There’s more to being Amish than hard work and horse-drawn carriages. The Amish are also fabulous cooks who serve a hearty brand of soul food assembled with simple ingredients that deliver big taste. Sarasota has long had a thriving population of Amish and Mennonite transplants from points north, and though the restaurant choices have dwindled in recent years, there’s still two quality locations serving authentic dishes and dessert that are worth the drive from Tampa.
Yoder’s Amish Village. 3434 Bahia Vista St., 941-955-7771, yodersrestaurant.com. Picture an Amish superstore and Yoder’s Amish Village will exceed your wildest fever dream. More a town center for the community than a simple place to grab a nosh, the Yoder’s megaplex includes a restaurant, deli, fresh market and gift shop. Locally owned and operated since 1975, Yoder’s has turned up on the Travel Channel’s Man vs. Food and 101 Tastiest Places to Chow Down, but national attention has done nothing to change Yoder’s traditional way of doing things. You could spend a day at Yoder’s, eat three square meals, shop for your week’s groceries, and grab some gifts (dolls, woven baskets, country bric a brac) before heading home fat and happy.
Try this: While the food is uniformly terrific, you have to save room for dessert and one of Mrs. Yoder’s amazing pies. Made with fresh ingredients and known to inspire crazy devotion (while shooting pictures for this story, the photographer overheard a woman in line saying she drives in all the time from Tarpon Springs just for the pies), Yoder’s pies are not to be missed. Yoder’s highlights its Peanut Butter Cream Pie, but throw a fork at the display case and you’ll hit something delicious.
Der Dutchman. 3713 Bahia Vista St., 941-955-8007, www.troyersdutchheritage.com. Sold earlier this year to an Ohio company, Der Dutchman is the new name of the restaurant long known as Troyer’s Dutch Heritage. Despite the new ownership and name, much about the restaurant has remained the same, including the sign out front that still says Troyer’s Dutch Heritage and the menu loaded with hearty soul food. Der Dutchman’s enormous dining room still bustles with patrons making their way to and from the extended salad bar crammed with fresh veggies, and the bakery is still pumping out pies and desserts at an artery-clogging pace (the Amish have some sweet tooth). Der Dutchman also does both breakfast and lunch buffets that will leave you satiated for days, in addition to offering a full menu of classic favorites (liver and onions, “Old-fashioned” Roast Beef) and American dishes for the tourists (the Angus burger).
Try this: A trip to Der Dutchman is incomplete without at least a sampling of the broasted chicken. Yes, that’s broasted with a b, a method of food preparation that combines pressure-cooking and deep-frying. The broasted chicken manages to be juicy and delicious without ever approaching the oiliness of traditional fried chicken. Which is good, since it leaves you a little less full and with more room for dessert.
This article appears in Jun 14-20, 2012.