Chapman's offers little value

Although Bloomington restaurants have a reputation of making excellent food for the money, there are those exceptions. Chapman's restaurant is one of those restaurants that masks itself as an upscale steak and seafood restaurants. \nIts decor consists of Kincaid paintings on the walls, and it features a menu that boasts everything from fillet mignon to roast duck. This makes it seem like a perfect date restaurant, but for my taste it was the kind of place I would send my grandparents.\nFor appetizers, we tried the shrimp cocktail at $6.95 and the wild mushrooms en croute for $5.95. Both came out quickly, preceded by warm sourdough bread.\nThe cocktail contained five peeled shrimp served with cocktail sauce and lemon over ice. They were quite large and the cocktail sauce had a very pleasant zing to it. The wild mushrooms were a tad bland, but had a nice texture. \nSalads that came with dinners were next. Chapman's has six house dressing and my companion and I chose the vinaigrette dressing. The salad was a nice mix of green lettuce (not iceberg) with cucumbers and strips of red bell pepper. The salad was nothing special except for the addition of the peppers and the dressing also seemed bland.\nFor entrees, my companion and I both chose to try Chapman's steak. My companion chose a small fillet at $15.95 while I tried the bourbon steak -- a New York strip cooked in a bourbon sauce with shallots -- at $19.95. Both steaks came with steamed mixed vegetables and roasted and seasoned new potatoes.\nNeither steak was particularly appetizing. The fillet was fairly dry and had little taste. The bourbon also had little taste, was tough and was smothered in a sauce that not only looked unappetizing, but also tasted the same way. The only good part of the entrees was the potatoes, which were seasoned well and had a nice texture.\nFor desert, we tried chocolate terrine for $4.50 and cherries jubilee for $5.00. The chocolate terrine was a slab of chocolate mousse drizzled with a raspberry sauce. The cherries were flamed in brandy over vanilla ice cream.\nWhile I do not especially like chocolate mousse, the terrine was very intense. But the cherries jubilee was exquisite, and I only wished that there had been more of it.