Can anybody recommend a good local non-chain restaurant somewhere in far eastern PA or anywhere in NJ? We’re making a sudden road trip and sometime late morning or midday tomorrow (July 17th) we’ll be passing through that area. I hope we can get a good recommendation by 7AM EDT, that’s when we’re getting on the road and I’ll want to set my route into the GPS navigation then.
It can’t be anyplace that requires reservations or has a formal dress code; we’ll be in casual clothing and not dressing up. Also, it can’t be pizza, Italian, or Mexican, nor anyplace that has seafood, cheese or cheese-stock in the majority of items on the menu.
You can try my town, Montclair NJ, lots of nice places here. All in the same walkable area we have:
Dai Kichi - The most popular Sushi restaurant in town
Turtle and the Wolf - New American Bistro, pricey
Takara Asian Bistro - More Sushi, but across the street
TS MA - Classy Chinese fare
DeNovo European Pub - I think this is some sort of new European Pub
Toros Turkish Cuisine - natch
SLA Thai
Toro Sushi - yet more sushi
Brick Lane Curry - a little down the street and can get crowded, but it’s nice.
Stay away from Uptown 596 Bistro, I had dinner there a month or two ago and it sucked.
Edited to add, sorry about not seeing the “no seafood” request, I guess our plethora of sushi restaurants is a no-go.
If you’re passing near Newtown, PA, I can recommend the State Street Kitchen. The food is good, the prices are reasonable, and you can get things from a great omelette with to-die-for bacon to Bi Bim Bop. They open at 7 a.m.
Certainly not! But I was acquainted with a few. I was a Spotswoodian. Potswood, as it was. Actually now that I am remembering, it WAS the River Rat friends of mine that would go to the Colonial. We tended to go the the Seville.
Thanks for all the recs, everybody. We had to make our choice and set our route between VA and NY by 7am and get on the road then. Our route was pretty flexible.
My passenger with the seafood and cheese allergies recoiled in horror when she checked the menus of some of those early suggestions. We chose State Street Kitchen and really liked it. We just finished here and time to get back on the road.
Meow meow - I wonder if we knew each other way back when. I also grew up in one of the towns right next to East Brunswick and was in high school around the same time you were.
And the Colonial Diner - wow. I haven’t thought of or been to that place in ages,but I remember it well from when I was a kid.
