Restaurant: Mystic Pizza

This weekend I walked in Julia Robert's shadow. I sat at what might have been her table. I ate what might have been her pizza.

We were driving home from New England in the fifth hour of what should have been the second hour of our weekend road trip. Or as Sis liked to call it, "Only 3 more panels left to fold over on the map!" Dying for a lunch break around 5pm, Sis and I decided to visit Mystic, Connecticut.

We have a rule when we embark on these drives: Don't pull over for a rest-stop unless you can see it from the road. That golden nugget prevents us from getting lost. It also prevents Sis from peeing once we hit Interstate 95.

But we crossed our fingers when we saw the exit sign for Mystic. With a gleam in our eye and a rumble in our stomach, we decided to risk it. Luckily, we found the town quickly. (Well, there was one moment when Sis screamed at me for not turning left at the light, and I screamed back that it was an entrance to a Home Depot parking lot.)

What we saw of Mystic was: One street. And on that street were lots of tourists, lots of little quaint stores, lots of sailboat and seashell figurines adorning charm bracelets, and absolutely nothing of virtue to buy for our mother who, "doesn't like cute things".

We made reservations at Mystic Pizza, home of the movie staring the aforementioned sweetheart, home of the Slice of Heaven. I didn't see any sisters in the back fighting over married men versus classes at Yale, but the place was packed nonetheless. Clearly Mama has passed on her recipe.

We ordered a small pizza with spinach and mushrooms. I couldn't really see the spinach on the pie when it arrived, but I think that's because it was already engulfed by the cheese. Now that's how you make a pizza! It was cheesy and hot and I have to tell you, it was delicious. It was just as good as the fake review in the fake restaurant regarding the fake pizza said it was. We loved it, for real.

That put us back in a good mood, and an hour later we confidently returned to Interstate 95 to continue our trip. And I can assure you, there were absolutely no driving mishaps or wrong turns that happened after that.

Oh no, dear me, none at all.