This Isn't the Food Court at the Mall...

Osteria Jersey

400 NJ Route 38

Moorestown, NJ 08057

osteriajersey.com/home/ 

We had a great meal here a few Saturdays ago. We had to stay in jersey to watch my family's dog for the night, so we decided to head over and invited one of friends to go with us. I really wanted to check it because I love the original in Philly, and I had heard that a lot of the original dishes from the Philly location that have since been removed, now resided on the menu at Osteria Jersey. We made a reservation for 3, but wound up choosing to sit at the bar near the kitchen instead.

The bar program is fantastic. Fran is awesome at the bar, check him out if you can. He really knows his stuff. He knew great things to pair with all of our courses as far as beer, wine and cocktails went. It was some really good stuff.

We ordered the speck, gorganzola dulce and fig pizza to start and it was the bomb. It quite possibly may have been the best thing we ate all night. Awesome crust, incredible meshing of toppings; sweet, earthy and salty. Next up we had the cotechino or winter sausage over polenta and a fried egg. Wow. Another stunner. So rich and homey, I loved the cinnamon and nutmeg spiced sausage. Osteria offers up some of the best polenta I have ever tasted. The texture and cheesiness is simply phenomenal. 

I tried a little bit of everyone's dishes which included the veal ragu paccheri, squash tortelli, pheasant lasagnetta, chicken liver rigatoni and suckling pig. I loved almost all of these dishes. The two I had problems with were the paccheri and the chicken liver rigatoni. I love paccheri, but these particular tubes were too think and pretty tough. For fresh pasta, they were definitely undercooked and there was not nearly enough ragu to pair with the amount of pasta that was served. My problem with the chicken liver rigatoni dish is that it was not the same as you would get at Osteria Philly and it was nowhere close to the same quality. The sauce didn’t coat the pasta here as well as it does in Philly. If you are going to offer the same dish at both locations, they had better be executed the same way. That being said, everything else was fantastic. The pheasant lasagnetta was rich and warm, some pretty awesome Italian comfort food. This is not your typical lasagna with red sauce and ricotta, but rather a much more complex and interesting dish. The squash tortelli while sweet, was not overly so, and the tender squash filled pasta was delicious. The suckling pig dish was amazing. The crispy pork skin was absurdly crunchy and the different kinds of pig prepared on the plate were all amazingly flavorful. The slow roasting process over the spit really made the fat melt and juicified the pork fantastically.

Dessert was no slouch either. The rhubarb panna cotta and pistachio and chocolate gelato were on point. The panna cotta was perfectly jiggly, creamy and enhanced beautifully by the sweet and tart rhubarb reduction. The gelato here changes all the time, and the flavors are always phenomenal. The pistachio may be the best I have had anywhere. The ice cream is creamy beyond your wildest dreams and the texture is beyond comparison. Wow! 

Three and a half pints for Osteria Jersey. We had an outstanding meal with great service, which is exactly what the area needed. We have been back once since, but again to sit at the bar. I have heard from others that there can be problems with the service in the dining room. While I have not had the opportunity to experience that myself, I would still highly recommend sitting at the bar. The Vetri family of restaurants is full of jewels, and this is the first foray into the Jersey realm. With a few tweaks it could really shine brightest in the area. Check it out and let me know what you think! Cheers!

I Dare You Not to Love This Place...

Vedge

1221 Locust Street

Philadelphia, PA 19107

www.vedgerestaurant.com/ 

I could not have been more impressed with our first visit to Vedge. Years ago, I wouldnt have dreamed of eating vegan food, but I was extremely excited to get to try this place, and it lived up to the hype. Rich Landau and his wife Kate Jacoby are knocking out some seriously tasty eats. When people tell you about this place, they usually say you dont miss the meat, and they are right. The flavors are so bold and the techniques are so spot on, that the vegetables eat like a meal at any other restaurant would. Walking into the restaurant, I assumed it would be small based on the look from the outside, but it's huge inside. 

From the moment we arrived, our service was stellar. Our bartender hooked me up with a happy hour drink special even after it ended, and our waitress was very knowledgeable about the food and extremely pleasant. She recommended several things and helped us know how much food to order. We ordered a share plate for the table of olives, shisito peppers, and celery root pickles, the white root pate and the portabella carpaccio, grilled seitan from the hot grill and wood grilled okra and mushroom fazzoletti from the dirt list.

I loved the olives and celery root pickles, but wasnt crazy about the peppers. I wish they had a bit of heat to them, but thats just me being me. The celery root pickles might have been the best pickled vegetable I have ever tasted. Thoroughly acidic, with a slight touch of heat at the tail end. Amazing. The white root pate was very interesting. Smearing it on the bread crisps provided with a small amount of the citrus and gingerbread crumbs made for a throughly complete dish. Tons of flavor and texture. Outstanding. The portabella carpaccio was nice, but it was a little underwhelming. It was seasoned nicely and a great idea, but I thought it fell kind of flat. 

We thought the okra was impeccably prepared. Okra is so often misprepared leaving it slimy and very unappetizing, but this okra was nothing like that. The char it received from the grill gave it fantastic flavor. The lentils were cooked perfectly and the banana peppers served with the dish provided quite a wallop of heat. It was a fantastic dish that was very well balanced. The mushroom fazzoletti was very tasty as well. It could have been served as a pasta dish in many Italian restaurants in Philly without anyone noticing it was mushrooms.

The standout dishes of the night were the grilled seitan and the sticky toffee pudding. The grilled seitan ate like meat and had more flavor than I thought it would. We loved the combination of the za'atar and tahini underneath. I could have eaten that sauce on anything. The final taste of the evening, the sticky toffee pudding, was absolutely stellar. The brown sugar date cake was extremely moist and sweet without being overpowering. The ice cream was fantastic and I loved the smoked pecans on top. The smokiness really brought another element to the dish.

Four pints for Vedge. You will love this place. I dont care if you are a meat and potatoes kind of person. This restaurant will knock your socks off if you just give it a chance. Go in with an open mind and I promise it will be one of the most incredibly different experiences of your life. Cheers!

Pies of All Sizes...

Santucci’s

901 South 10th Street

Philadelphia, PA 19147

santuccispizza.com/ 

My fiancé has to work on Saturdays, so one day while she was working and I was home, I decided to go for a walk and grabbed a personal pizza to go with from Santucci's on 10th and Christian. I love square pies, so I wanted to check it out for myself. I walked over on a beautiful day and ordered a personal pie with long hots and sausage. It was ready in about 10 minutes and I walked it back home.

When I got it home, it was still warm, which is always a plus in the takeout pizza realm. I really enjoyed the pizza. Their style of pizza is a little bit different in that they put the sauce on top of the cheese and toppings Nice and crisp crust, not too heavy. The crust is really the standout star. In a world where thin crust is what people expect, I date them not to like the thick crust here. I was able to eat the pizza with ease and not feel sick to my stomach afterwards, which is a lot more than I can say about most places. I loved the cheese to sauce ratio and even loved that the sauce was on top of the cheese. The additions of sausage and long hots simply kicked it up to another level for me.

Three and half pints for Santuccis. I thoroughly enjoyed the pizza in all aspects of it. The crust was great, delicate but a perfect amount of crunch and chew. The sauce and cheese were a perfect pairing, and the sausage and long hot combo was pretty spot on. I would go back in a heartbeat. It is definitely worth a trip to check out the pizza, and if the other items on the menu are half as good as the pizza was, I would devour them as well. It was really tasty. Cheers!

Fishy no More...

Route 6

600 North Broad Street 

Philadelphia, PA 19130

www.route6restaurant.com/ 

My fiance and I headed to Route 6 on a Friday evening since it was Lent and we needed a place that had some fish or vegetarian options. We had noticed Route 6 a few times on our ventures up North Broad before, but had never stopped in to dine there. 

The place was jam packed when we got there. The bar was especially full, which I am assuming was because of happy hour. The entire restaurant was full too, which I usually take as a positive sign. We were seated a bit after our reservation time, but we got a great table for four even though there were only two of us and settled in. The place is enormous! I couldnt believe how big it was. I guess that is part of the draw of putting a restaurant up in that area instead of downtown. 

We decided pretty quickly what we wanted, some beers of course, and then the crab bombs, the lobster roll, and the shrimp scampi. The oyster crackers were a  bit different than I have had at other  places, but they were awesome. They had more crunch factor to them than the chewiness that other oyster crackers do, but it was a welcome change. I just wish they didnt skimp on the horseradish. I would have eaten a ton more of it if they hadnt. 

Overall we thought the food was a really solid effort. The crab bombs were very crispy and full of crab filling. They were enhanced by the delicious cocktail sauce they were served with. The lobster roll while it tasted good, was very small for the price, so I was pretty disappointed with it. The fries it was served with were great, perfectly crunchy and seasoned nicely. The best part was honestly the shrimp scampi. I wasnt really into the idea of ordering it, but my fiance wanted it, so we did. The shrimp were huge, but still very tender. The sauce was packed with flavor. It was buttery and rich and garlicky. I wish I had a whole loaf of bread to sop it up with. We ordered sunchokes and asparagus with the shrimp scampi, both delightful sides to accompany the shrimp.

Our dessert course was the banana cake with hazelnut ice cream. There really was nothing too exciting with this dessert though. It was ok, but the cake was dry and there wasnt a ton of banana flavor to it. I loved the caramelized bananas served with it though. They provided awesome bits of texture and flavor. Our waiter forgot to bring me my espresso, and then promptly removed it from the bill when I pointed that out, but he brought me one over anyway. Classy move sir!

Three pints for Route 6. All in all, it was a really good place to grab some seafood, although I found it a bit pricey. Maybe that had something to do with its closing recently. Unfortunately, you wont be able to try this one for yourself. Cheers!