Upon Further Review

China Village Buffet
206 W Camp St
East Peoria, IL 61611
(309) 698-1888
4/5 stars

The wind must have been just right.

Dad treated me a lunch the other day. We went to the China Village Buffet, a popular eatery in East Peoria. He took the Cedar Street Bridge to get there, which, as every good Peorians knows, offers drivers a scenic view at the Archer Daniels Midland plant.

Being a pleasant day, we had our windows rolled down. The win was wafting in from the south and west, which meant we got a face-full of fumes from ADM. As a Peorian, I grew up smelling ADM. There isn’t a part of this city that isn’t touched by the stench that rises from this place. But on this day, conditions much have been just right, because the odor was absolutely overwhelming.

We managed to hold out breath until we got over the the East Peoria side of the river, where the odor was a far less noticable.

And once we got inside …. ah.

What is there to say? It’s a buffet. The selection is huge, and the food is prepared well. There’s something you are going to like. Myself, I’m fond of the bourbon chicken and this spicy, tangy meatloaf dish they have. And fried wontons. Good stuff. If you are looking to load up on carbs or something like that, this is your place. Just plan on feeling stuffed for the rest of the day.

And I want to say something about their bathrooms. Oh my God, they have the best smelling bathrooms on the planet. They’ve got one of those consumer-brand plug-in de-odorizers in there, and they’ve got is locked up inside on of those clear plastic containers you see in office buildings where they don’t want the employees mucking around with the thermostat. Brilliant.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 3rd, 2008 at 1:48 pm and is filed under Restaurant. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.