TRAVEL
Within the last month I have traveled to St. Paul, MN; Columbus, OH; and Charleston, SC. The best food was in Charleston. I was on business trips, that is one accreditation site visit and two conferences. Shrimp and Grits are heaven.

NEWER RESTAURANTS IN PRINCETON
In the past few months we have become fond of the Calico Grill, behind Cox's Market on Nassau and Camillio's Grill at the Princeton Shopping Center. Calico has become a preferred breakfast spot with slightly Mexican flair to the breakfast entrees. Camillio's is the most authentic Italian food in Princeton. More on both later.

Calico Grill is affiliated with Cox's Market. We have tried their breakfasts and lunches and like the breakfasts better. We have tried the breakfast burritos, quesadillas, and stir-fry. We like them all. They are slightly spicy because of the chorizo. They are also impeccably fresh. Calico serves Small World coffee and we like their version better than the coffee at our other breakfast spots.

Camillio's is in the Princeton Shopping Center on Harrison Street. We have tried lunch and Sunday dinner. The food has been fresh and the chef accomodates special needs such as food allergies. Great pastas and fish. We will need to re-visit because my memory of the food specifics is fading [after several months] other than it provided great pleasure.

Road Trip through some of the American South

Over the Christmas holidays, we traveled through Kentucky, Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virgina. Over the nest few days/weeks, I will describe some of the restaurants we visited on the trip. I will probably focus on Berea KY, Fairfield Glade TN, Greenville & Aiken SC, Charlotte NC, and Blacksburg & Charlottesville VA. We didn't do much food investigation before the trip so most of our experiences are kind of hap hazard.

New Brunswick & Lawrenceville

Try the Piquant Bread Bar and Grill on George Street in New Brunswick. We have ate there several times over the past year. We love the food. The ambience is modern and stylish. The quality of the food is excellent. We think that this is one of our best finds ever. It seems to have become more Indian [in terms of American expectations] this winter. The breads are fabulous, but so are the appetizers and entrees. If you like Indian, but want something that you don't find at the Palace or in the strip malls, there is a different food and ambiance. Some of the dishes may have the same names, but the flavors are often more complex and tasty.

One nicer February day we had lunch at Cheeburger, Cheeburger in Lawrenceville. We both had a great cheeseburger, very good french fies, and excellent battered onion rings. On another visit I had one of their malted milk shakes. All of the food was full flavored and cooked exactly as we ordered. The calories must have been horrific, but it tasted good. As an occasional splurge into nostalgia it would be wonderful. I hesitate to think what eating there regularly might do to an already ample body. The nostalgia is not just from the food, but the ambiance evokes the diner/soda fountain of the 50s. We liked it. We will be back, but not often. They do make salads and if you restrain yourself they might carry a lower calorie load. It is part of a franchised chain, but the burgers are vastly better than the king's or mickey d's. My major criticism is that they don't have any child portions. Thats ok with a couple dinks like us, but the serving sizes seemed to overwhelm the kids we saw. Sometimes parents split one portion between two kids.

Princeton Food and Kitchen Supplies

Groceries

Wegmans: A great grocery store in many ways, but you will want to avoid the congested parking lot at times. Sunday afternoon and the day[s] before holidays are just terrible. It's not just the parking lot either. Inside the store can actually be worse. The variety and the quality is good. The pharmacy is one of the better ones in the area. Prepared food is usually good, but tends to have more problems for us than Whole Foods. My partner has a strong migraine response to Monosodium Glutamate. While Wegman's prepared food chefs don't add MSG, they do use stocks that contain it. They have been known to add autolyzed yeast and hydrolized vegetable protein which can also cause migraine response. They both are reputed to metabolize into MSG. They both trigger migraines in some people. None of this alters the fact that much of the prepared food is very tasty. Wegman's opened a couple of years after we moved to the Princeton area after living in Cherry Hill for years. At that time, we thought it was the only store nearby where we could buy oven roasted vegetables, other than at the late lamented Zagara's in in our former haunts in south Jersey. We had failed to discover Bon Appetite, even though we occasionally shopped at MacCaffrey's in the Princeton Shopping Center.


Whole Foods
This Austin based chain has better tasting coffee at their Espresso kiosk than does Wegman's. My partner can eat more of the prepared foods than she can those at Wegman's, although she avoids their soups. The stocks don't use MSG, but one sometimes finds autolyzed yeast and hydrolyzed vegetable protein in soup [but in fewer of their other prepared foods]. We like their pizza better. They have a great salad bar. They have a remarkably wide variety of fresh produce, with many organic items available. They often seem more expensive, but on an item by item comparison that has not always proven to be true. Their house brands are of exceptional quality and represent good value. They don't have a pharmacy. Their emphasis on dietary supplements and natural products might even be antithetical to a pharmacy. The fish market has the best crab cakes I have ever found in a grocery store. They have lump crabmeat cakes, but the ones we go ga-ga over are made with dungeness crab. Bring them home, lightly sautee them and you will have a treat. Possibly because of their Austin home base, they have a distinct flair for southwestern foods, including a good array of specialized ingredients, both fresh and canned.

Whole Earth
I first shopped at the Whole Earth store in the 1970s. The ethos is admirable and I should shop there more frequently. For us, it is simply not a convenient location. I will say more later, but for now I must simply say that in an era of greater competition for their niche, they have kept pace better than I would have guessed 30 years ago.


Update, February 29, 2008
After reading Barbara Kingsolver's forceful advocacy of eating local foods, we have shopped here more frequently this month. We know that their food is not as local as we would like, but we see shopping here as an attempt to shop locally. We are also exploring the year round Trenton Farmers' Market.

Wild Oats
At the north edge of the Princeton district, Wild Oats is a smaller version of Whole Foods. We liked it when it opened. We still do, but Whole Foods is the same company and it is closer to us. If we are coming home south on Nassau, we will stop to shop for what we need. We like the selection, the natural food, cosmetics, etc. The prepared food is often very good. It is a vast improvement over the grocery that preceded them in the location.

Desire for a Trader Joe store

We love many of the products that TJ sells, as well as the prices. We most frequently shop at the one in Camden County, but we are hoping one will open in Princeton and sell wine. More to come.

Bon Appetite
At the Princeton Shopping Center, Bon Appetite has scrumptious prepared food, cheeses, deli, and baked goods. The variety of chocolate, jams & jellies, oils, and other "gourmet" items gives you choices different from those you would find at MacCaffreys, Wegmans, and Whole Fields.

Bakeries
Witherspoon Bread Company is primarily a bread bakery associated with the Momo restaurants [includes Teresa's, Mediterra, NovaTerra, and others]. The bread is varied, tastes wonderful, and fresh. Get some.

Farm Markets
Trention Farm Market: We visit this market because it's next to Halo Farms who have premium ice cream at bargain prices. Given that, the market is the best source of freshly harvested fruits and vegetables in the area. Shop around among the different vendors. Often the first stall you visit will not have the best of any particular produce. The market has other vendors. You will find italian and other ethnic "groceries," bakeries, delis, and home baked pies, among many other items worth considering.

Update February 29, 2008
We have been looking at the Market this winter as a source of local foods. This February, there are local butchers and farmers [with local potatoes, sweet potatoes, and yams] as well as other local merchants.

Kitchen Equipment

Kitchen Kapers and Williams & Sonoma are the two primary gadget stores. One is in downtown Princeton; the other is at Market Fair. KK has the larger selection, but is crowded and seems disorganized compared to W & S [which often costs more but sometimes provides better quality and almost always better service].

Traveling

We enjoy traveling in the US and Europe. If we would just do it, we would enjoy other locations as well. Not being especially willing to spend time on detailed planning of our itinerary, we tried a tour to Spain over 20 years ago. It wasn't great. Not long after that tour we discovered a guide called Europe through the Back Door by Rick Steves. We liked what he wrote and did a couple of trips using his itineraries. We became aware of Rick's guided tours, but didn't get around to booking one until about 6 years ago. We went to Ireland, then Scandanavia, then northern Italy, and last southern France. While no tour is the ideal means to explore a place, we have found the Rick Steves Tours to be a reasonable compromise.

Our most extraordinary meal on any of these trips was in Orvieto, Italia at L'Asino d'Oro [which was translated for us as the Golden Donkey]. The tour group ate there one night in Summer 2004. We had a multi course meal composed of:

Fava bean bruschetta with pecorino
Lardo on chestnut polenta
Red bell pepper coulis on chick pea puree
Red bell pepper salad with capers
Chicken, pinenut, raisin, and red bell pepper salad
Sausage and grapes in a wine sauce
Pecorino cheese and wine jelly
Caramelized onions
Pork cheek [baffo]
Beef and red peppers
Panzanella [bread salad]
Cannellini bean soup with rosemary
Eggplant and chocolate
Ravioli with turkey and lamb in a wine sauce
Bread and vegetable lasagna
Cocolate, chili, and rosemary
Goat milk pudding

And lots of wine.

Pawley's Island, SC & Vicinity
In the US, our most frequent destination has been Pawley's Island, South Carolina. In May and June 2006, we made our most recent visit there. During that visit we ate at Frank's Outback, the Rice Paddy [in Georgetown], Roz's Rice Mill Cafe, Orobosa's Low Country Cafe, Louis' Fish Camp, the Tuscany Bistro, Nibil's [Surfside], the Litchfield Restaurant and in Murrel's Inlet at Creek Ratz, Drunken Jack's, and the Hot Fish Club. We also bought take out meals at Perrone's Market and the Krazy Krab. In many ways the standout meals were at Orobosa's although the old reliables [the Rice Paddy, Frank's and Roz's] were excellent.

We ate twice at the Tuscany Bistro. The first time we had a seafood sauce over ricotta filled ravioli that was superb. The second visit resulted in good food, but it was the stand-out ravioli from the first visit that we remember. We asked for a red gravy with the seafood. It was spicy and rich with fresh basil The ravioli were tender and simply filled with very fresh tasting ricotta. The simplicity was delightful. The dish was a result of my partner's allegies. The chef created a variation on a regular item that made it deliciously edible for her. If you like Italian and are in coastal Carolina, the chef can create a great meal for you. Tell him what you want.

Orobosa's saw us three times. Each time we had fish or seafood, including grouper, shrimp and crab cakes, and salmon. The fish and seafood were fresh, moist, flavorful, and usually served with a small salad and a starch. The portions are smaller at lunch and you get a small piece of cornbread. The larger dinner portions come with a tasty bread. Both at lunch and dinner the entree had a flavorful herb infused sauce. We had an absolutely delectable 17 layer caramel cake for dessert. On another occasion we had a rich pecan pie. June 15, 2006.

Plainsboro

Tre Piani
First course
Chorizo [I would label it Spanish Style] with wild mushrooms in a slightly sweet tomato sauce. The sausage had a pleasant chewy texture and a nicely hot smoked flavor. Crab and Avocado salad was a large mound of crab blended with mashed avocado. The crab had a nice initial flavor, but the crab flavor was quickly lost to the dominant avocado. I do not mean that there was too little crab, just that its subtle flavor was overshadowed by the avocado. The crab avocado mound was served atop beautiful red tomato slices that had a refrigerated mushy texture and little flavor. This salad was served with a tarragon dressing.

Second course
We also had a penne with a tomato basil sauce. The sauce made with good flavorful tomatoes and had lots of fresh basil cooked in it, but was bland and characterless. The sauce did have a nice full bodied texture. The penne was pleasantly al dente, but it had a floury taste that I do not associate with great pasta. A bistro steak was wonderful. Ordered medium rare, it was cooked perfectly. The presentation was very attractive. It was sliced, showing perfect color. The slices lapped one another forming a crescent shape [over a generous serviing of wild mushrooms] and around a cylindrically shaped serving of excellent mashed postatoes. On top of the sliced steak was butter blended with fresh herbs. The thyme was especially flavorful. I would have preferred the butter to taste less salty. I don't know if the salty flavor was from the use of salted butter or was from the seasoning on the steak. This one quibble would not prevent me from ordering this delightful steak another time or dozen.

Dessert course
For dessert we shared a hot chocolate cake with chocolate gelato in a chocolate cup. The cake seemed to be made of a fresh phyllo style dough wrapped around chocolate and baked. The chocolate was molten, when you broke into the cake and multiple chocolates at different temperatures with the resultant different textures was a new experience.

Beverages
We drank bottled water with gas and each had a glass of pinot noir. It was too late for us to drink coffee, but it would have been a great accompaniment to the dessert.

Update Summer 2007
We had two dishes we loved, a lobster blt and a crisp spaghetti.

Princeton

The Carousel is our favorite spot for breakfast in Princeton. We are particularly fond of their omelettes. Their western omelette is made with fresh peppers, onions, ham, mushrooms, and cheese. These ingredients are not in the egg mixture. The omelette is simply a plain egg omelette, with the sauteed fillings in the fold. Their homefries are french fried chunks of potato. Typically we like other forms of homefries better, but these are very good. The coffees, whether american style or espresso, based are not especially good. We like the friendly staff and enjoy the food. For a couple of months our home kitchen was inoperable and we really enjoyed breaksfast at the Carousel. We still go there a couple of Saturdays a month.

Main Street at the Princeton Shopping Center is a pleasant cafe whose menu changes monthly. New items often feature seasonal foods. The fish items on any month's menu are usually very good. The presentation of dishes is attractive. Service seems highly variable. Many of the wait staff don't seem to know much about the food or be especially service oriented. There appears to be a high turnover among them.

We recently had dinner at Le Plumet Royale for the first time. The menu seemed to have international influences, but the food was prepared in the french style. It was very good, but very rich and expensive. The waiter was attentive, answered questions cheerfully, arrange ingredient substitutions when allergies and other food sensitivities were a problem. It is at the Peacock Inn and there is valet parking.

We love the Taste of Mexico at the Princeton Shopping Center. It seems to offer food in the Oaxacan style, but never having visited that Mexican city, I can't be sure. The salad on the plates features cabbage. The beans and rice don't seem all that different from tex-mex, but the food is tasty, the guacomole is fantastic, and the mole sauce dark, faintly bittersweet, and rich. The tamales are wonderful. I see why they are known as a food for celebrations. There are a fair number of specialities that you won't find at the run of the mill mexican restaurant. Shrimp in garlic and pozole are just examples.

We also like Tortuga's Village much better than Chevvy's or On the Border, both out on US 1. Tortuga's has specialties that transcend what I find at tex mex chains. I particularly like their chipotle flavored dishes, chicken and shrimp. In catering to US tastes, they over-do the cheese like many Mexican restaurants here, but the flavors are more complex than at many places. The beans and rice are typical.

The look of Karen's Chinese Restaurant is a little dingy, but we love two of their vegetarian dishes, green beans and eggplant with garlic sauce. It's a friendly place in the heart of Princeton and their food seems reliable and tasty, but we haven't tried a large range of menu items.

Teresa's offers very good fish, chicken, pasta, and pizza. It is often difficult to get a table without a long wait. We tend to go when the University is not in session. We like both lunch and dinner specials. Their bread is from the Witherspoon Bread Company. The pizza is thin and crispy. One makes a satisfactory appetizer for two or three people. A single pizza will also work as an entree, but you are missing some really good pasta that way.

We enjoy the food at Ferry House. The staff is bit stuffy. They do know the menu and the food and are helpful, answering questions knowledgeably. The emphasis on presentation on the plate is overblown. Sometimes it seems like everything is a tower of stacked food. This effect can be visually interesting, but it can make eating the food less enjoyable. The Ferry House does fish very well. the vegetables are never over-done and are always tasty. Their desserts taste wonderful.

Masala Grill and Kalluri Corner are two other Princeton restaurants worth a visit. They both prepare food characteristic of the Indian Sub Continent, but I believe that Kalluri is actually Pakistani.

We tried Masala before we became regular customers at Palace of Asia in Lawrence. We had liked it in it's more eclectic former persona, Twist Rojo. When they became Masala we were unfamiliar with a lot of Indian food. We knew we liked Naan, but were novices. Somehow we made our way to Palace and became very fond of the cuisine. Since then, when we return to Masala, we like the food, but not as much as at Palace or Vasanta Bhavan. Their Naan we still find excellent. The food is always well spiced and tasty, but I think we miss Twist Rojo. The service is often not the best. The occupants at some tables are ignored. The wait staff can be erratic at refilling water glasses. Some of the staff seem to dislike college-age customers, especially when the group is all female and not Asian. A recent visit in June 2006 found me more satisfied with the food. The sauces and spicing is more richly complex than at many Indian restaurants. It may be that as our palates gain experience with Indian food, we have become more discerning.

Kalluri offers a buffet on Sunday and Tuesday evenings. But, there are just some Sunday evenings when that buffet seems the right choice. In good weather, you can eat outside the upstair dining room. We like the spicy character of the food. Tandoori Chicken and their tomato soup are both stand outs. Their carrot pudding is one of the best desserts at any similar restaurant. We will revisit and describe more completely.

Restaurants in and near Princeton with which we have experience

Princeton
Main Street
Carousel
Ferry House
Teresa's
Mediterra
Le Plumet Royale
Zorba's Too
Kalluri Corner
Taste of Mexico/Sabor de Mexico
Tortuga's Village
Karen's Chinese Restaurant
Blue Point Grill
Masala Grill
Tre Piani

West Windsor/Princeton Junction
Big Fish
Macaroni Grill
Sunny Gardens
Charlie Brown's
Quizno's
Chevvy's

Hightstown
Americana Diner
City Streets Cafe
Basil's Legends

Cranbury
Hannah and Mason's
Cranbury Inn

Lambertville, Stockton, Frenchtown, & Rosemont
Full Moon
Lily's on the Canal
The Inn at the Hawke
The Cafe at Rosemont

Lawrence
Palace of Asia
Vasanta Bhavan
Passage to India
Simply Radishing

Lawrenceville
Acacia
Fedora's
Vidalia's
Lawrenceville Inn

Hamilton
Rats

Somerville
Martino's Cuban Restaurant
Origin

Montgomery
The Tiger's Tale

The Delaware River

Frenchtown:

Cocina del Sol
This little basement restaurant is unlike most Mexican restaurants in central Jersey. The flavors are bolder, but not necessarily spicier. We recently ate dinner there. It was crowded, noisy, and slightly hot. We ordered an avocado/watercress salad, beef sopes, cheese enchiladas with a red sauce, and acapulco enchiladas [shrimp and crab]. The watercress salad was a little overdressed. The sope was delicious. Sopes are small hand made corn tortillas with the edge crimped up to form a saucer or tart like shape. In this instance, it was filled with black beans and shredded beef with some garnish [lettuce, tomato, sour cream, and cotija cheese]. We agreed that this was the best dish of the evening. The cheese enchiladas were not quite headted through, a disappointment. The salsa roja was tomato based rather than chile based, a very different taste that I liked, but my partner did not. The acapulco enchiladas had a buttery, cheesey, jalapeno flavor that I liked, but my partner found less palatable. We were both struck by how different the flavors were from some of our other favorite mexican restaurants, like Sabor de Mexico in Princeton. If you are tired of the over-cheesed chain fare of places like Chevvy's, Chi-Chi's, and On the Border, you may find the different flavors of Cocina del Sol a welcome change. August 7, 2006

Lambertville:

Full Moon
When we frequently camped years ago at Bull's Island, breakfast at Full Moon was a treat. We always liked their mexican breakfasts and their variations on eggs benedict. Rumor has it that the food has declined. We haven't tried them in years, so we don't know.

Lily's on the Canal
Not memorable; Indifferent: More to come.

Church Street Bistro.
We liked this restaurnant on one visit a few years ago, but haven't been back.

Inn of the Hawke
We had a very pleasant lunch in this restaurant's courtyard. It was a warm bright sunny March Saturday. The courtyard is paved with slate flagstone. There are large shade trees in each corner. The tables were glass top bistro style with green painted "wrought iron" tables.. There were a few animal sculptures in the garden edges of the courtyard. We found the courtyard to be a peaceful oasis in a Lambertville absolutely bustling with day visitors to the galleries and antique shops. Although there were several tables occupied while we were there, it was not crowded and there was a lot of space between the tables.

We shared an appetizer of lemon baked scallops. There was a lot of scallop character. They were served on a bed of baby greens and were accompanied by a tasty spicy remoulade. The mustard in it was stone ground. The greens were topped with slice tomatoes that were not entirely ripe. The scallops would have been better served without the tomatoes. We prefer seared or grilled scallops to baked, but these were good and had a vivid lemon flavor provided by zest.

My partner ordered a grilled salmon salad. The salad greens were dressed with a tarragon vinagrette without much tarragon. The greens were varied and were accompanied by canned mandarin oranges, onions, pitted greek olives, and tomato wedges [that weren't worth eating]. The salmon was nicely grilled, slightly rare. My partner would have preferred another 30 to 90 seconds on the grill.

I got a pulled pork sandwich on a kaiser roll. The pork had cheddar cheese on it, as described by the menu. That addition had made me curious, but I don't believe it added an iota of interest to a decent basic pulled pork with a slightly sweet barbecue sauce. The kaiser roll could have been a lot crustier and less cottony, but the flavor was reasonable. The sandwich was accompanied by a nice crips lettuce leaf [not iceberg] and a wedge of sour pickle that I liked a lot. The sandwich was served with fresh homemade potato chips. When they came they were warm and crisp. By the end of the sandwich some of the chips became soggy, but some were still crisp. They were nicely salty.

We shared a brownie topped with butter pecan ice cream. The brownie was lighter, less denser than today's typical brownie. Chewy enough that I wouldn't call it cake like. The chocolate character and the walnut pieces made this a successful brownie, if not an exceptional one. The butter pecan ice cream was a nice sidelight, but the flavor added little. The creaminess was nice on the tongue and balanced the texture of the brownie.

The food was good, but the best part of the meal was the courtyard. We would definitely go back for tea or coffee and a good afternoon sweet.

Rosemont
One of our favorite restaurants in New Jersey is the Cafe at Rosemont. Located in a small New Jersey town near the Delaware river and Lambertville, The Cafe is in a historic general store, built in the 1800s. They use fresh, in season and local, ingredients. The delightful desserts change frequently and are freshly made at the Cafe.

We love weekend breakfasts at this place. They always have great specials as well as the regular menu. Their breakfast potatoes [described accurately as potatoes from heaven -- grilled with olive oil, rosemary, garlic, onion, and a touch of cayenne] are the best I have had. We like their breakfast burrito - made with softly scrambled eggs and monterey jack cheese rolled in two flour tortillas with sour scream and fresh salsa. Their omelets are wonderful, made with seasonal ingredients. The black bean chili is a spicy vegetarian treat. On their weekday menu, we are fond of Ruth's Addiction - grilled chicken breast with monterey jack cheese, salsa and sour cream in a flour tortilla. Their breakfast bread basket [a homemade muffin or scone, a croissant and a slice of the day's bread, served with sweet butter, jam or marmalade] is wonderful, freshly baked and varied. They make a fabulous butterscotch pudding [not always available].

The antique shelving, tables, china, and "silver" are eclectically old fashioned. The old wood floors, varied chairs, china, flatware, vintage salt and pepper shakers, cream pitchers, sugar bowls and vases will charm those who don't find it chaotic.

There is continuing art exhibit that is new every few weeks. The works can be purchased. The Cafe also retains it's general store character with a few exceptional organic groceries, teas and jams. The staff is warm and friendly, as well as knowledgeable.

Wednesday dinner at the Cafe always represents a specific national cuisine. Based on the cuisines with which weI have first hand experience, the menus are authentic and the food is fresh, well prepared, and always a tasty learning experience. It is an extraordinary value, typically $22 for a wonderful three course meal.

Somerville

The Origin French Thai Restaurant at 25 Division Street Somerville N.J., 08876 Tel: 908.685.1344 Fax: 908.685.1610 is a reasonable drive from Princeton.

It has a reputation for preparing better tasting food than the other Thai restaurants in central New Jersey. We went for lunch, arriving just as they opened. Three groups entered just at that time. Within minutes, one dining room was very active with customers. Service was friendly and competent, but a little overwhelmed by the quick rush. No mistakes were made, there were just more customers than they could begin service for quickly.

The dining room on the entrance, where we were seated, was very attractive with a tin ceiling and some exposed brick. The place settings were nicely composed and used stylish dishes.

We ordered thai mussels as an appetizer, beef and asian vegetables with a coconut milk based red curry, and Pad Khing shrimp with mushroom, snow peas, and onion ginger sauce. The luncheon entrees came with soup or salad and were served with white rice and a thin spring roll. The soup was a cream of mushroon soup with yellowish cast, perhaps saffron or tumeric. We weren't sure. My partner liked it very much. I was less enthusiastic and stuck to the spring salad with a balsamic vinagrette. I liked the beef curry very much. My partner was less enthusiastic. There was a parallel response to the Pad Khing, although we both thought that the shrimp were well prepared. We examined the dessert menu. The selections seemed pleasant enough, but we decided to postpone trying anything until another visit.

Martino's Cuban Restaurant on Main Street in Somerville offers a menu of inexpensive food of high quality. We enjoyed lunch there. The restaurant has two cream walled and small dining rooms with rustic timber accents painted red. There were also some brown plank shelves, with Cuban geegaws displayed on them. The tables and chairs are black. At the back of the dining room on the main entrance is a wall full of framed reviews extolling Martino's. In our dining room there was a television tuned to ESPN. The tv sound was muted, but music was playing in the background.

The two of us each had a small cup of hearty black bean soup. The soup was thick, rather mild, with lots of black bean flavor. It was topped with chopped fresh onion. I added some hot sauce, which enhanced a very good basic soup. We then shared two empanadas. The crust was an extraordinary crisp corn meal, with lots of corn character. The crust was beautifully crimped. The filling was finely minced pork and potato, nicely seasoned. The empanadas were cut in half and served with a spicey dipping sauce that was sweet and had some heat and a slight cumin flavor. We loved these. We both ordered cuban sandwiches of ham, roast pork, swiss cheese, and pickle. These pressed toasted sandwiches were on particularly good bread and came hot and crisp. The toasting created a hot, crispy, sandwich that we both enjoyed. We followed this very filling lunch with a shared tres leche cake. This was tasty but the least successful item that we selected. It was a vanilla flavored sheet cake soaked with the traditional three milks and topped with whipped cream. We enjoyed it but we have had better ones. The whole lunch for two cost under $23, before the tip. We only drank water. We will return for dinner sometime soon. It was a great lunch.

We will return.

Hamilton

We recently had dinner for the first time at Rats [on The Grounds for Sculpture]. We occasionally go to Rats for brunch. We have always enjoyed it and we intended to try their dinner, but just never suceeded. We tended to try for reservations at the last minute on busy days. This time we tried for the day after St. Valentine's day.

We had seared escalope of foie gras with pain d’epices with winter fruit chutney and pomegranate as well as escargot and wild mushroom pot pie as appetizers; roulade of organic salmon and horseradish with smoked Portobello hash & tuscan black cabbage and with an herbed hollandaise as well as wok braised cod with lobster potstickers, braised daikon, yu choy, mushroom caramel and yuzu glaze for our entrees; chocolate rum terrine with fried chocolate pasta and hot chocolate ice cream, and a french kiss [chocolate meringue filled with chocolate mousse and raspberry mousse] for dessert. We began with a glass of champagne [Perrier Jouёt, Grand Brut] and had a Volnay, "Caillerets," 1er Cru, Bouley, 2000 with dinner. As we waited for our appetisers, we received an amuse bouche consisting of chicken liver pate on a toast. We also received wonderful popovers and breads [a raisin fennel and a sourdough] throughout the meal. After desser, we received an assortment of 4 delightful chocolate truffles.

Lawrenceville

The village of Lawrenceville is an island of good food.

Fedora's [2633 Main Street, Lawrenceville NJ 08648, Ph: 609-895-0844] concept is getting stale, but we still like their luncheon salads. They often feature excellent omelettes for brunch. They have a good hamburger. It is an extremely popular place and is sometimes difficult to get into. Their popularity apparently has resulted in little desire to improve or to re-freshen the restaurant. The desserts are sinfully rich [this is usually a good thing] and sometimes a little cold, when a warmer temperature would improve the taste. They have decent cappachino, but not excellent. For all of this curmudgeonry, we still go there, especially for the hamburgers and the luncheon salads and sandwiches. I think we consider it good value for the money.

Acacia is expensive and has been excellent in the past. 2637 Main Street - Lawrenceville, NJ 08648. Phone: 609.895.9885 Fax: 609.895.9874 It offers beautifully set tables with a good and informed staff and excellent food. The menu and the food are creative. It describes itself as featuring progressive american cuisine. We used to it better than Ferry House in Princeton, but Princeton is more convenient for us. We recently ate there [July 2006]. We were not nearly as impressed as on former visits. The food did not have the impeccably fresh taste that we once associated with Acacia. The Ferry House in Princeton is now the better choice for a fine dinner out. August 7, 2006.

We liked the food at Vidalia but have not been back. We will return. It's cute and a little cramped, but the food was really good.

The Lawrenceville Inn is a blur in my mind, as I write this. I liked the old house where it is located. I have very positive impressions of the food we were served, but don't remember anything specific. The staff was friendly and helpful.

Lawrence

The vegetarian Vasanta Bhavan is absolutely my favorite Indian restaurant in the area, although Palace of Asia is a close second. When we want meat, Palace is the choice. Vasanta, however, is just extraordinary. Their food is fresh, tasty, and we enjoy almost everything we have tried. The desserts are an acquired taste, too sweet for me. They make delicious dosas of many varieties. The curries are wonderful. The samosas are the best I have ever had. We especially like the Panir curries like Panir Shahi, Panir Tikka Masala, and Palak Panir.

The staff is always friendly. The primary service shortcoming is the uncertainty of the sequence in which various dishes are served. You may order pakoras, a dosa, and a couple of curries. You can never be certain what item will be served first or whether all might come out virtually simultaneously. None-the-less I like the service. Everyone is cheerful. They like the food. They can usually be very informative about the ingredients and preparation. Although, when there is new staff, they may start without much of a clue about the menu items.

In the evening, Vasanta Bhavan offers discounts based on the Princeton Packet discount card. The lunch service is a great buffet.

On a Friday evening in mid March [2006], we and two vegetarian neighbors ate once more at Vasanta. We ordered Medu Vada, Samosas, Special Rava Dosa, Paneer Burji, Channa Palak, Kashmiri Naan, and Kulcha stuffed with fenugreek. Instead of the Special Rava Doas and the Paneer Burji [curry], we received a plain Rava Dosa [missing the spicy potato stuffing] and a Paneer Burji Dosa instead of the curry. We had a new waiter. As usual at Vasanta, the waiter was very pleasant, cheerful, and trying mightily hard. So we didn't ask for replacements. Both mistakes were minor, in terms of basic flavor. We enjoyed them, but this is the aspect of service that is somewhat less than professional. The food, however, was as always wonderfully fresh and tasty.

The Palace of Asia is the restaurant that originally taught us to love Indian food. It is our non-vegetarian Indian restaurant of choice. The service is friendly and usually very efficient. It is a pretty space although a bit overdesigned. Palace strives to be a palace. We like the panir curries almost as much as those at Vasanta, but Palace's edge is meat, especially chicken. The chicken is moist, tender, and flavorful. We particularly like the Malai Kebab. The vegetable curries do not seem to us to be as freshly made as at Vasanta Bhavan. The breads are excellent, but not as diverse as at Vasanta.

We don't eat at Passage to India nearly as frequently as we do at Vasanta and Palace, but their food is excellent. Like Palace they serve well prepared meats. Their array of curries and roti are somewhat different than Palace's. The recipies for some items are substantially different. The Panir Tikka Masala is more complex than it is at either Palace or Vasanta, not better, not worse, just more complex. I not sure why we prefer Palace, perhaps just loyalty and habit. The food is very, very good.

Cranbury

Several years ago, when we lived in South Jersey, we wanted to move to Cranbury. We love the village character of this beautiful town. So we continue to visit and on occasion we will eat in one of the restaurants. Our most recent visit was to Hannah and Mason's. This restaurant has a Culinary Institute of America chef/owner. The menu sounded interesting. The place was attractive. We were disappointed with the service and food.

Hightstown, Allentown

Basil's Legends at the Days Inn on NJ 33 has a scrumptions eggplant parmesan that they call stuffed eggplant. It is available as an appetizer or an entree. The entree comes with salad and pasta. The serving of eggplant seems identical in size and both appetiser and entree have wonderful tomato/basil flavor. What makes it special to me, is that the tomato sauce has an extraordinary complex herb filled rich flavor. The sauce is on the sweet side, but doesn't seem sugary. I attribute the sweetness to the quality of the tomatoes, but I am not sure. I do like the the combination of the sweet and savory.

In late April we decided to go once again for the Stuffed Eggplant. We were initially disappointed to find that Basil's regular menu was tempoarily displaced by a special prix fixe menu. It was Greek Cuisine Week. It was very enjoyable, although an enourmous quantity of food. Include were mageiritsa soup [Easter Sunday soup]; a cold appetizer platter composed of Dolmadakia [rice stuffed grape leaves], Revithosalata [chick-pea dip], Melitzanosalata [eggplant dip], Kafteri [a spread of feta with red spicy pepper], Tzatziki [cucumber, garlic, & yoghurt dip], and served with pita toasted on the grill; a hot appetizer platter composed of Kotopoulo Me Amygdala [chicken breast with almonds in feta sauce], Garides Skaras Me Dendrolivano [grilled shrimp on rosemary skewers], Kalamari Gemisto Me Elies Ke Feta [stuffed calamari with olives and feta]; Salata Horiatiki [salad of tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, peppers, olives, and feta]; the entrees were a choice of Paidakia Ala Polita [char grilled lamb chops with artichokes, peas carrots and roasted oven potatoes] or Gourounaki Me Manitaria Mavrodaphne Me Patates Fournou [grilled loin of pork with mushroom "mavrodaphne wine sauce roasted oven potatoes, and artichokes, peas, and carrots]; an a choice of two desserts, honey yoghurt souffle or Galaktoboureko [described as a custard in a phyllo dough -- it had a honey cinnamon sauce and the custard was dense, almost like a cheese cake texture]. The two of us ordered a different entree and dessert. We shared. The dinner was delicious. Some of the flavorings were new to us -- at least not common experiences for us. Dill and lemon seemed to be used frequently. We wondered why we had never mated shrimp and rosemary. Not being fans of lamb, we were amazed by how much we loved the chops. The only disappointment was that the pork loin was a little overcooked for our taste, but most would not consider it to be. Even the pork had a wonderful flavor because of the seasonings and the good mushrooms. The touch of lemon on the oven roasted potatoes was a tasty surprise. You may correctly guess that we are not very familiar with greek cuisine. My partner shared the desserts, despite normally avoiding cinnamon [cause her headaches], but it was so lightly applied that no problems resulted. We had a bottle of Coppola Claret with the meal rather than the Greek Moschofilero with rowsewater and petals. The Claret complimented the lamb and pork nicely.

We used to frequent the Americana Diner for Sunday breakfast. We liked their eggs and their rye toast. Over the last two years, the Americana Sunday breakfast rush has seemed busier than the Turnpike at 5:00 pm on a weekday. If you can take the crowds, try the BTO omelette if the ingredients appeal at all.

We like the water ice and "gelatos" at Rita's Water Ice in Hightstown among many other locations.

Black Forest Inn
Pork shanks with sauerkraut, Beef Goulash with buttered noodles, sides of cole slaw and mashed potatoes, Cherry Chocolate Torte. Good bread with cinnamon butter, but plain butter also was served.

The Inn is in an old mill building on a stream that cuts through Allentown. The building is charming, but needs some maintenance.

The food was plain but good. The sauerkraut was rinsed and thus allowed the pork flavor to assert itself in the dish. The goulash was a good beef stew, flavored with paprika. The noodles had no special flavor, but were nicely buttery. The cole slaw was served with a clear sweet and sour dressing rather than a mayonaisse base. The potatoes were pureed and buttered. The torte was sweet and moist, with a pronounced chocolate and cherry flavor. The Black Forest Inn has good tasty comfort food that is vaguely eastern european with an emphasis on german style cooking. I suspect that german-american is the appropriate label. I liked a couple of the hungarian restaurants in New Brunswick in the 1970s much better. I am looking forward to trying the Blue Danube in Trenton.

West Windsor/Princeton Junction

Sunny Gardens has the reputation of being one of the best chinese restaurants in New Jersey. We like the food as well as the modern look of the restaurant. The food is very well prepared. The staff is hospitable to requests not to include msg in the food and will warn you when msg can't be avoided, as in pre-made stocks for some soups.

One take-out foray on Saturday night yields a few observations. Saturday night is a busy time for the restaurant. The parking lot was completely full and the restaurant lobby was crowded with people waiting for tables, some reserved, some not. Their take out service was prompt and courteous. During a hiatus in the cashier's work, they permitted me to pay prior to the food's delivery. As the credit card transaction was completed, the food came.

Our food included Steamed Shrimp Sao Mai, Mango Beef in Tamarind Sauce, and Stuffed Egglant. The steamed shrimp were a sort of a dumpling, shaped like a crumpled paper bag. The shrimp were fresh and had a slight crunch to the bite. I liked them enormously, but my partner, a shrimp lover, was less enthralled. We both adored the stuffed eggplant [stuffed with shrimp]. My partner, without knowing the name of the dish, described the mango beef as sweet, fruity, and crunchy. The mango was sliced and cooked. Atop the beef was an uncooked julienne that may have included mango and jicama. The tamarind sauce was not distinctive to us. The mango flavor predominated. The eggplant was a small slice butterflied and stuffed with shrimp that had a defined texture to the bite The dish was covered in a light garlic sauce. We ate at home and drank Gewurtztraminer with dinner. The spicy character of the wine went well with the seafood and the spicy sauce on the beef.

They have also been very accomodating about take out orders while we were without a kitchen. When I walk in the door they know who I am and they remember that I need both a plate and utensils for my order.

Another recent trip [April 2006] to Sunny Gardens had us ordering Steamed Mussels with Lemongrass as an appetizer, Eggplant Stuffed with shrimp in mild garlic sauce, a south asian Beef Curry, brown rice, and tea. My partner who normally loves mussels and lemnongrass, did not like these. I did. She just did not like the mussels, but the seasonings were ok. As usual we loved the stuffed eggplant. The Beef Curry was new. It was a tasty spicey stew, seasoned differently than any curry we had had before. We will need to taste it again to comprehend the flavorings.

Big Fish, Chili's, Chevvy's, Macaroni Grill, & On-the-Border are chain restaurants, with highly variable food quality and service quality. More-to-come.