New Year’s Eve: Dining Out
If you’re ringing in the New Year somewhere out there in the wide world of Garden State restaurants, we offer a Fine 15 for your consideration. Looking for in-depth reports? Each has just that in our RR columns of 2022.
Duck Eggs
There’s an awful lot of yolk in these larger-than-chicken eggs, and they’ll serve to make devilishly good stuffed eggs. Not your basic summer picnic one-biter, either, but a hearty, protein-rich three-bite snack. Take two and call it a meal.
Sunday Gravy
“Mozzarella spiedini” is one of a number of dishes on the menu at this South Shore newcomer where Italian-American classics get a sure-handed lift. Why not? The genre’s bloodlines run through all parts of the Garden State.
Fishing for Ideas
Hosting or contributing to a traditional Feast of Seven Fishes this Christmas Eve? Planning a seafood fest during these holiday weeks or sometime in early 2023? The team at Sweet Amalia’s has a blueprint for success mapped out and ready to inspire.
Hatch 44 Café
Welcome to the exact-right café for today: Andrea Perez’s latest incarnation of her breakfast-brunch-lunch spot in a town with a core of culinary enterprises that is drawing the kinds of diners this energetic entrepreneur had in mind when she wrote her menu and designed her space.
Auld Acquaintances: 12-19-22
And so as the year draws to a close, a fivesome of dishes that may have worn out their welcomes elsewhere rise to new levels. Don’t you love a nice surprise?
Monkfish
If you’re short a fish for a proper Feast of Seven Fishes dinner, think local and think seasonal. Right now is the time for the big, brawny bottom-feeder often dubbed “poor man’s lobster.” Ella experiments and reports.
Q-BA
A restaurant-lounge in the city that’s closing in on its 150th anniversary touts Cuban classics and sometimes puts a spin on the norm to elevate a dish to downright special.
Doughnut Royalty
Hanukkah’s crowning confection takes center stage at Erie Coffeeshop & Bakery in Rutherford, as chef-owner Renee Faris and her team mark the holiday with a special bake of sufganiyot.
Dvaraka
Snack to it! It’s the littler dishes that count for major flavor at a college town South Asian storefront where there’s a short-and-spiced-right lineup of quick bites.
Spinach Quiche
That big steak you’re eating during a celebratory dinner? And that heaping side you couldn’t resist? Take a doggie bag of the unfinished steak and do not leave behind its classic companion of creamed spinach. Sue’s got a plan for the perfect follow-up supper.
Cinnamon Dreams
Keep your pantry stocked with this indispensable spice and use it with purposeful abandon.