Tasting The Jersey Shore

Amazing. Craig LaBan went on a systematic tasting of Jersey Shore high-end restaurants to find the perfect goods. Apparently, he’s all about Jay’s on Third over in Stone Harbor. Damn this stuff sounds good:


I could taste a glimmer of talent in the promptly served appetizer course, which signaled an appealing Asian-fusion bent. Beautiful scallops came over a creamy chowder sauce rimmed with the orange heat of chile oil. Tender duck confit shreds in an Asian barbecue glaze came mounded into brioche slider rolls with house-pickled pineapple. The “bamboo beef” skewers were a fun Japanese take on satay beef.

But then the glad-handing started, and as Hippen did his endless rounds, the already flustered service fell apart. We couldn’t get bread. We couldn’t get water. And where was the main course? It appeared, after a long wait, with the marks of a harried kitchen.

The red snapper was seared to an unpleasantly tough, fishy chew. The halibut was slightly better, but at $26 seemed awfully lonely in a bowl of miso broth with nothing but three tiny clams beside it, one of them with a broken shell. The well-roasted chicken was a highlight, plump and juicy, with braised oyster mushrooms and good mashed potatoes.

However, LaB said the desserts aren’t that good. But that’s why God invented Rita’s.

Wild Food Days [Inquirer]

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Tasting The Jersey Shore