Food & Drink

The Illinois State Fair offers carnival rides, farm animals, and lots of entertainment, but one of the event’s biggest attractions is the food — lots and lots of food. The fairgrounds are a food-lover’s dream, with vendors selling everything from traditional corndogs and lemonade shake-ups to unique offerings such as fresh mango juice, cheese curds […]

Is there any better way to enjoy the warm-weather months than to dine in the open air? Food just seems to taste better when it’s served outdoors in the sunshine. At one time, the choices for outdoor dining in Springfield were few. But, fortunately, more restaurants this year are responding to customer demand for dining […]

“How can black beans be so delicious?” a young woman asked Ryan Flynn at Saturday’s fifth annual Taste of Downtown. Flynn and chef Eric Lehnen spent 10 hours dishing up pan after pan of fried black-bean cakes at the Augie’s Front Burner tent. The unique, tasty cakes were just one of more than 70 items […]

Sometimes food, like life, should follow this motto: The simpler, the better. And in the summertime, a grilled hamburger, milkshake, and seat at an outdoor picnic table may be all that’s required for a perfectmeal. When you can enjoy this simple pleasure for less than $5, so much the better. Krekel’s Custard & Hamburgers is […]

The sign on the door makes it clear: The recently opened Nantucket Grill is not associated with the New England Lobster House, which until February occupied the space on MacArthur Boulevard. But if the sign weren’t there, you might not perceive much of a difference between the old and the new. The interior still features […]

It’s unfortunate that the décor and feel of Los Agaves don’t rise above the offerings of the typical Mexican restaurant — the food and service certainly do. The interior of the restaurant, which opened in November in a strip shopping center across from White Oaks Mall, is standard-issue Mexican eatery. The bold gold-and-green walls are […]

I had two thoughts after dining at Tuscany: “Why haven’t I been here before?” and “I’ll be back.” The inside of the restaurant resembles an Italian patio, mostly because of painting done by local artist Dana Pfeiffer. Pfeiffer has made the walls look like old crumbling stone and painted a blue ceiling with clouds to […]

From now until Labor Day, there’s no better way to enjoy the warm days of summer than an outdoor meal. Firing up the grill for an outdoor barbecue is one of America’s favorite pastimes. The aroma, the appeal of the great outdoors, and the taste of a meal hot off the grill combine to yield […]

When you think of takeout, the options that usually come to mind are cartons of Chinese food, a pizza, or a bucket of fried chicken. Homemade eggplant Parmesan and stuffed artichokes probably aren’t the kind of dishes you usually pick up for dinner on the way home from work — but they should be. A […]

Cecil’s Bar and Grill is, as its name suggests, a neighborhood bar that serves basic food: burgers, appetizers, pizza. Like many similar establishments that serve a dual purpose, it offers customers a place to down a cold brew after work and also serves up lunch and late-night food — and does it well. The restaurant […]

Indigo Grill is a spinoff of the city’s popular west-siderestaurant Indigo, but it has a face all its own. There are signs that the two restaurants are related — extensive wine lists, creative menus, and large paintings of blue dogs dotting the walls of both establishments — but several differences are evident as well. The […]