By: centraljersey.com
There about a dozen tables, comfortably spaced and set with white cloths. The walls are hung with black-and-white photos and gilt-framed mirrors. The restaurant is a family affair, with Manager Rick St. Pierre greeting friends and customers, his mother seated at the bar, and his brother-in-law serving our table. The warm greeting and personable service quickly make diners feel part of the family.
The menu performs the neat trick of being both eclectic and brief, with six soups and salads, including Portobello mushroom soup with white truffle oil and a poached pear salad with bleu d’Auvergne and roasted walnuts. Among the half dozen appetizers – known here as hors d’oeuvres – are duck confit cake; grilled vegetable risotto; and steamed clams with white wine, garlic, herbs and basil butter.
The 10 entrees range from a 16-ounce ribeye steak to pan-roasted duck breast with sweet potato puree and cranberry gastrique to butter-braised shrimp risotto. Servers announce several more nightly specials, which on the night we dined included steamed clams with chorizo and smoked tomato, a signature ingredient that appears in other dishes as well. In late August these choices were supplemented by a special "Crab Fest" menu that highlighted such items as Maryland spiced crab salad, steamed hard shell crabs (not available on the night we dined), king crab legs with garlic butter and specialty drinks that included watermelon punch and sangria.
Gazpacho with crab ($9) was a cool beginning to the meal, deep red with an island of crab at the center, the tomatoes peppery and spicy with a taste reminiscent of ketchup, the crab wonderfully sweet and fresh, its simple but elegant flavor shown off by the gazpacho.
The house salad ($9) was unexceptional but attractive, consisting of crisp red and green mesclun with a light dressing. Thai shrimp dumplings ($12) were served with ginger broth flavored with soy and lemon grass. The taste of the shrimp was overwhelmed (as were the normally distinctive ginger and delicate citrus flavor of the lemon grass) by a strong Asian fish sauce that might be better-suited to a more assertive filling. Wild mushroom raviolis ($14) were superb: buttery and sweet, with an intriguing muskiness from the mushrooms in their al dente pasta envelopes, enriched by a creamy sauce and flakes of parmesan cheese.
Soft shell crabs ($26) were well prepared, sauteed with an eggshell-thin coating of golden breadcrumbs, with the meat moist, tender and sweet. A side dish of seasonal vegetables ($8) included green beans, carrots, and zucchini sauteed in butter, firm and very fresh, especially the beans, which were slender little French-style haricots verts. Entrees were presented attractively on plain white plates.
The soft shell crabs are a seasonal specialty, but crab cakes ($30) are a regular feature of the menu, with a recipe, our server told us, from Mr. St. Pierre’s mother, who hails from Maryland. The two plump, golden-brown crab cakes, which appeared to contain more backfin than lump with no discernible binder, were served atop a generous serving of grilled Jersey corn and chopped tomatoes that proved perfectly complementary. The crab cakes had no crust and a mild taste principally from the seasoning.
King crab legs ($27) were served in the shell on tomato and corn salad. Our server had suggested that the shells would be so soft that the meat could be squeezed out – like eating the smaller legs of lobster. But the shells proved quite hard and had been pre-sliced to allow easy access to the sweet, buttery crabmeat. Eggplant caponata served as the base for a healthy chunk of seared rare tuna ($28), a special for this evening. The tuna was accompanied by grilled asparagus and encircled by a wreath of pesto, so subtle and delightful it accompanied every bite. The delicate but peppery caponata was a good complement that spotlighted the virtues of the rare, seared tuna.