The Crazy Planet Kitchen
414 N Main St, Bloomington
(309) 827-7787

Review by JT Payne of Bloomington

My wife and I and another couple dined recently at The Crazy Planet Kitchen in downtown Bloomington. It's one of the newest of the restaurants and bars populating the downtown area...and what a great experience! Since it was graduation night we made reservations, and arrived at eight on Saturday to find the restaurant bustling with activity. The Crazy Planet is a small and cozy place. Its décor is high ceilings, brick walls and wooden floors. The hostess cheerfully informed us that our table would be ready in a few minutes. We looked over the narrow dining room with bar and noticed there were only two vacant tables. One table was in the front, the other in the back and both had two chairs. Not to fear our hostess literally picked up one of the tables over her head, carried it to the back of the dining area and matched it up with the other table to form a four top. WOW!! We were escorted to our newly created table after the chairs, napkins, glassware, and silver were in place.

There were lots of people eating in the small, noisy room and it took awhile to adjust to the levels. Our waitress arrived to take our drink order. After perusing the menu we passed on ordering appetizers. After our waitress returned with our cocktails, a four-piece jazz band began to play. They were great, however it did make it difficult to converse across the table at times.

Our waitress returned a short time later to take our order. The menu is an interesting mix of numerous salads and a variety of creative entrees. We ordered the Southwest Lasagna, Chopped Portabella Salad, Tenderloin of Beef, and the Pasta Special with shrimp. We also selected a good bottle of Australian Merlot from the impressive wine list. Our dinner salads arrived shortly after the wine was poured. They were nothing special, but all of the ingredients were fresh and the dressing tasted like it must have been made by the chef. Our food arrived just as we were finishing our salads. The Southwest Lasagna was an interesting twist on the Italian favorite with tortillas instead of lasagna noodles. The meat was spicy and the southwest cheese provided for a very tasty southwestern dish. The Tenderloin of Beef was perfectly seared to a medium rare, very tender, and appointed with asparagus spears and red roasted potatoes. The Chopped Portabella Salad was huge and consisted of two different kinds of lettuce, veggies, and dressed with a balsamic vinaigrette...very good. The pasta special was a very well prepared dish of tender penne pasta with veggies and cheese, topped with steamed shrimp. Scrumptious! Next was dessert! We were all quite full from the generous portions and decided to split the Raspberry cheesecake four ways . Very impressive! Out total bill was just under $100 for the four of us.

Fresh ingredients, excellently cooked, with a creative touch of flavors and textures describes the food at The Crazy Planet Kitchen. The service and atmosphere were exceptional and the jazz was pretty good too. Enjoy!

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