By: centraljersey.com
Inside, the lights are low, with flickering candles on each table. Modern, high-style lamps with coral shades cast a warm glow across the white table covers in its four compact dining areas. Our dining area, with white distressed wood floors, was centered on a fireplace. Murmuring conversations seldom rise above the incessant techno beat on the sound system.
Despite the tight quarters in two of the dining areas, the personable service is effortlessly polished, the creative menu is attuned to the changing seasons, and the food lives up to the expectations aroused by the restaurant’s name. Each table seems to enjoy a zone of privacy making Tastebuds a fine spot for a quiet dinner date.
The menu is brief, with four appetizers, four salads, and eight entrees. The autumn menu, posted in late September, was delayed so that it could include seafood choices that are best when they come from colder water: wild barramundi with a crust ancho chili, baked cod with spicy-sweet chili sauce, as well as sesame crusted mahi mahi with ginger-brown butter. On the summer menu, from which we had made our selections, the description of each dish highlighted a particularly tempting element: fresh ginger in the steamed New Zealand cockles, blackberries in the salad of heirloom tomatoes, a lemon-crumb crust on the red snapper, and chive pistou with the chicken breast.
The fall menu reflects the same culinary style but makes adjustments appropriate to the change of seasons. Now the chicken breast is herb-roasted and served with glazed carrots and soy butter. The shellfish appetizer is now American mussels (better, we were told, when the water gets cold), not cockles from New Zealand. Gone is the Berkshire pork chop with chipotle barbecue glaze and sweet onions, but in its place is a roasted lamb chop served with whipped potatoes and root vegetable-horseradish broth. The gnocchi, accompanied in summer by cherry tomatoes, spinach and Parmesan sauce, now arrive with acorn squash, escarole, and Parmigianino reggiano in a mushroom broth. One summer item was a favorite of our server, but this salad incorporating white peaches and glazed wasabi was removed even before the menu change – the peaches, alas, had gone the way of the long summer evenings. All of this bespeaks the concern here for the quality of raw materials.