Pioneering Italians were not only the first to put tomatoes in cuisine, they were also the first people to take photographs of themselves pretending to hold up the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Delight in their inventiveness with today's Groupon: for $10, you get $20 worth of Italian and Greek dinner fare at Mike's Rigatoni Bistro in Peoria.

Fusing the trademark tastes of Greece and Northern Italy, Mike's packs its dinner menu with authentic and inventive Mediterranean morsels. Greek gastronomists can set appetites ablaze with saganaki, traditional Greek cheese lightly battered, baked in butter, and set en flambé with ouzo ($7.99). Homespun noodle blankets tuck meat sauce, ricotta, homemade sausage, cheese, and motherly love into lasagna al forno ($12.99), while veggies and meats—kitchen or custom designed—spoon across pizza-crust air mattresses ($8.99+). Carefully carved daily, chicken and veal add protein to specialties such as marsalla, infused with a flavorful chorus of portobello, shiitake, porcini, and cremini mushrooms ($12.99 chicken, $14.99 veal). The bistro enlists rock shrimp and bay scallops to patrol capricious capers, outspoken olives, and fierce feta in the spiced marinara, mozzarella-crusted penne spetsiota ($14.99).

Park your progeny at one of Mike's linen-clad tables and succumb to the honey-drizzled come-hithers of a flaky, sweet baklava ($5.25). Several varietals of wine, including authentic Italian chianti, imbue each bite with Italian oomph or Hellenic heat.