Blue Gate Restaurant

On a visit to Indiana Amish Country right after Christmas, we decided to head out one night to have a hearty Amish-style dinner. We ended up at the Blue Gate Restaurant, which also has a theater featuring some big name artists. The area was decorated beautifully for the holidays, including a huge tree design just outside the restaurant that appeared to be several stories high. There was a fresh few inches of snow on the ground, which was a welcome site since we'd not seen snow in Chicago in about 9 months. We also discovered as we were heading out there that the annual Ice Festival was going on, which made for a fun time. It was really neat to see all the carving around town and to see some carving in action.

Our meal at Blue Gate started out with some Amish bread - and of course, there was plenty of apple butter on the table.

One of the boys ordered a bowl of chicken noodle soup.

And he got a grilled cheese to go with it.

The rest of us ordered traditional Amish food, like this combination platter that included ham, fried chicken, roast beef, stuffing, mashed potatoes and corn.

While Amish-style cooking doesn't utilize much in the way of spices and tends to be on the bland side, it's definitely a big helping of good old fashioned comfort food. And the servings are usually big enough to fill your tummy so much that there's no room for traditional Amish desserts, like shoo-fly pie. The kids did manage to muster up enough of an appetite for some chocolate pie for dessert.

The restaurant is part of the Reigsecker Marketplace and the neighborhood is filled with quaint little shops.

The Blue Gate Restaurant

175 N. Van Buren St.

Shipshewana, IN

888-447-4725

www.reigsecker.com