Did you know that Peoria has over eight Indian restaurants, and they’ve all opened in the last several years? In fact, the city has become a bit of a mecca for Indian food, just like it had become a haven for Lebanese food back in the 1980s. The Indian food is really good, too. I went to Bay Leaf last Friday on what is a much more busy riverfront than St. Louis. Why did I decide to take a whole day up to talk about this? Because for a lot of people in America–ok, I’ll call them snobs–the idea that there’s something exciting happening in a “fly-over” or “rust belt” city such as Peoria would elicit snickers or derision (“oh, whatever, Chris!”). And that is a major problem with America today; there are all sorts of great cities out there with amazing costs of living that are just waiting for people to set aside the snobbery and discover them. Indian immigrants don’t care that people on the Coasts see Peoria as uncool, and no one else should either.