DeRomo's Gourmet Market and Restaurant, Bonita Springs, Florida

Assortment of my holiday cookies from DeRomo's Bakery

A few years ago, I had the opportunity to wander the NYC city streets on my own and found myself in the epicurean paradise called Eataly.  Its a one stop shop for all things food - grocery, bakery,  fromagerie, deli, restaurant, coffee bar.  It had me at "hello".  I never thought I'd find any place close enough to my own backyard that would come close.  I'm very happy to stand corrected!  In the upscale shopping enclave of the Promenade now stands DeRomo's Gourmet Market & Restaurant, a little slice of Italian heaven in Bonita Springs, Florida.    

Set in old world rustic decor, DeRomo's offers a multitude of offerings.  The grocery offers a wide selection of items including produce, fresh breads and bakery items, homemade and specialty pastas and gourmet snacks.  DeRomo's also has a well stocked meat counter boasting beef, veal, pork and poultry cuts alongside house made Italian sausages and ready-to-cook specialities like braciola.   The variety of available selections makes DeRomo's an ideal shopping location for party hosts and home chefs.

Among my favorite sections in the market is the bakery.  Each trip to DeRomo's guarantees that I will leave with a box full of homemade cookies and pastries.  The pastry case rivals any authentic Italian bakery in Little Italy.  My go to selections include the amaretti and pignoli cookies, both of which have a soft chewy and lightly sweet center prefect to pair with an after dinner cappuccino or espresso.  But if you prefer a sweet with a bit more crunch, DeRomo's bakers do not disappoint with its assortment of biscotti.

In addition to grocery offerings, DeRomo's also boasts prepared foods and ready to order items from its deli area.  Sandwiches, pizzas, flatbreads and hot soups are all available for the lunch diner on the go.  Comfort foods like meat stromboli and Italian wedding soup will not disappoint you.  Don't want to "take out"?  "Eat in" and enjoy your meal on the outside patio.  In the springtime, on a nice temperate day, the patio makes for a nice mid-day lunch date.

For those looking for a more elegant dining experience, head through the market's back door and right into DeRomo's restaurant.  The menu features many of the traditional offerings of fine Italian dining, including my perennial favorite, eggplant parmesan so nicely breaded and sauced.        Those dining alone can also enjoy the upscale experience and set themselves at the bar situated between DeRomo's indoor and outdoor dining areas.





DeRomo's is a unique experience in the Southwest Florida area, one that I have been enjoying many times over since its opening in just over a year ago.   Admittedly, the quality of the fare is reflected in its prices.  But it is quite true that you do get what you pay for.  And when you are looking for something comforting and delicious, DeRomo's is an ideal place to go.

Anna's Mini Review: Peace, Love and Little Donuts, Naples, Florida

Hey! Guess what? I went to Peace, Love, and Little Donuts!
Honestly this is the best donut place EVER!!!!
Here they have awesome donuts!

They have lemonade flavored donuts, chocolate flavored donuts, vanilla flavored donuts and more!
They even have maple bacon donuts!!!!!! Awesome, don't you think?

We decided to get the pumpkin, the samoa, the lemonade, the cookies and cream, the chocolate salted pretzel, and the coconut donut.
They were DELICIOUS!!!!!!

The people that worked there were very nice and even recommend some popular flavors that we LOVED (for an example the pumpkin one was suggested)!!!!

I loved Peace, Love, and Little Donuts and I hope you do too!!!

I rate this FIVE SPOONS!!!!!

Bomboloni alla Nutella - Tony's Off Third - Naples, Florida

Bomboloni alla Nutella

I have never taste tested for the blog while attending a business seminar, but there's always a first time for everything.  And today was the day for a first!  You might be surprised (or not) to learn that I actually have a day job, and that I don't eat my way through food for a living.  While it might be a dream of mine to procure such delicious employment, this girl still makes a buck the old fashioned way.  I've got to keep my legal mind as sharp as a pencil, so every year I attend the Florida Bar's Attorney/Trust Officer Liaison Conference.  One of the nice things about this conference is that I get to network with a lot of non-lawyer colleagues who work in related fields.  Kristin Vaughn of the estate auction and appraisal firm, Leslie Hindman Auctioneers, is not only one of these fellow colleagues but also a fellow foodie.  Kristin is a fan of this blog's Facebook fan page and she must have seen the pic of that maple bacon doughnut I posted for National Doughnut Day.  Because as soon as I saw her we launched into an excited conversation about doughnuts.  And not just any doughnut, but the Bomboloni alla Nutella, the latest limited offering from Tony's Off Third, a popular wine and pastry shop in Naples' exclusive Third Street Shopping District.

Kristin's office happens to be just above Tony's Off Third so she had the skinny on this new sweet treat that trended on Naples Facebook feeds last weekend.  Created by shop co-proprietor and Naples' restauranteur/chef, Tony Ridgeway, the Bomboloni alla Nutella is an Italian doughnut filled with white chocolate mousse and Nutella cream.  Kristin didn't have spend a lot of time convincing me that I needed to try this.  She had me right at Nutella.  Hazelnut and chocolate.  Mmmmm.  Love that stuff.  I have ever since my cousin brought it back from a trip to the Netherlands while I was in my teens.  And now Nutella is as ubiquitous as ever.  So, it was only a matter of time before it made its way into a doughnut.

But Tony's doughnut, available only on Fridays, is no run-of-the-mill doughnut.  This brioche style doughnut, with its light bread-like texture, is generously filled with delicious mousse.  The bread itself is not sweet so that this treat is sweetened exclusively by the cream.  I like my desserts sweet but not overly sweet, so this doughnut fits the bill for me.   With that being said, there is a generous amount of cream in these pastries.  So it's best to eat one over a plate or at least a napkin lest some of that sweet cream become a new adornment on your lap.  Not a good way to waste such deliciousness!

Many thanks to Kristin for commandeering someone to pick up a box of these Bomboloni and ferrying them down to us at the conference.  I will definitely be paying her back with lunch sometime very soon, maybe at Ridgeway Bar & Grill.  :-)

Baked Goods #2: Apple Walnut Fig Bread

My favorite fig products ... before my late summer taste test.   Ambrosia for the gods!

I absolutely adore figs.  Fresh figs, dried figs, fig preserves, fig spread, fig butter … whatever its form I'm seriously in love with this fruit.  So, imagine my delight when I discovered Adriatic fig spread at Whole Foods.  That stuff on crostini with a soft sliver of brie is the equivalent of my kryptonite.  I didn't think anything could come close, until I found Trader's Joe's fig butter.  That was like striking gold!  Now mind you, the Whole Foods spread is still my ultimate favorite, but this comes seriously close.  So, when a Facebook friend posted a pic of her traditional fig cake, my inspiration was sparked. After finishing a batch of honey banana bread loaves and finding myself without bananas to spare and quite a few names left on my holiday gift giving list, apple walnut fig bread was born.  And what a beautiful baby it is.  Here it is now for your tasting pleasure.

Apple Walnut Fig Bread

¼ c. minced dried figs

½ c. honey

½ c. butter, softened

2 eggs

½ c. fig butter

1 c. unsweetened applesauce

1 tsp. vanilla

1 c. old fashioned oats

1 c. all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. nutmeg

½ tsp. salt

¼ c. chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 325°.   Add minced dried figs to honey and allow to sit for 10 minutes (so that figs can soften).  Cream softened butter and honey fig mixture together in a mixing bowl.  Add eggs, fig butter, applesauce and vanilla extract.  Mix until all are well incorporated.  Set aside while you work on dry ingredients.

Add oats to a food processor and process oats to create a course powder.  (If you have oat flour, you can skip this step and substitute with the same amount of oat flour.)   Add remaining dry ingredients to the powdered oats and blend together (which can be done in the food processor). 

Add walnuts to wet ingredients and mix to incorporate.  Slowly add dry ingredients into wet ingredients until well mixed.  Spoon batter into a buttered and floured loaf pan.    Bake for 55 to 60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. 

These may not rise like the banana bread, but they are wonderfully moist and delicious.  Hope your version is just as tasty as mine! 

Baked Goods #1: Honey Banana Bread

As much as I love cooking, baking has never been my forte.  While I admit to having developed a passable skill of improvising dinner dishes, I've never dared to try my luck at improvising sweets.  There's much more science involved when it comes to baking that I haven't quite grasped and it's been a long time since I've made my way around a chemistry lab.  I still am not quite sure that I understand the difference between baking powder and baking soda.  Nonetheless, as a mom, it's necessary for me to have a few baked goods in my repertoire.  For me, banana bread is just that thing.  

We love bananas in our house and tend to have an overabundance of the potassium-rich fruit on hand at any given time.  Although my children usually make fast work of a bunch, every once in a while a straggler finds itself at the bottom of my fruit basket.  Once it develops those freckles, my kids turn up their noses.  Lucky for me, I know that ripe bananas can be frozen and, when thawed, soften to the nice consistency perfect for banana bread.

This holiday season, I was lucky to have a whole bunch of frozen bananas.  So, naturally, my first day of holiday baking was dedicated to my ever faithful standby.  And this year, I made a few adaptations to make this holiday version a bit more special.  The addition of oat flour here reduces the gluten content while the use of organic honey eliminates the use of processed sugar.  The result is just as yummy and a tad bit healthier.  I will definitely be making this again, and perhaps will try my luck at making this entirely gluten free!  But that will be a post for another day.  In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this new recipe.  Comments and critiques are welcome!

  

Honey-Banana Bread

½ c. butter, softened

½ c. honey

2 eggs

2 c. mashed bananas

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 c. old fashioned oats

1 c. all-purpose flour

1 ¼ tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice

¼ tsp. salt

Preheat oven to 325°.   Cream softened butter and honey together in a mixing bowl (or preferably the box of a stand mixer).  Add eggs, bananas and vanilla extract and mix until all are well incorporated.  Set aside while you work on dry ingredients.

Add oats to a food processor and process oats to create a course powder.  (If you have oat flour, you can skip this step and substitute with the same amount of oat flour.)   Add remaining dry ingredients to the powdered oats and blend together (which can be done in the food processor to save yourself a cleaning step). 

Slowly incorporate dry ingredients into wet ingredients until well mixed.  Spoon batter into a buttered and floured loaf pan.    Bake for 55 to 60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.   This recipe should yield one loaf.

For gift giving, I use baby loaf pans purchased from my grocery store.  This recipe will make 3 baby loaves.  I doubled the recipe to yield 6 baby loaves, each of which I slipped into a printed holiday cellophane gift bag.  I found the gift bags pictured above at Michael's in their baking aisle.  On the underside of each bag, I affixed a label to direct my friends to the honey banana bread recipe here on my blog.  You, however, are welcome to print my recipe on a larger label and make this a gift that keeps on giving.  Happy holidays!

Doughnut Plant, New York, New York

Cashew and orange blossom doughseed with ginger peach tea

Cake or yeast?  Doughnut afficianados have long debated which type of doughnut reigns supreme.  Years ago I decided that yeast doughnuts are the only doughnuts that I love.  I don't know what it is about cake doughnuts that just doesn't appeal to me.  Okay, I do know.  All the cake doughnuts I've ever had are typically dense and dry.  Now how can that hold up against the light and fluffy yeast doughnut?  It just can't!  Well, that was until I went to Doughnut Plant.  I admit that I never thought I could ever love a cake doughnut but Doughnut Plant changed that forever.  They prove that a cake doughnut can taste just as a light and fluffy as any yeast doughnut.  That dense, hard as a rock cake doughnut just doesn't exist at Doughnut Plant.  At this popular NYC sweet shop, they are exactly what they are supposed to be:  yummy cakes shaped into round treats with that ubiquitous hole in the center.

Making my ginger peach tea!

And Doughnut Plant's doughnuts are more than just treats, they are epicurean art.  The menu offers a unique array of flavors, some seasonal and some year-long favorites, some fruity, some nutty and some very chocolately.  Alongside the traditional orbital shape, Doughnut Plant also offers square-shaped doughnuts and doughseeds (larger than your traditional doughnut hole) filled with delicious jams and creams.  For my tasting plate, I chose a "safe" tres leches cake doughnut, a vanilla bean and blackberry jam filled square doughnut and a cashew and orange blossom doughseed.   Each and every one of these were delicious.  All were sweet in that not-so-overwhelming way.  Yes, even that cake doughnut that I frankly saved for last and didn't even bite into until TWO days later.  (Okay, I shouldn't have waited so long to sink my teeth into this one.  I took it to go and admit I was setting up that cake doughnut for certain failure.  But these doughnuts keep amazingly well!  I now wonder how much better - if that is possible - it would have been had I bit into it upon order.  Oh cake doughnut I will never do you wrong again.)  And the ginger peach tea was just the right kind of palate cleanser.

Right to left:  tres leches cake doughnut, cashew and orange blossom doughseed
and vanilla bean & blackberry jam filled square doughnut

Those yummy doughnuts aside, Doughnut Plant is a fun eclectic little shop with a wall of brightly colored doughnut shaped pillows.  The staff are friendly and were more than willing to be the subject of my blog photos.  The other patrons were just like me, curious sweet treat lovers in search of the popular doughy goodness, some from nearby Westchester and the others from father away Myrtle Beach, SC.  We had a great time comparing notes and telling each other how much we loved these goodies.  When I come back, I won't be surprised if I find those ladies there again.  Doughnut Plant made a lot of new fans that day!

How much I spent:  My three doughnuts and ginger peach tea cost me $12.  Not bad.  Although next time I suspect I'll be walking out with a whole dozen!

My overall rating:  Heck, I'm giving this 5 spoons.  I love doughnuts and I can guarantee that I will be coming back to Doughnut Plant each and every time I go to NYC.  And with two locations (one near the East Village near Grand and Essex) and the other in Chelsea (on 23rd Street near 7th Ave.), I suspect I'll be able to make two stops in one day!


Check out Doughnut Plant on Urbanspoon!

Eataly, New York, New York

Recently, I took a trip to New York City.  While I really wanted to eat my way through the city, I'm a petite gal and I can only pack away so much food.  It's just a shame because there is so much good food in the City.  But, things are what they are and if I wanted to appreciate all of the good food planned for my day, I needed to take some breaks between bites.  On the suggestion of a good friend and fellow foodie, I scheduled some "food wanderings" in between dining venues.  On the advice of my good friend, I wandered my way from the Doughnut Plant (review to come soon) in the direction of Eataly, an Italian food and dining venue right in the Flatiron District in Midtown Manhattan.  This was the perfect spot for a respite between doughnuts and British gastropub fare.  And a great spot to pick up Italian imported arabica coffee beans for my Sicilian husband and European chocolates for my two kids.  Situated on famous Fifth Avenue, near the corner at 23rd Street, this upscale food market has everything one would need to satisfy an Italian food craving:  plump ripe vegetables and fruits, house made pasta, olives and oils, fresh baked bread, chocolates, coffee, salumi and other cured meats, hard and soft cheeses, Italian sweets and more.  And if you are an out of towner like me, unable to fill up on those perishable goods that won't survive the flight home, you can partake at eleven different cafes and restaurants for big or small bites, whatever your pleasure, all in the midst of this bustling market.  I had only thirty minutes to take it all in before heading to lunch at the Spotted Pig, but it was thirty minutes very well spent.  But don't think that Eataly is a place you can or should just quickly cruise through.  There is so much here to see and enjoy and a half hour is definitely not enough to completely appreciate all that this upscale Italian market has to offer.  It's too bad I didn't have more time.  I'm definitely going to allocate a couple of hours to this amazing marketplace the next time I have a chance to visit the Big Apple.  For now, I'm just going to have to enjoy these pics.  Hope you do too!

Cheese, cheese and more cheese!

Fresh fruit and veggies, good enough to eat right off the cart

They had me a prosciutto

Making the pasta ....

and baking the bread.  

World Bakery & Cafeteria, Naples, Florida

The World Bakery & Cafeteria in Naples, Florida is located in a small strip mall on Pine Ridge Road, just west of the corner at CR 951.  The "cafeteria" moniker is definitely appropriate.  This eatery isn't glamorous.  The service takes some getting used to.  The food presentation isn't pretty.    But if you can look - or rather taste - past all of that, the World Bakery & Cafeteria offers a good "bang for your buck" Cuban-style lunch that is worth trying.  The traditional Cuban fare will appeal to any city transplant longing for a taste of their own little Havana.

When you first walk into World Bakery, you can't help but notice the bakery and deli style food cases.  This is no sit down eatery with menus.  In this place, customers walk right up to the food cases to order what they want.  Now, don't be surprised if you have to wait a bit.  Sometimes, it takes a few minutes for someone to get around to you, not necessarily because its busy in there but just because the people behind the counter work at their own pace.  But fortunately you won't have to wait too long.  Savory and sweet items are all available for order although you may have to resort to pointing and broken Spanish to place your order.  Not everyone who works here speaks fluent English.  But thankfully my Filipino makes me proficient enough in conversational Spanish to get by.  And, if you don't know Spanish, don't worry.  The servers there will eventually figure out exactly what you want or a regular might jump in and help you out.  Once your order is filled, they pack it all up in a plastic grocery bag and hand it to you with a slip of paper.  My first day there I had no idea what to do with that slip of paper.  All I knew is that I wanted to pay for my meal.  I literally waited to observe and mimic someone who appeared to be a regular.  Thanks to him, I now know that you are supposed to bring your little slip to a register at the far end of the pastry counter, although you may need to let them know you're ready to check out.  And there is a digital read out on the register just in case you are rusty with your Spanish numbers.

Ordering at World Bakery may not be the easiest experience (at least initially) but the eating goes much better.  Even though there are a limited number of tables for in-restaurant dining, I suspect most of World Bakery's patrons take their orders to go.  I opted to do the same since my home is less than a mile down the road.  For lunch today, I ordered a roasted leg of chicken and ox tails, along with generous sides of yellow rice and sweet fried plantains, all to go.  Because World Bakery has a large selection of sweets, I also ordered several of those to go:  two types of flan, a slice of vanilla cake with blue frosting (specifically requested by my Anna), a puff pastry ("pastel") filled with guava paste and a Cuban cake soaked in simple syrup.

What I loved:  The ox tails were really great.  Although still a little gelatinous and fatty in places, the ox tail was braised all the way and so fork tender.  The braising liquid flavored with Spanish olives gave a great savory taste to the meat.  I appreciated that the server spooned some of that flavorful braising liquid over my yellow rice and took care to include a few Spanish olives to my box.  The plantains were nicely fried and well caramelized.  Sweet but still a bit firm, just the way I like them.  And because the serving of rice is so ample, my lunch was also very filing.

Of all the desserts, the flans were the winners.  If you love egg custards, World Bakery can oblige.  They have several types of flan although its not readily apparent how they are all different.  Thankfully being Filipino means I know a little something about flan.  I ordered two types.  The first was firm, cut into a slice that could be hand held.  Lightly sweet and thick and creamy in texture, it's clear that this flan is made with a lot of egg yolk.  The other, tocinillo flan, has thin layers of caramel on the top and the bottom and is thus a little sweeter than its cousin.  This flan though is lighter in texture and is very reminiscent of the Filipino flan I grew up with.  Next time I'll bring my parents and order the tocinillo.  I'm sure my dad will thank me for it.

What I didn't love:  Unfortunately, not all of those desserts hit the spot.  I did not love the simple syrup infused cake.  It looked really good in the case, but it just didn't taste so good in my mouth.  The syrup was nice and light, subtlety sweet, but the cake otherwise had no flavor.  In fact, but for all the moisture from the syrup, I would have thought the cake was dry.  Maybe it's supposed to be that way.  I have no idea.  I just know it's not to my liking.

As an Asian, I'm pretty discerning when it comes to rice.  The yellow rice at World Bakery is nicely seasoned and contains bits of vegetable making the rice a nice stand-alone dish if you so desire.  But this rice is little dry to the taste.  Maybe because I didn't pick up my lunch order until 1 p.m. and the tray may have been in the case for an hour.  Maybe because I just prefer a very sticky rice.  It's not bad.  Just not my favorite.

Ox tails with yellow rice and sweet plantains

How much I spent:  ($)  For lunch for me and my two kids, I spent $15.   The sides are very generous so I ordered two meals for the three of us to share.   Since we ordered our meals to go, I didn't purchase any drinks.  I spent $6 for all of the sweets, although normally I would have not bought so many.  In fact, I probably would not have bought any since we were only purchasing lunch.  I bought a selection of five only for the purpose of this review.  Of course, next time I will have to take home some tocinillo.

My overall rating:  3 spoons.  World Bakery & Cafeteria serves up a good lunch for a good price, especially if you are looking to pick up something relatively quick to go.  For those living nearby, this eatery could come in handy as a weekend or dinner solution when you're not up for cooking.  Or when you need to satisfy your sweet tooth.

Yoder's Restaurant, Sarasota, Florida

You've got to love the Amish.  They are hard-working people and I know they do two things really well - woodworking and home cooking.  This blog is all about eating so you can bet that I'm most interested in home cooking.  The Amish live outside of conventional society so when they cook, its good and clean.  Their fruits and vegetables are home-grown and organic.   Their meals are not burdened by the preservatives that many have now come to find unfortunately indispensable.  In short, the food is good and good for you.  Now, I'm not a 100% clean eater.  It's just not practical with my busy schedule.  But, I do cook at least five days a week and, apart from pasta, most of my meals don't come from a box.  So, I can really appreciate the effort that goes into home cooking, not only for one's family but for a whole restaurant of guests.  And that's exactly what the Yoders do.

Those in Southwest Florida are lucky to be close enough to the resort town of Sarasota.  Known for the shopping along St. Armands Circle and a string of beach islands along its coast, Sarasota's hidden gem is its Amish-Mennonite community and Yoder's Restaurant.  Day in and day out, Yoder's Restaurant welcomes Sarasota locals and visitors who come from all over the place to get a taste of all that Amish home-cooked goodness.  And in particular, Yoder's is best known for its pies.   A few years ago, my younger sister moved to nearby Bradenton and converted me into a frequent Sarasota visitor.  Yet, in all that time, I had not yet made my way to Yoder's.  So that the opportunity would not pass me by again,  I used this rare husband-free weekend to bring my kids to Bradenton so that they could guilt their aunt into taking them to Yoder's.

Before I dine away from my own town, I do a little reconnaissance and seek out reviews and recommendations.  Yoder's has been featured on the Travel Channel and other popular food shows so I didn't have to do quite as much research to know that I wanted to put it on my dining list.  But I did go online to their website (yes, these Amish use the Internet) to learn a little more about the restaurant and its menu.  I was pleased to learn that Yoder's (named after the owner-family) has been in business since 1975 and that the family still actively participates in its management.  The location boasts not only the restaurant, but also a deli, produce market and gift shop where gems of Amish goodness are available for you to purchase.  But before you go, there are a few things to keep in mind.  It's a popular dining spot, so expect to stand in line the closer you arrive to traditional dining hours.  There isn't much of a line at 11:30 a.m., but by noon you can expect to wait at least 20 minutes.  And don't try to make reservations or send a friend to hold your place.  Your party won't be seated until your entire party has navigated the line.

Even with the inconvenience of the line, a trip to Yoder's is worth the experience.  The dining room is decorated like a country kitchen and dining there feels a lot like eating around a kitchen table.  So, dining there with my kids, my sister and her family was definitely apropos.  And there is something especially comforting about having lunch in a place that looks like it could be a part of someone's home.

Now, I will confess that I made the errant assumption that Amish-style food would be a lot like  Southern-style food.   I should have known that home-style cooking isn't one size fits all.  Amish and Southern-style dishes may look the same but I think that is where the similarity ends.  After all, I don't think the Amish use Crisco.  It just wouldn't be very Amish to do so.  For lunch, I ordered fried chicken.  Being in the South, I expected to sink my teeth into the same crispy, crunchy, seasoning crusted chicken with which I've become familiar.  The Amish version looks deceptively similar but is not at all.  My first surprise?  This Amish fried chicken was neither greasy or oily.  I know it sounds oxymoronic, but every piece on my plate (including the dark meat pieces) had been rendered of its fat.  (I admit, I liked that my chicken was a little less fatty.)  And my second surprise?  The light amount of seasoning.  The Southern-style dishes I've eaten have been very liberally seasoned.  Not so with this dish.  Clearly, the Amish season their dishes with a much lighter hand.  I don't mean to say that the dishes were bland, but they were certainly more subtle in flavor than I had expected.  That's just a nice way of saying that they were rather under-seasoned.  But ultimately it's much easier to cope with an under-seasoned dish than one that is over-seasoned.  You just need to reach for the salt or for Yoder's house "dressing" which many use as a dipping sauce for the chicken.    So, when you take a trip to Yoder's, keep this in mind.

What I loved:    The only exception to my mildly seasoned plate?  Fried okra.  If you love this veggie  like I do, then you must make it a point to try Yoder's fried okra.  Now, that is some good stuff.  Unlike the chicken, these are perfectly seasoned with right amount of salt and fried to a golden brown.  The crust on these little nuggets isn't thick but is definitely crisp.  And just like the chicken, these aren't greasy.  Better yet, these okra aren't stringy or mushy (which are the two most common objections I hear about okra).  I suppose that is the benefit of growing and cooking your own food.  The farm fresh taste of these okra is apparent in the crispness of the vegetable's flesh and seeds.  Too bad it's just a side, because I could've eaten a whole plate of these ... but for the fact that I needed to leave room for pie.

In fact, next time I've gotta leave room for a whole lot of pie.  That's because the pies at Yoder's are AMAZING.   Yoder's pies are pretty famous so I expected to like the pies.  I even made a plan to order three separate slices to taste for this blog:  dutch apple, peanut butter cream and fresh peach.  I don't think I could have prepared myself enough for how much I would LOVE these pies.  If I could marry one, I would.  If I didn't have to share with my kids, I could have easily inhaled these pies.  Yes, they are that good.  The fruit and cream filings are sweet but not sickeningly sweet, which means that I can eat more than one bite of these pies without wanting to push them away.  The crusts and toppings are flaky, buttery and light.  But the best part of these pies is their freshness.  I could swear that they cut the fruit for my fresh peach pie minutes before it landed on my plate.  Each slice was still cool and crisp.  And even though it was tossed in a light peach glaze, the flavor of this pie came mostly from the natural sweetness of the fresh peach.  Fresh peaches are one of my favorite fruits to eat so this pie became my fast favorite of the three.   The fresh peach pie isn't a regular on the menu so I'm going to have to remember to make my next trip to Yoder's before the peach season ends.

Back to front:  Egg custard pie, peanut butter cream pie and fresh peach pie

What I didn't love:  Since you already know how lightly seasoned the food is, I won't mention it again.  But that didn't bother me as much as the Yoder's menu.  As I expected, Yoder's serves a lot of traditional comfort foods, such as meatloaf, fried chicken, liver and onions, and turkey and stuffing.  I was, however, quite disappointed to see the influence of "modern" fare on the menu in offerings like asian chicken salad, quesadillas and taco salad.  I've seen "Breaking Amish" and "Amish Mafia" so I know the modern-day Amish are not exactly like the caricatures of the past.  But Amish cooking ought to be treated as sacred, so I admit that I made a conscious choice to ignore these "other" menu options entirely.  If I'm going to go to the Amish, I'm going to eat Amish and that's that.

How much I spent:  ($$)  I spent $51 plus tip for lunch for myself and my two children.  This included a cheeseburger and fries for my son, a half order of fried chicken (and two sides) shared with my daughter, soft drinks, an obligatory sweet tea and desserts.  Now, I did order three slices of pie which I would not have normally ordered.  (Each is $4.50.)  On any other day, I would have ordered just one slice to share with my kids.  But now that I've been to Yoder's I know that sharing is simply out of the question.  I suppose one could order - and spend less - at Yoder's but that would be a shame, at least where pie is concerned.

My overall rating:  The pies alone deserve a 5 spoon rating, but Yoder's isn't a dessert-only establishment.  I suppose I have to rate Yoder's on their overall menu.  So for those who are looking to have the full Yoder's experience, I give Yoder's 3 1/4 spoons.  This is good, clean-eating home-cooked food, even with the light-handed seasoning.  You certainly won't feel like you've done your body any disservice by dining there.   Just make sure you don't leave without a pie!