Katie wrote:"yocals"?

Just some good country folk. It can also be spelled 'yokel'.

JeffB wrote:

stevez wrote:Jaenicke’s Root Beer Stand

Jaenicke's root beer is pretty good, though I'd thought that, like several such places, they still had a frosted mug option for people "eating in." Maybe not. But the real draw is the tiny hot dog with a sauce that is somewhat unique. It's similar to the sauce used on Rochester white hots (Zweigle's, eg). I've had a similar condiment in Toronto, and it's in the same neighborhood as the red onion sauce one sees in NYC...Next time, try a few. Much better call then the tenderloin.

I stopped at Jaenicke's once a year or so back and didn't find anything tempting enough aside from the root beer so that's all I got. Rolling thru that way I made a pit stop for some 'slider dogs'. Well described up above I could see why if I grew up on these I would love them. The sauce has some spaghettio like flavor to it, add in the cheap hot dog you got a five year olds favorite meals combined into one. Somewhat unique I put down three and they went well with the root beer which, yes definitely, would of been better in the frosted mug.


Deluxe Red Hot's from Jaenicke's

Jaenicke’s Root Beer Stand
390 East River Street
Kankakee, IL 60901
815-549-9706

I had an excellent lunch at Martinez Taco Store in Kankakee last week. I picked it randomly from the handful of Mexican restaurants in town and was not expecting much when I saw that the large lunch buffet. But looks can be deceiving: while the buffet had a couple of boring American-Mexican staples, most of it the offerings were interesting and flavorful. (I wish I had pictures and proper names for the dishes.) There were three soups - a green chicken pozole, a red pork pozole, and a second rich pork soup with slices of skin. One of my favorite bites was a red chile cabbage salad. There were a handful of braised meat dishes as well that were excellent. Overall, a great lunch. (And like $8!)

From their Facebook page, it looks like they also have a taco stand at their local farmers market.

Martinez Taco Store
322 E Station St, Kankakee, IL 60901
(815) 939-7817
https://es-es.facebook.com/MartinezTacos

Thread bump--I'll be in Bourbonnais for dinner tomorrow night in between games--looks like Jimmy Jo's or Monicals are the best options--we'll only have about an hour and a half so can't stray too far but if anyone has any new suggestions, I'll take em--we'll be down there for tournaments at the baseball complex in Bourbonnais for the next 4 weekends. Thanks in advance!

There's always Blue's Cafe for pie.

Thumbs up for tacos at Carniceria Gonzalez, right off exit 312 on I-57 in Kankakee. Excellent tacos al pastor and carnitas.

Carniceria Gonzalez/Gonzalez Grocery
1933 E Court St
Kankakee, IL 60901

With no disrespect to those in this thread who've identified good places to eat along I-57, I think we should be honest in admitting that the thoroughness (though not quality) of LTH's recommendations must naturally decrease with increasing distance from Chicago -- aside from nearby cities such as Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Madison, and even Champaign, for all of which I think LTH provides a lot of good information.

What caught my eye, seeing this thread resurface, was boudreaulicious's post from July that indicated that boudreaulicous had gleaned from this thread that the best dining options in Bourbonnais were Jimmy Jo's and Monical's. I lived downstate for nearly 15 years, and I don't know Jimmy Jo's, but I do know Monical's. Not to diss it, it's good pizza (they don't serve alcohol, by the way, if that matters to you after a day of traveling). But it's not the first- or second-best place in Bourbonnais or most other towns where there's a Monical's by any means. A little googling around suggests to me that Koi Asian Bistro (sushi), Chicago Dough Company (pizza), and Flight 102 Wine Bar (small plates) are much better options in Bourbonnais. I imagine there are towns downstate where Monical's is the best option, but they're pretty small towns.

I thought I'd mention this because, although I'm deeply skeptical and suspicous of Yelp, I think there's more objective value to restaurant reviews on Trip Advisor, for example, and I think we should be realistic about how much or how little LTH can tell you about dining options in the Midwest, for example, away from Chicago and other large cities, and we should be open to searching other sites for information about such places, checking out those places, and commenting about them here.

Katie - You can make this thread better by posting about restaurants where you've eaten.

My point is more general than that, though.

I understand. I think it is fairly self evident that LTH Forum is a better source of information in some places than others and that there's value in using multiple websites. But adding content is always better than not and I suspect boudreaulicious would have appreciated your suggestions back in July when she was travelling.

I used the thread, went to Jimmy Jo's and had a good meal. So it definitely served it's purpose. And though you might not have figured it out from my post, since I didn't specifically say it, we were there for 16U baseball tournaments with my stepson--so sushi, small plates, alcohol, etc. were most definitely NOT on the agenda. But pizza and BBQ were perfect!

Your point is missing ours though--of course I check Trip Advisor and Yelp when I'm someplace a bit off the LTH radar, such as Bourbonnais--but I put a LOT more value on posts from people I know on here, whose tastes I have some perspective on. The two are not mutually exclusive, nor should you assume that anyone posting for suggestions on here doesn't bother to check elsewhere. I'm sure most of us do.