Ciao Poke & Mango Mango
Fast-casual gets a couple more entries, these both at the uber-busy Festival Plaza in Edison anchored by Hmart. One’s got its pluses; the other’s a lot of noise.
Tasty Moment
Decidedly superior soup dumplings and quite a bit more headline the menu at an expansive and chronically crowded Chinese spot in the eye of a storm of eateries in a plaza anchored by Hmart.
Peas Please in Pesto
Morphing spring’s first peas into pesto shows just how creamy this common vegetable can become after a whirl in a food processor with the right companions. Though its parts may be humble, the result is anything but.
Destination Mexican
If you’re celebrating Cinco de Mayo, go not where the vapid guac is flowing, but where highly skilled chefs do for their food what Mother Nature did to make Playa del Carmen.
Finnbar
The setting’s been brushed up and the menu’s gone fully day-by-day seasonal. A landmark has been reborn, and now needs to dig a little deeper into its sourcing and fine-tune its preparations to better suit place and time.
Free-wheeling Range
A soda and a gravy, a burrito and a love child of a cross-cultural rice dish. Throw in a groovy green and you’ve got quite the spectrum of top eats of past two weeks.
A Fabulous Four
Benchmark’s country loaf, Chickadee Creek’s arugula rabe, Valley Shepherd’s smoky butter and a tin of anchovies (of all things): Can this be supper? Yes. And many other meals coming your way.
David Viana, Lita
The newest inductee into TPW’s elite chef-picks-chef society of top toques in the Garden State first garnered acclaim from diners and his peers for his innovative and technically precise plates. Powered today by a commitment to consistency and person-to-person connections, David Viana is far from finished when it comes to innovating. At his newest restaurant, Lita in Aberdeen, he’s serving up riffs on family recipes as well as a fresh perspective on hospitality.
Pachamama
Chef Ricardo Ramirez has a firm handle on a handful of Peruvian classics he prepares with respect for tradition and a nod to spirited innovation. Not all is as it needs to be at this newcomer, but what’s done right deserves attention.
Lucille’s Country Cooking
There is nothing about this barn-red roadhouse of a breakfast-lunch joint that isn’t peachy keen. Y’all ought to come back and visit her again sometime. Soon.
Smadar’s ‘Beets in the Limelight’
A sturdy, reliable root vegetable gets a star turn with an unexpected and exhilarating accent. It’s a how-to developed by one of the faithful at the CSG at Genesis Farm.
Christo’s Wake and Steak
You don’t have to be sitting squarely in Philly to feel as though you’re in the middle of the Cheesesteak Universe. At a newcomer to a Garden State suburb with a burgeoning restaurant scene, hyper-care with details makes the traditions of a regional sandwich taste brand new.