and salad and several big pieces of chicken tempura for $12.95. What's even better is the tempura is light and tastes great!
Obviously I can't recommend this place enough if you are in the area or even if you're not, it's worth the effort to get there!

Beehive Tavern & Grille

Went here with the family for dinner because it was part of our AA Dining Rewards program. We had been once before a few years ago for the same reason. Forgot how good the food is here! We shared the nacho appertizer (which now seems to be a staple order at every restaurant) and it was big and very good!
Overall the food and pricing were on average for a sit-down American food restuarant and it will continue to be on the radar for a place to go when we are looking for a meal out.

Front Street Cantina

Tried this Mexican restuarant across from the Geneva train depot on Saturday night with my wife and some friends. Our friends have been here before and really liked the restuarant, but this was our 1st time. Turns out this location is one of several in the western suburbs. The food here was very good and I can see why our friends like this place. They recommended we try the cheese nachos which were very good with just chips and melted cheddar cheese. The cheese was plentiful and very gooey. My wife tried a chimichanga (spelling?) which she said was great and didn't share! I had the Durango which was a sampling of 3 different items (taco, enchillada & burrito). I like that this restuarant has several combo meals where you can get a sampling of all their dishes. You are even able to mix & match the filling in each item (I had shrimp in the enchillada, steak in the burritto & shredded beef in the taco). Food was very good and reasonablely priced. Since I don't like beans and didn't want the rice, they have printed right on the menu the option of taking a side salad instead of rice & beans. The salad was great and the dressing was served on the side for you to control the portion. My friend got a taco salad with portabello mushrooms which was huge and served in the fried chip bowl.
Can't wait to return to this restuarant when in the mood for Mexican food.

Olive Garden

Yes, I'm at another chain restuarant. I like to try new places, but I'm here with my family and they like places they know. The two things we really like are the all-you-can eat bread sticks and salad. However, my oldest son has stated on this trip he no longer likes the dressing on the salad.
On this trip, we tried the new ravioli fried appertizer (Fritta) and it was delicious! We also got the calamari and it's great along with the special white sauce that is so much better than the marinaria. I tried the Tuscan Garlic Shrimp and really liked it, but my older son got the other shrimp dish and it was way better. My wife had the crusted talipia and really enjoyed it. My youngest son had the mac & cheese which was just average. We were too full to try dessert. In fact, the portion sizes were so big, that we all had left-overs to take home. The meal is a little more expensive than some casual sit-down restaurants (Fridays, Applebees, Chilis, etc), but I think you get a good value with the bread/salad and huge portion sizes.

Pal Joey's

This restaurant is in West Chicago, just east of the Tri-Cities on route 38. However, it's been around since I was in high school (early 1980s), but has moved to a new location a block away from the old one.
Unfortunately for our family's visit they were short staffed. The waitress said they normally had 4 people working the room, but only two tonight (saw a busboy besides her). The understaffing really showed as our food was slow to get to us and our waitress also messed up a couple of courses during the meal. Need to really come back on an evening when they are properly staffed to see if the service does improve.
The food was good. We all really liked our salad with the crisp and cold lettuce and generous amount of salad dressing. If you are watching calories or don't like a lot of dressing, be sure to ask for it on the side. The food was classic Italian and very generous portions.
We were on our way to a basketball game, so we had to rush through the food with the slow service and missed out on dessert as well.
Overall, I want to give them another try since the menu did look like there would be several dishes that would hit the spot if the service was there.

Audrey's Restaurant

I tried this restaurant in the former location of Colonial Cafe in downtown Batavia, just south of Wilson street on Route 25. I guess the Colonial Cafe reference might not help since they said it's been Audrey's for two years (in March). I went here on Monday, February 23rd and arrived at the restaurant at 12:20pm. I mention the time since when I arrived at the restaurant it was deserted - no one but the hostess/waitress and the cook. This is in direct contrast to Daddio's Diner on Wilson Street that I tried right before this, but there was a wait.
On their menu, they listed a "signature soup of cream of chicken with wild rice", but when I tried to get this with a combo of a pulled BBQ pork sandwich, I was told they actually change around their soups and it wasn't available. Very strange since it's permanently printed on the menu.
I decided to go for a breakfast entree and got the Meat Lovers or Farmers Skillet which was sausage, bacon and ham. It was very good and they did not skimp on the cheese which is great since I really like cheese. A really good meal for $8.01 (including tax, but not tip)!
There were lots of other entrees and they even had a section of the menu dedicated to their crepes. I will be going back to this place and hope they get the business to stay around.

Portillo's

My wife and I had a date night to go see a movie and go out to dinner. However, my wife wasn't feeling very hungry after the popcorn and suggested we go here for our dinner. This is a local chain restaurant that serves Chicago style hot dogs and italian beef sandwiches. I really like going here for the chocolate cake milk shake! Yes, they actually blend up some of their chocolate cake into the milk shake. Add to that the delicious beef and cheddar croissant along with some cheese fries and you have one very good meal! Of course this isn't very healthy, but every once in a while it really hits the spot.
We really like the cheese fries since they serve them by just giving you a small plastic cup of hot melted cheese along with the fries served in their regular container. You therefore have the option of eating the fries plain, dipping in ketchup or dunking them in the cheese sauce.

Nikarry's Restuarant

My wife and I stopped here for lunch on Thursday, February 12th after a doctor's appointment she had in Aurora. One of the main reasons we picked this restaurant for lunch was that it is part of the American Airlines Dining Rewards program. This is a family restuarant with all the standard choices. There's even a special section of the menu for healthier choices. My wife got the crab salad stuffed in a tomato with cottage cheese and fresh cubed fruit. It was so good, I wished I had gotten it instead of the beef and cheese croissant I got. The beef was dry and thickly cut making for a tough, chewy sandwich (definitely not a Portillo's Beef & Cheddar)! While I didn't care for my sandwich, there were lots of other dishes that looked good and my wife's entree was outstanding (& huge)! Would go back here in a heartbeat and the fact that it's part of the dining rewards is a big bonus!

Seven Dwarfs Restaurant

My wife and I stopped in here for lunch after attending a funeral for her uncle. This restuarant is located in Wheaton, so it's a little outside the Tri-Cities, but only about a 15 minute ride from the east side of town straight east on Route 38. This is a family restaurant serving a wide variety of food including all the standards of sandwiches, burgers, salads, soups and breakfast items. Everything we tried was good, but the service was off. We ordered an appertizer of potato skins. However, the waitress brought out our soup first saying the potatos took awhile to cook. After about 3 bites/slurps of soup, the appertizer was brought out. After we each had one skin (out of the 3 each) our main meal arrived. Having the food courses arrive too early is a pet peeved of mine, so I was obviously not enjoying the service. Luckily the food tasted good, so we managed to get through the meal. I thought the value was good and would definitely go back to this restuarant if in the area, but won't make a special trip to get there.

Miyaku Japan Sushi Bar & Grill

This restaurant is located in the food court at Charlestown Mall. While the mall and food court is losing tenant after tenant, this place has always intrigued me. Stopped by the food court with Alan on my way to Eagles game night on Thursday, February 12th. I had the noodles along with two types of chicken: cajun & midoko?. I thought the food tasted good overall, but the chicken was a little dry/overcooked. This is probably a problem of the food sitting out too long in the buffet serving line and not being rotated enough. Having said that, it still tasted good and was a good value for the money. I would readily go back to this station in the food court again.

Outback Steakhouse

Another chain restaurant that I had dinner at on Wednesday, February 11th after dropping my oldest son off at his church middle school youth group meeting. I came back to this restaurant mainly for the Seared Ahi Tuna appertizer. This comes with about 8 strips of tuna served on a romaine lettuce leaf with two dipping sauces. If you have read any of my earlier reviews, you will know that I love Seared Ahi Tuna and this is one of the best I have tried at a national chain restaurant. I skipped a main meal and got the dessert sampler to finish off the night. I didn't like the cheesecake sauce, but really enjoyed the brownie and peanut butter pie desserts. I could come here everynight to have the tuna.

Steak 'N Shake

Family dinner here on February, 8th after a night of the boys playing sports. Obviously this is a national chain restaurant, so everyone is probably fairly familar with this spot. The main reason we choose this place was that we had recieved some coupons in our local paper and everyone in the family can agree to go here. We all like to get chocolate shakes and their burgers are plain enough to not turn anyone off. Nothing outstanding, but nothing bad.

Taste of Himalayas

On Saturday, February 7th, I went to this restaurant by myself for lunch. They offer an all-you-can eat lunch buffet for $8.99 per person. The food is Indian, but not very spicy. Even the curry chicken was mild even with the hint of curry flavor. However, the main problem I had with the food was that the chicken and beef cuts had bones in them. It was very hard to get the meat off the bones and have very much food to actually eat with each forkful. The food tasted good, but was fairly mild which I guess was a compromise to American tastes. The dessert of the some dough ball in a sauce was interesting and not to my liking. However, I did see several other diners going back for seconds of this. There was also a salad which I tried with some white dressing. Tasted ok, but nothing of note. They had vegetables and fried rice along with some bean dish. Overall, the buffet was a nice value, but just did not have the food I like enough to go back to it.

Buffets!

Buffets are my youngest son's favorite place to eat. As he says, "Dad, you don't have to wait to eat!" Given his attention span I can understand this. Luckily in this area we have several different variety of buffets and I'll briefly go over them in this review. Overall I believe one of the keys to a good buffet is that they have to be busy! If they aren't busy the food sits out too long and becomes over-cooked and generally un-appetizing.

Old Country Buffet: This is obviously a national chain and also not located in the Tri-Cities, but down in Aurora by Fox Valley Mall or whatever they call it now :-) This is the buffet that my son asks for a regular occassion and is his favorite. I personally think this is because it is the first one for him, but maybe he really does like it better than Golden Corral. The food here is very basic, but good. The advantage of this Fox Valley location over the one up by Spring Hill Mall in Dundee is that it is always busy! As I said above, the Spring Hill Mall location has been visited once by me and by some friends and the food just wasn't rotated enough to be good. At the Fox Valley location the food is hot and rotated. We also get coupons for this place which is a nice bonus and helps offset the downside of having to drive out to it.

Golden Corral: Another chain buffet, but new to our area with one in Elgin and another being built in Batavia on Randall Road. This is my favorite of the buffets being reviewed. Since I drink water with my meals, a $10 price for an all-you-can-eat dinner is a great bargain and value! The buffet is busy no matter which night we go (have only gone for dinners and one Sunday afternoon). Food is hot and the cook-to-order steak is one of the best values and tastes great also (assuming you don't get the end piece, but just ask for a center cut). This buffet seems to have more choices to me than OCB above which is also nice. Obviously I highly recommend this place and will go here anytime. In fact, we'll really have to watch the budget when the one in Batavia is finished since the extra drive up to Elgin keeps us from going here more.

Fresh Tomatos: This buffet chain is known for the huge salad buffet you start your meal with. While I really like this buffet, why would I pay $10 for this buffet when I can pay the same price and eat at Golden Corral???? Before the Golden Corral opened this was our go-to buffet since Old Country Buffet was too far away. My main gripe with this buffet is the lack of meat in your meal (unless you pay extra). Of course you can get the pizza bread or soup with some meat, but overall I would at least like some chicken, ham, etc included in the price on the salad buffet. Still it's a value for $10, but there are just better values out there in the buffet category.

Chinese Buffet: I'm talking specifically about the one located in the strip center by Rookies and the old St. Charles Post office building, but have had the same experience at others. The main problem is that they don't stay busy, so the food sits or isn't put out. The one in St. Charles looks on paper as a great value since Snow Crab Legs are included. However, in reality it's nearly impossible to actually eat any crab legs at the buffet. When they finally bring some out to the buffet serving area, they bring out about a dozen legs max. These are obviously quickly gone after by the few patrons in the restuarant and then it's on average another half hour before the next dozen legs are brought out. When I say patrons, that usually means my family and the one or two other tables in the restaurant. I have eaten at this place over a dozen times in the last ten years and I don't believe I have ever been in there with more than 6 tables occupied (& not much turn-over either). Since the food sits, it's very hit or miss if any particular item will be tasty. When the food is hot and fresh it's very good and the reason I keep coming back in hopes of getting lucky. However, I can't really recommend the place. In fact, I have no idea how they stay in business since I have never seen enough customers to pay for the operating expenses, but they have for a dozen plus years.

CiCi's Pizza: How can a place that lets you eat all the pizza you want for $5 not be a hit??? I thought the samething when I went to this chain in Florida and wasn't at all surprised when they cam to our area. When this place 1st opened it was standing room only (ie wait times), but now is more moderate and I haven't had to wait the last several times. The place has been busy enough every time we have been there to be constantly rotating the pizzas. Also you have the option of asking for the pizza you want and they'll special order cook it and bring it to the table - great service. The only downside the last two times we went was that they seemed to have cut back on their buspeople and it takes awhile for plates to be cleared. I recommend the place and you can't beat the value of feeding a family of 4 for $24.41 (I believe that is price for our family which is 4 buffets (1 child's), 2 drinks (1 child's) and 2 waters).