Wednesday, October 19, 2011

A Trip to Amish Country Part 2

Vintage Postcard
I've already told you about our hijinks getting lost on the way to Lehman's. Well, since we were already on US 30, we decided to make a stop in Orrville before dinner in Wooster.

Orrville, of course, is the home of  Smucker's®, and the company has a nice store and mini-museum there a minute or so off US 30. We mainly go there to pick up some exotic Jif® peanut butter variations (peanut butter is the staff of life in our house).

The Smucker's mini-museum was pretty good. It's interesting seeing all of the brands that Smucker's acquired over the years. Besides Jif®, there's Pillsbury®, Crisco®, Hungry Jack® and Martha White®.
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But what about dinner? Well, our Amish Country jaunt ended with a trip to Coccia House in Wooster for pizza. (Remember when I mentioned it back here?)

Since I was first told about Coccia House from that friendly couple at the Lorain County Fair, I've heard about it a few more times. And with all that word-of-mouth buzz, I felt we just had to go there.

Coccia House was very easy to find, since it was close to Downtown Wooster. The business is located in a quaint old house in a residential neighborhood.

The first thing I noticed is that the large parking lot was packed. Once we got inside, I found out why. It's because nobody was going anywhere soon, whether you were picking up a pizza or waiting for a table like us.

It was a half-hour before we were seated, and another ten minutes before our waitress arrived. After that, it was an hour and fifteen minutes before we got our pizza. By then, I was so disgusted that I'm not sure any pizza was going to impress me. (Plus, I think I used up all my dinnertime conversation topics with the spouse for the next few years.)

So how was the pizza? Well, I hate to say this – but we were disappointed! I guess we've been spoiled with so many great mom-and-pop pizza parlors in Lorain and the surrounding areas, such as Yala'sRosie's, our current favorite Selenti's, and even Stella's in Avon Lake, that nothing was going to measure up.

To be fair to Coccia House, I don't like any pizza with the cheese covering the toppings, which is how they do it. Otherwise, it's not a bad pizza. It had kind of a sweet sauce, a thick crust and generous toppings hidden under that blanket of cheese. But it just wasn't our cup of tea.

But despite my complaints, we were glad we went to Coccia House just for the experience of something new. It's obvious that an awful lot of people love their pizza.

As for me, I'm looking forward to my Selenti's pizza this Friday night.

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So we bid farewell to Amish Country, determined to come back one more time this fall to do all the things we missed. But fate had one last cosmic practical joke in store for us. 
The spouse decided that Dairy Queen would be a good dessert (so much for the whole Amish theme) for our disappointing pizza dinner, and she turned on the GPS unit one more time. The unit took me off my carefully planned route home and all I could do is trust it, since it was already dark and I had no idea where I was.
I followed the GPS directions, all of the turns, etc. and finally heard the unit announce, "You have arrived."
And we found ourselves sitting in a J.D. Byrider used car lot.


4 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's a shame Dan ....it sounds just like the way we make pizza at home, hafta put it on the list. The last time we were in Wooster was for a dinner theater thing ...a great meal and then Gilbert & Sullivan, if that;s your bag.
Dennis

Dan Brady said...

Hi Dennis,

If you plan to go there, I recommend ordering your Coccia House pizza in advance--that's what the local sit-down crowd does!

They also sell them unbaked and half-baked (which describes our trip down there pretty well!)

Anonymous said...

Cheese on top! That is tragic. Makes the roof of my mouth burn at the thought. We dont need no stinkin GPS, where is your Danielle Boone inner self spouse? I despise them more than cheese on top.
rae

Lisa said...

Your Amish Adventure spurred me to check the settings on my GPS. I discovered that if I had only asked it nicely (read: set the damn thing correctly), it would ask me before every trip what route I would like to take. Doesn't mean it's going to do any better of a job getting me where I want to go, but at least now I feel a little smarter than my GPS, all thanks to you!