5832 N. Knoxville Ave
Peoria, Illinois 61614
Reservations: (309) 692-0309
I’m going to try the sandwich approach on this review. Talk about good things, things to improve upon and end on a high note.
Admittedly, I’m extremely hard to impress. Jaded? Maybe.
I’m a big, “It better be clean” person. 3o9 is impressively clean, even the bathrooms were immaculate.
So hands washed, lets have an appetizer.
We ordered the Hummus with sun-dried tomato pesto and grilled pita bread. The bread was tasty, the tomato pesto was way too garlicky, to the point of burning my tongue and the hummus was so so. For $7, I felt jipped.
Entrees: T ordered the Salmon, served on a bed of sauteed beets, wilted spinach, with a horseradish cream sauce. The salmon itself was excellent. Perfect. No complaints whatsoever. The beets were disgustingly vinegary and the horseradish sauce….really? Not so much. Please don’t mix that beautiful salmon with horseradish EVER. In all, not worth the $24 price tag.
I ordered the Roasted Vegetable Linguine. While the squash and mushrooms were roasted to perfection, there was no flavor. Where were the spices? The technique was there, the flavor wasn’t and I was highly disappointed with the basil pesto the linguine was tossed in. Don’t be afraid to add more basil. However, having trained in an Italian restaurant myself, I must state the pasta was cooked perfectly.
Recommendations:
- Get smaller plates: T felt like she was underfed and I felt overfed. My portion could have easily fed two people and though T’s was clearly for one person, the giant plate made it appear that she was underfed.
- Ditch the music. Seriously, I felt like I was in a pretentious coffee house listening to tortured artists singing me their diary.
- Lose the TV’s and put the couches in the lounge and out of the dinning room. Contemporary cuisine is not the place for the sports channel. If I want to see sports, I’ll go to a sports bar. TV’s are such a bad habit for otherwise fashionable restaurants.
- Keep the salad fixings in the cooler until you’re ready to serve. I don’t like warm greens unless I’m tasting them from my garden.
- Scale back the spice heat in the tomato bisque. It ruined a perfectly, wonderful soup.
Now for dessert: Get the creme brulee. It was absolute perfection.
All in all, 3o9 is a pretty good place- areas to work on- just don’t try to “improve” the creme brulee.
Overall Score
Atmosphere: 2 out of 5 stars
Service: 3 out of 5 stars
Food:2 out of 5 stars
Dessert: 5 out of 5 stars
Repeatability: 2 out of 5 stars
