The Sub Salad
Start with lettuces that are flush in the markets this month, add the meats and cheeses vital to your favorite Italian sub, and finish with the key element of this peppy salad: a fresh, relish-like pickled peppers mince.
Meating Time
Palmer Quality Meats is a whole-animal butcher in Neptune City that brings new meaning to the term “animal magnetism.” It’s where butchers and chefs perform ballets of break-downs and high-craft condiment-making in service of meats and poultry and, a few days a week, spotlight sandwiches deserving of fine china, Buccellati silverware and candlelight.
The Italian Table
Confusion reigns at a new restaurant that doesn’t seem to be interested in scaling the heights of either authentic regional Italian cuisine or carefully crafted Italian-American cuisine. Indeed, what’s being served is a mishmash of incoherence accentuated by poor kitchen skills.
Mayer’s Tavern
Kicking off a new column that spotlights favorites in the Garden State and will appear occasionally is this destination in Cape May where our own Deep South is mined for its bests – bests that then get absolute-best treatments in a tiny, yet mighty kitchen.
Michael’s Birthday Meatballs
A mix of meats from Haring Family Farm is the base for a special-request dinner that’s fine for four – or can scale up to 40. Time to gather and celebrate.
Dairy Dreams
June is Dairy Month in the Garden State. Even as those who toil on the farms and in the crafts of making dairy products are rightly revered for their skills and contributions, key issues affecting the industry remain unresolved. Will bureaucratic stalemates continue to cloud a sustainable future?
Pardis Persian Grill
Take the time to travel to another mind-set at a stalwart that may offer familiar Middle Eastern staples but also stews, kabobs and starters that have the ring of authenticity and aren’t of the supermarket-stylized variety. Go for ghormehsabzi, not another falafel.
Brady’s Scallops on the Half Shell
The season’s best seafood dish is staring right at you. Simple, and making prime use of New Jersey’s finest, it’s the quick-on, quick-off-the-grill party food you’ll want to reprise.
Old Friends
There are various types of histories behind the foods attaining favorite status during the stretch of eating just past. And good reasoning for each’s elevation to the Top 5.
Hot Lettuce Summer
Lovely leaves of the season deserve more than a nominal toss in dressing. Chef Andre de Waal paves a path for these wavy, curly, crunchy or simply undulating sheaths to have more than a moment as the “It Vegetable.”
Getaways In Bounds
Fill-’er-up isn’t a phrase we much like using these days, with gas prices this month much higher than they were a year ago and likely to fluctuate all summer. For food-thrill seekers, however, relief comes via the fact that there are culinary treasures to be found within the borders of our small, yet endlessly diverse state. In other words: Travel near for adventures far-reaching and save the bucks for the eats.
LBI North End Options
Pit-stopping at Birdy’s, Viking Fresh Off the Hook and Mustache Bill’s yields one clear winner in the daytime eats department. And for a bonus: An ice cream flight, at the island’s center.