El Pacifico
With a voice unlike any other in the Garden State, Eduardo Espinoza fashions a seafood-centric menu that reimagines standards and reinvigorates the outmoded. Whatever the emerging chef cooks will keep you glued to your table in this modest, unaffected space.
Around the World, in Two Weeks: 09-25-23
No matter where you are in the Garden State, there's a veritable U.N. of exceptional foods. The fortnight just past proves that true.
Beans with Custard
Top of the new season to you! And, speaking of tops, how about a creamy-cheesy blanket for your pot o’ beans?
Cardinal
Quirks of choice keep a newcomer piloted by an old chef hand from hitting consistent heights. Adam assesses a teeter-tottering experience in Monopoly City.
Bloom
Concepts are smart and primary ingredients properly handled at a BYOB storefront where Korean accents and influences permeate French classics.
Apples Another Way
It’s prime time for a favorite fruit – and high time to take a road perhaps less traveled in its use.
‘Blessed Little Fishes’
Tinned fishes are easy to take for granted. They’re also easy to take advantage of when dinner-in-a-minute is the order of the day.
Amasi
Jordanian specialties take the lead at a new Middle Eastern restaurant in western Warren County. Once you’ve been awakened to the considerable charms of mansaf, mutabal and magluba, there’s no turning back.
Paratha, Cooked to Order
At the Holland Delta Mart, sitting astride its companion gas pumps in the far west of Hunterdon County, South Asian flatbreads are flipped off a hot griddle into the custody of fortunate passers-by. As well as those who know enough to make a special trip.
Fat Choy
It’s a mishmash of cultures, of times and of places. It should be fun. But this refugee from the other side of the Hudson is plagued by cooking lapses that shortchange its concept.
Only a Trio: 09-11-23
It’s not been the best of eating times, these last 14 days. Bad luck? Tired kitchens? End-of-summer slump? Hard to say. But nothing will be elevated as a “favorite” unless it truly is. So for this stretch, we’re talking about a Top 3.
Everyday Figs
Don’t turn down an offer of this seasonal fruit, but do expand the scope of how you can make best use of them.