Despaña, Princeton, NJ

We've been eagerly awaiting the opening of the Princeton outpost of Spanish food market and cafe Despaña.  It's finally opening this Friday June 21.

We were lucky enough to get to the sneak preview event last Friday, along with other locals, New Yorkers come down on the train, and we even met a Spanish couple who had come from as far as Ottawa. The wine was flowing, a trio of Spanish musicians were playing, the weather was beautiful, and they were serving up a huge paella and fideos on their rooftop deck.

Inside, they were carving up a leg of jamon iberico -- we spent some time parked by this station, where we each ate probably at least $50 worth of meat.

 

There was also croquetas, papas bravas, tuna on crostini, cheese, jamon and more... 

Here's a picture of the jamon iberico about halfway through the evening...

We are hoping to get a table for a real meal this Friday - will report more later!

Despaña Princeton
235 A Nassau Street, Princeton, NJ 08540

Mistral, Princeton, NJ

We were around over Memorial Day weekend, the opening weekend of Scott Anderson's (Elements) newest restaurant in downtown Princeton.  Small plates, lower price point than Elements, BYOB and great central location -- what's not to like, right?

The answer (for now, at least) is service. When we walked in we were told that it would be roughly 20 minutes to seat our party of 5 (they only take reservations for parties of 6 or more), but we were shafted when some "friends of Scott" came in behind us.


Over an hour later, we finally sat down. Not sure, but seemed like a couple other parties were in the same boat - there was definitely confusion as to who was getting seated and who wasn't.

The waitress was nice and helpful and recommended getting 2-3 small plates per person, extras of things that everyone wanted to taste.  So we made a checklist on our place mat menus and were excited to finally eat!

No complaints about the food, but there was no sense of "coursing" or paying attention to the pacing. Plate after plate were just shuttled to the table. We'd have to quickly finish off a previous plate in order to make room for the next, and flag someone down to take it away. (I also didn't get why stuff had to plated on such large plates given the concept.)



Here's the rundown of what we had (not all pictured):

Fennel salad -- orange, mizuna, cilantro, olive oil

Kimchi pancake -- housemade kimchi, tamari, scallions

Pork Belly Salad -- chinese chili, scallion, sesame oil

Semolina Gnocchi -- spinach, morels, spring onions, green garlic, parsley, breadcrumbs

Housemade Bucatini -- Lump crabmeat, scallion, chipotle pepper

Hamachi tartare -- lime, honey, curry, papadum

Grilled Calamari -- artichoke barigoule, crispy artichokes

  

Grilled octopus -- “papas bravas”, caper aioli, smoked paprika

Sweetbread Cannelloni -- short rib bordolaise, chard, honshimeji mushroom

Weisswurst sausage -- caraway, mustard, pickled cabbage, marble potato

Lamb Merguez Sausage -- chickpeas fresh and dried, harissa, sheepsmilk cheese, mint

Korean short rib -- soy, ginger, ramp kimchi, shishito pepers

The standouts for me were the short rib (apparently slow-cooked for 48 hours), bucatini (wish there were more), hamachi tartare, and pork belly salad.  The weisswurst and merguez were also delicious.  My least favorite were the calamari and sweetbread canneloni - both just a bit bland.

All in all, it was just the feeling of being rushed through our meal.  Frustrating especially since we waited so long.  Our wait time was longer than our meal time.  Maybe we shouldn't have been so decisive as to order 15 plates all at once, and should have added more to our order halfway through...

 

Desserts came highly recommended, so we ordered one of each.  The Lemon posset with candied citrus and shiso was the favorite - such an interesting flavor and so refreshing yet luscious at the same time.

The other one that surprised us was the innocuously named Chocolates.  The cucumber (melon too perhaps?) sorbet that accompanied it was great! 

 The other two -- Rhubarb cobbler with sorrel and buttermilk and  Hay & vanilla panna cotta with biscuit and asian pear -- were delicious as well, just less surprising.

Let's hope they get it together with the seating and serving.  I have the feeling that going back, we'll try to make sure we get 6 people together and make a reservation. 

Mistral 

66 Witherspoon Street Princeton, NJ 08542

609.688.8808

Brick Farm Market, Hopewell NJ

Mercer County foodies have been eagerly awaiting the opening of the Brick Farm Market in Hopewell, NJ.  They are finally slated to open next Friday, May 17, but they are doing a sneak preview tonight during Hopewell's Cruise Night. We've been lucky to have tasted some of their wares through the past few months, including delicious salumi -- coppa, lardo, sopresatta, whipped lardo (so good melted over toasted baguette!), and a variety of cheeses.  Can't wait to try more goodies tonight!

Brick Farm Market
65 East Broad Street
Hopewell, NJ 08525
(609) 466-6500

Bobby's Burger Palace, Princeton, NJ

Over the summer, our local mall, The Princeton MarketFair, shut down their food court to bring in more sit-down eateries, and we were a little wary of what would come.  That changed when we found out one of the new places would be Bobby Flay's Burger Palace.

There are only 11 of these currently, all in the Mid-Atlantic region. Ours opened in late August, and we've already gone there 3 times.  It's a good mid-price, slower-than-fast-food, faster-than-sit-down kind of place. The decor is tongue-in-cheek retro-chic with long serpentine bar seating and communal tables with faux wood finish.

The menu is pretty simple - 10 varieties of burger topping combos which you can get on Angus beef, ground turkey, or chicken breast;  two types of grilled cheese;  a regular salad, a chopped salad, or a salad with any of the burger varieties on top; fries, sweet potato fries, or onion rings; and 13 flavors of milkshake (include 3 spiked shakes). 

Redneckhunter was happy to see a Black and White milkshake actually listed on the menu.  A lot of times he has to explain to people what goes into black and white -- vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup or hot fudge.  He had to admit that Bobby made a good one.  One of these times I'm going to have order their dark chocolate shake.

So in our various visits, we've tried a few different things.  Well, I have, at least.  Redneckhunter has stuck with the LA Burger -- avocado relish, watercress, cheddar cheese, and tomato.

I've tried that one, as well as the Napa Valley with fresh goat cheese, watercress, and Meyer lemon honey mustard, and the Dallas as a turkey burger, which was spice crusted, with coleslaw, Monterey Jack, BBQ sauce and pickles. 

The beef burgers have always come out a perfect medium rare, the meat flavorful, the buns soft and fresh.  All in all, a mighty tasty burger.

I liked my turkey burger - I think the spicier Dallas was a good combo for it -- though I still don't think it beats my favorite turkey burger, which is from Big Nick's Burger Joint on the Upper West Side. 

The only two things that have just been so-so are the sweet potato fries (we haven't tried the regular fries or onion rings yet) , and Bobby's sauces (a selection of which are left on the table -- jalapeno, chipotle ketchup, a signature burger sauce -- and a honey mustard horseradish for the fries).  Nothing really was better than just plain old ketchup.

George's, Cape May, NJ

On our Cape May girls' weekend, we kept seeing lines waiting outside of George's Place, so we figured it had to be good.  We went for brunch on Sunday morning, and started off with fresh fruit smoothies from the next door juice bar (apparently owned by George's son) while waiting in line.  A brilliant business idea to keep the line happy and make some dough off of them while they wait. You could get them with or without yogurt, and with either fruit puree or fresh fruit lightly sweetened with honey. When our name was called, they were super nice to seat us and let us wait for our friends (who were still checking out our of hotel down the street).

The food was worth the wait - I got french toast topped with limoncello greek yogurt and fresh blueberries -- beautiful and surprisingly light. My friends also really liked their breakfasts.

George's Place
301 Beach Drive 
Cape May, NJ 08204

The Blue Pig Tavern, Cape May, NJ

We recently had a girls' weekend in Cape May, and had a nice time at the historic Congress Hall hotel at the Sea Spa, shopping for jewelry, doing yoga on the beach, and dining at their farm-to-table restaurant The Blue Pig Tavern.  We had seen the place (and taken a picture with someone in a Blue Pig costume) on last summer's trip to Cape May, but hadn't eaten there.

We started off with some house-made guac, ceviche, and baked mac and cheese.  I should have known better than to order ceviche (I am spoiled by good Peruvian ceviche back home.)

My friends ordered the lump crabmeat salad with avocado and mango, fresh pappardelle with bolognese, and P.E.I. mussels.

I got one of the day's appetizer specials as my entree -- scallops served atop an eggplant puree (eggplant being one of that week's major crops from the farm).  It was a nice dish.

The Blue Pig Tavern at Congress Hall
200 Congress Place
Cape May, NJ

Return to the Knife and Fork Inn, Atlantic City, NJ

One thing we like about traveling to Tampa is flying in and out of Atlantic City airport. Nothing normally brings us to A.C. so it's only in transit that we get to eat at the Knife and Fork Inn.  Now 100 years old, the joint was an old haunt of Nucky Thompson, Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope and Vic Damone, and was in a scene in the movie "Atlantic City" with Susan Sarandon and Burt Lancaster. 

We ate in the bar and kept it simple splitting 4 appetizers -- crab and avocado terrine, Jersey tomato and buffalo mozzarella salad, tuna tartare, and kobe sliders topped with au poivre sauce, blue cbeese bechamel, and caramelized onions.

Knife and Fork Inn
3600 Atlantic Ave, Atlantic City, New Jersey 08401
Phone 609-344-1133

El Tule, Lambertville, NJ

Ever since Redneckhunter and I honeymooned in Peru, we've been disappointed with ceviche back home, until we heard rave reviews of El Tule from a friend of ours who had also been to Peru.

When you see El Tule from the street, there's no indication that it's a Peruvian restaurant.  The sign says Mexican Restaurant, with only a hand written chalkboard mentioning Peruvian cuisine.  Indeed they have 2 separate menus.

We were definitely there for Peruvian though, and quickly made them take away the Mexican menu.  We had even stopped at the liquor store to bring a six-pack of the native Cusqueña beer to the BYOB -- which the owner noticed and approved of.

There was a lot on the menu I wanted to try, but we had to make some choices.  So to get the most variety in fish, we opted for the ceviche trilogy and the tiradito trilogy.  Ceviche is marinated raw fish, so the texture gets firmer almost as if it were cooked -- the 3 varieties were Limeño (white fish marinated in lime, red onions, and cilantro), Mixto (with fish, shrimp, octopus, and calamari) - both served with those great big Peruvian corn kernels - both fresh and toasted and sweet potatoes - and Chifa (Chinese-influenced with pickled vegetables, black sesame, and peanuts).  Tiradito, instead, is not marinated -- just raw fish (like sashimi) with a sauce.  The three varieties were

yellow Peruvian pepper sauce, rocoto serrano cream, and Peruvian botija olive sauce. Everything was fresh and flavorful.  Because of our dinner companion we opted for just medium spiciness.  Even the red peppers were not too bad, not like the killer ones in Peru.

Then, so that we wouldn't overdose on fish, we also ordered a steak -- Bistec a lo Pobre, or "Poor man's steak."  We liked how the menu referred to its "beefy goodness" complemented by fried potatoes, fried plantains, fried egg, and rice.

 We were pretty full and thinking about passing on dessert when 3 words were uttered: "tres leches cake."  But since the other desserts sounded tempting too, we also got a flan and rice pudding.  Actually the tres leches was disappointing, so it's good we got the others.  The rice pudding was voted the favorite, followed by the flan, which had a nice caramelized, almost coffee flavor. 

El Tule
49 North Main Street
Lambertville, NJ 08530
(609) 773-0007

The Joe Special

I have been dreaming of an amazing sandwich we had recently at Touch of Italy in Rehoboth Beach over Memorial Day weekend.  The Joe Special was simple, yet perfect -- just prosciutto with fresh ricotta and extra virgin olive oil on semolina bread.  At Touch of Italy, they bake their own bread, and we were lucky enough to get a sandwich on a freshly baked still warm loaf.  It was probably the best thing I've eaten in a long time.

 So when I saw fresh ricotta from Salvatore Bklyn at Beecher's, I grabbed a tub with the idea of making the Joe Special at home.  Salvatore Bklyn makes their ricotta by hand in small batches daily -- the texture is dense and creamy, the flavor is of rich whole milk with a hint of lemon. It's absolutely amazing and I could have probably eaten the whole tub with a spoon. But semolina bread and cured meat was calling.

Instead of prosciutto, we already had smoked bacon at home from Pulaski Meats, the Polish butcher in the Trenton Farmer's Market, and grabbed a loaf of semolina from D'Angelo's Italian Market in Princeton, drizzled it with plenty of olive oil, and went to town with our own version of the Joe Special sandwich.

I also happily devoured ricotta with honey on toasted bread - yum...  I need to get back up to the city to get more ricotta! I'm also excited that Touch of Italy is opening a bakery in Lewes, DE where you'll be able to buy loaves of their delicious bread.  Hopefully they'll be open by the time we make it back down to the beach again later this summer.