Reality Bites

Omg omg omg best food in town hands down!
Goats cheese balls are the fresh hummus and they have a great selection of alcohol in a friendly staff

Great daily specials, great staff, reasonable prices. Never had a bad experience, just make sure to get a reservation!

Reality and service both bite here.
We were shocked that it took them 45 minutes (and tracking someone down) to get 3 small plates of cold appetizers. Hummus, caprese skewers and cold chicken «sliders.» The food was tasty, but by the time it finally came, we were in no mood to enjoy it.
Also, if you sit outside — avoid the corner table near the street, or you may be joined by a surly guy reaching across your table to get at his mailbox on the wall, and standing there reading his mail while you try to eat.

I love their food!

Excellent food, great service, nice ambiance. First time customer who will definitely be returning!

Great spot for a double date dinner. Plenty of options for small plates or full size entrees, and a great drinks menu — excellent beer choices! We made reservations for 7:30 on a Friday night — and they were definitely needed. This place gets busy! Service was good, but not great, so that’s the only knock. We’ll definitely be back — it is a great option, with a very Chicago feel.

We love this place. From management on down, from the tap and small plate rotation to the entries, friendly staff with attention to detail… we like ‘Inch’, we dig this place… to steal some cliches… he ‘does it right’ and ‘keeps it fresh’!

Hippest place in Bloomington so far. Great service, good cocktails, and tasty food. The menu is fairly unassuming but is great compared to most pub food. I recommend stopping in.

The thing I like least about this place is that it is inconsistent. a few dishes are really good but there are also many that fall flat. I also believe it is overpriced for what it is. The tapas have eclectic choices that don’t always pay off. I think this place is overrated.

This is one of our favorite restaurants in Bloomington. The small plates are good as well as their entrees. They have a great drink menu and a rotating beer selection. I would recommend this for a nice night out for dinner and a few drinks.

The goat cheese balls are to die for. SO good.

This was our first Tapas experience. We did the Caprese Skewers and the Seared Ahi Tuna, they were both amazing! I had the Drunken Chicken and the boy had Bruschetta Chicken, both entrees were great! I had 3 Martinis, they were phenom! The atmosphere was great with great ambiance and low lighting, made for a perfect romantic dinner! We will def be back! The only reason they didn’t get 5 stars, our waitress was a bit of a snob at a few points. She would pay a lot of attention to me because I was drinking but my guy was drinking iced tea and I had to ask for a refill.

Very cute and Chicago-​esque eatery! Lots of fun specialty drinks and martinis, the Lollipop came with one in it! They have equal numbers of of small plates and normal dinner choices. I went with (too many) of the small plates to try out as much as I could! Sweet potato fries were delicious but didn’t come with any special type of dipping sauce. Ketchup was too sweet for an already sweet food so I asked for any kind of spicy or horseradish dip. She gave me something chipolte which was too smoky tasting to be complementary. A good dip would really elevate this item!
I also tried the cucumber boat which was a hollowed out half of a cucumber filled with feta cheese, red peppers, onions and pine nuts. The description had fresh basil listed but I couldn’t see or taste it. This dish fell a little flat because not enough of the cucumber had been hollowed out. That made it really difficult to bite into and also meant less toppings could fit. Also needed a sauce or drizzle on it to giveit some added flavor. Kind of reminded me of a salad without a dressing. For $ 9, not a good deal for my wallet or my taste buds.
The salmon over asparagus withbalsamic glaze was the best of the bunch. A full dinner size piece of fish was drizzled with a thick balsamic glaze and same over 6 pieces of asparagus. I think this one was $ 12 and really worth it. The other winner at the table was the pork tacos and they did look amazing so I will be returning for those and also for the nice ambiance. Dark and cozy with 2 levels, outdoor seating and a private looking backroom.

Has a neat inside atmosphere and a patio area that I wasn’t able to personally take advantage of because it was a tad cold the evening I went.
Waitress was very friendly and offered suggestions and her personal favorites because it was our first time there.
Had the sriracha chicken salad sliders and they were good. My date had fish tacos and they were average, nothing too special. I ordered the chicken bruschetta and it was very good, the breading on the chicken was great.
Only real problem I had with the place is the pricing. A bit out of my price range to visit often.

Visited reality bites for my first time tonight. Being from champaign I’ve been wanting to go there for quite some time now but just never had the chance whether it being closed or just going some place else. We started off with the goat cheese bites. They were great! I’m a huge goat cheese fan but I would recommend them adding an additional cup or dipping sauce for them as the decorative sauces on the side of the bowl isn’t nearly enough for the balls.
Fish tacos were really good… fresh and lots of taste. The pork tacos needed a little extra something… definitely tasted as if something was missing. Bland.
I ordered the Greek salad. As it arrived at the table it was definitely not what I expected… Literally about 5 bites worth of lettuce. The rest consisted of feta cheese (my fav), kalamata olives (also my fav), tomatoes and onions. I was pretty bummed about the lack of lettuce in my salad but as I continued to eat, the dish turned out to be very tasteful. The veggies had a lot of flavor & just all around good. Just still wish there was a little more lettuce!
All in all it was a good first visit for me. The waitress was really friendly and we will definitely be back!

Planned on eating a full dinner here last night but only made it through appetizers before jumping ship to another place. The food was good (bacon wrapped dates and tiger shrimp appetizers) but the environment, service and pricing were less than okay.
Our waitress seemed pained to deal with us at all, the tables are placed so close together, I could’ve eaten off of our neighbor’s plates and joined their conversation… and the pricing was a tad high for Bloomington IL. (had the service and environment been better, I wouldn’t be mentioning the prices.)
All in all, don’t waste your time.

Went to Reality Bites for the second time a few nights ago. I love the interior of this restaurant. They’ve got a nice bar, great lighting, and you certainly don’t feel like you’re in a BloNo restaurant when you’re inside.
My date and I got drinks to start. I didn’t want beer and all the cocktails looked like chick drinks, so I ordered an old fashioned. It was alright, but I could tell that the bar staff didn’t have much practice making one. My date’s sangria was excellent, according to her.
For the meal, we went with a host of small plates.
Goat cheese balls: They were different from the last time I had them. Much bigger. Some people might think this is a good thing, but I thought there was way too much goat cheese in each bite. The raspberry (?) sauce an honey weren’t enough to match up to the goat cheese.
Tiger shrimp: Good dish. The white wine butter sauce is excellent. Not enough shrimp on the plate. I could have ordered four of these.
Crab cakes: I thought these were the best part of the meal. They were really, really good. I liked the chipotle sauce, but the best bite was with chipotle sauce and the bearnaise they had on the side.
Chicken caprese salad: This was interesting. It was a special and consisted pretty much of a caprese salad with grilled chicken on top. The balsamic they used was really good, and I liked the dish in general. It could have used more mozzarella and juicier tomatoes, though.
Sweet potato fries: Holy cow… amazing. The perfect cut. They’re super thin and crispy. I tend to not like sweet potato fries because I think they’re too sweet. (Sounds dumb, I know). But when cut super thin like this, you get just enough sweetness. The best fries in Bloomington, hands down.
All in all, a good meal. We were stuffed. A few dishes could use some tweaks, but all in all, pretty good. We’ll be back to explore more of the menu.

While lost in Illinois we found gold! Who would have thought we’d stumble on excellent cuisine in the middle of corn country?

I have to give another 5 star review. Reality Bites was very accommodating considering I made reservations via email. We had to exchange emails twice to get a seating time of 6:15PM on Saturday night for two. However, we were going to be well more than an hour late but I was able to once again send them an email prior to our seating to let them know to release our reservations. Thankfully they replied to let them know when we were on the way and they’d fit us in. That’s exceptional service in my book.
With about 20 minutes notice I emailed them again telling them we were on our way. When we walked in the Manager /​Door Man asked, «are you the email guy» :-). I smiled and apologized for the tardiness, etc. The manager was able to seat us at a table in the window without a wait. The place was pretty busy at 8:30PM but I really loved the atmosphere.
We actually stopped by Eleven just before for some tapas and cocktails, then had to try Reality Bites. I’ve been meaning to come here for several years. We ordered tacos but the server was able to give us one of each: One Pork, m One Fish, and One Salmon. They were very good and filling. My wife had Pomegranate based martini. She loved it. I had another craft beer from Chicago. It was okay but I’m not a big fan of wheat beers (like BlueMoon which is what this one tasted like).
We very much enjoyed Reality Bites and I plan to go again.

I was thrilled when someone suggested we go here before a concert. Upon further inspection, yes it is tapas, and it does have some traditional dishes, like bacon-​wrapped dates and goat cheese balls (Tradicional pintxo dishes from northern Spain). They also have some Mexican-​focused tapas, like tacos.
Remember people! Tapas are meant to be shared, so don’t be selfish!
We shared the baked goat cheese (Big bowl with the baked goat cheese surrounded by marinara sauce, eaten with crostini), chicken skewers (Three skewers of teriyaki chicken, onions and green peppers atop mashed potatoes) and bacon-​wrapped dates (Eight of them plus a little field greens salad) which ended up being a lot of food. I lived in Spain, know a thing or two about tapas, so the portion size was excellent compared to other tapas places in Chicagoland. All of it was delicious but I would have been satisfied with one less dish.
I paired the dishes with the house Chardonnay which was surprisingly good. I was itching to try one of the flights (They have beer, martini, wine and reds) but I’ll save that for another time. We had excellent service so I’m confused when I read some of the other reviews. The server was very sweet and attentive. Small place, romantic with candles on the table. Four beers on tap. Wooden décor, which, if you read my Medici review, you’d know I absolutely love!
Overall a nice place in BloNo and I hope to be back!