Being here in my roots, Illinois, I had to visit my most favorite restaurant. It resides in the little spit of a town called Toluca, which has around 1500 residents. Half of which live in the surrounding area on farmland. But in this little town is the best Italian food probably in two counties! Thats how they measure distances out there in the corn fields. a1996e9d-94a6-56bf-958d-cd5e401cba67_preview-300

So in this little town are two restaurants; Mona’s and Capponi’s. Mona’s was open first around 50 years ago or so. It is owned by a local family and has spaghetti, lasagna, garlic bread, the list of typical Italian foods goes on, but what they are known for throughout middle america is their fried chicken. It’s hysterical. Here we go to Mona’s to get fried chicken and a side of spaghetti or tortellini.

But anyways back to the story, so this family owns this restaurant and decides to open another one. A building becomes available and they name it Capponi’s. Of course when opening a second location it will have the same menu, the same ambiance, the same everything. The only weird thing is that this second restaurant is two buildings down from the original! It cracks me up. They are never open on the same night and their menu’s are exactly the same. And it gets even better, people in the area swear the Mona’s is better than Capponi’s!

Well these two restaurants (because they are exactly the same people!) have my most favorite Italian food in the world. I love the cheese tortellini. Going to these restaurants is the highlight of every trip to the mid west, for me anyways.

I was so excited to get there on Tuesday night. We ate a Capponi’s because of course Mona’s wasnt open. I wanted to take a picture of the plate of ravioli but I was so excited to start eating it that I forgot until after my plate was half demolished the other half boxed and put in a doggy bag. I would swear the place hasnt changed a bit in my 22 years of eating there. They even still have the same water glasses.

Its places like these that keep the world simple and people content with the little things in life.