A couple of weeks ago I went to Thai Tyme on Main Street and that kind of finished up the first leg of this tour of eating at restaurants in Peoria one street at a time. I’ve decided that the next street to eat our way down should be Western Avenue since that’s the street that Main Street turns into. It’s actually an avenue but I’ve never really known the difference between an avenue and a street and when a street calls itself a “place” well, that’s just too much to comprehend for me at the moment. So the next street is Western Avenue but I thought we’d have one last stop at the last restaurant on Main Street, even though we’ve been there many times before on the blog and that restaurant is One World Cafe. And we’re meeting some special guests for the official end of the Main Street tour and the beginning of the Western Avenue adventure, so let’s get over to One World Cafe and start the ending of eating one street and the tasty beginnings of dining down Western Avenue!

Okay, this is the end of our eating tour of Main Street, it’s been a delicious journey and you can see every stop at the bottom of this post via the “Related Posts” links. One last stop at One World Cafe and then we’re off to start eating our way down Western Avenue!

As I mentioned, I’m meeting some special guests for tonight’s two meals, but as always, I’m early, so I plopped myself over at the bar and saw Brian, a familiar face here at One World! I met Brian on the very first post I ever did on One World, back in 2013! Brian told me he’s been working here for over 12 years now! Check out the Peoria Postcards from Chelsie Tamms at the end of the bar and as you can see, there’s a lot of beers on tap here to choose from!

The special guests have arrived! Amber and Joe joined me at the bar and shortly after that, Kathy and Steve came in and we got a table to sit at. That’s our nice waitress with a beautiful smile and we’ve met before, but I’m horrible at remembering names and forgot to write hers down, so if anyone knows her name, please let me know and I’ll update this post. Anyway, she did a great job and it was wonderful to see her again! **Update: I just found out that our waitresses name is Jamie Jo! Thanks to Michelle Schwartze for the information!

Since this was the end of the Main Street tour and we had another stop to start the Western Avenue dining tour, we just got appetizers here, but they actually could’ve been a meal! We got the spinach and artichoke dip, which is served with baguettes and it’s so delicious! We also got a plate of vegetables and the Pesto Melt, which was fantastically flavorful and as I said, this could’ve been our meal for the evening! But we had to start the new tour, so we ate the appetizers and were on our way to start...

Eating Peoria One Street At A Time: The Western Avenue Edition!

The first restaurant on Western Avenue is one of my favorite places in Peora, El Zarape Mexican Restaurant!

Here we are going in and the MBIP Camera fuzzed out this shot! It hasn’t done that in a while, so I shouldn’t be filled up with hate about it...but sometimes I hate the MBIP Camera! HATE HATE HATE it! Okay, let’s go inside now that I’ve got that out of my system!

Once inside we were greeted by Edgar, who owns El Zarape. Edgar told me that the restaurant has been in business four years now and they’re doing great. It’s hard to believe it’s been four years, I did a post on them shortly after they opened. We got a table in the center of the restaurant and Lily came by to take our drink order. Check out Lily’s photo, it almost looks like she’s wearing that Mexican hat on the wall!

Wow, how’s that for service? Okay, we’re going to have a tasting sampling from the menu tonight, so while that’s being prepared, I’ll take a few photos in here.

There’s a shot of the front dining room and a board listing some of the specials and events happening on Cinco de Mayo, which is just a couple of weeks away. There’s the Goodfellas horse painting that I love and I always have to quote the movie: “One goes one way...the other goes the other way.” I love the El Zarape cactus men and the last one reminds me of a recent post we did here. I think this place is definitely more suited for Taco Tuesday!

They’ve added on this bar area since they’ve opened and it’s really a nice addition. There’s the Three El Zarape Amigos on the wall and as you can see, there’s a nice dining area back here as well. And speaking of dining...

It looks like our first meal on Western Avenue is just about to start! There’s Lily with a plate of nachos.

These are unbelievable! So many flavors going on it’s really indescribable except to go to my favorite two word review: “They’re delicious!” And that’s just the beginning of this meal!

We asked Edgar for a sampling of some of the food on the menu and they went all out for us! Check out all of these dishes they brought to our table! I didn’t know there was this much food on the menu and it was truly an amazing dinner and selection of authentic Mexican food!

This was such a fantastic meal and a wonderful way to start off our Western Avenue food tour! It’s going to be all downhill from here! And if you’ve ever traveled down Western Avenue, you know I mean that both figuratively and literally! We were stuffed after sampling all of these delicious Mexican selections, but Edgar had one more treat up his sleeve...

Mexican styled fried ice cream! Well, this was such a great evening of food and friends! Thanks to Amber, Joe, Kathy and Steve for joining me on this start of eating Western Avenue!