I’m finally catching up on posting photos that have been sitting on my desktop forever. I just posted 3 albums that were taken at 3 jersey shore towns. The three albums contain photos from Wildwood, Sea Isle City Fall Festival and Ocean City.
The Station House, named for it’s location on Station Avenue near the railroad tracks, serves breakfast and lunch. In the past, the decor seemed a little dark and cluttered, but when I returned recently, I found the new decor much lighter and airier. I would describe it as casual and welcoming. It definitely has a local small town neighborhood feel to it. Drinks are served in Ball jars.
Their breakfast menu consists of all the standards you’d expect… eggs, omelets, pancakes, waffles, etc. Their list of omelets includes a nice variety. They also have specials. I was there on the Fourth of July weekend and they had several patriotically named specials such as the Independence Egg Casserole that was delicious. It was an egg over hash brown potatoes with bacon and cheese.
I’ve never tried their lunch, but the menu includes salads, sandwiches, burgers, wraps… everything you’d expect.
Their convenient location near other small shops and stores (plus the Haddon Heights Farmers Market on Sundays during Spring Summer and Fall) plus the friendly service make this a worthwhile stop.
The Country Crock is located inside the Stoltzfus Amish Farmer’s Market which means it’s only open Thursday morning through Saturday afternoon. When you think of a Mennonite or Amish) restaurant, the first thing that comes to mind is plain and simple. Eating here feels less like sitting in a restaurant and more like being in someone’s kitchen eating homemade food. Plastic plates, vinyl table cloths and walls adorned with photos of the owners and their family set the stage for comfort food prepared and presented simply.
Even though food is nothing fancy, it’s delicious and clearly prepared by hand with care. Their BBQ pork sandwich is delicious as is their meatloaf sandwich. (This is the only place where I’ve ever even considered ordering a meatloaf sandwich!) Their corn fritters are one of my favorites and if you ask the server, they’ll let you substitute them for the fries that would normally come with a sandwich.
I don’t often order dessert when I eat out, but The Country Crock’s desserts, which vary week to week, are always tempting. Sometimes it will be a traditional Pennsylvania Dutch dessert like cracker pudding. I’d never had cracker pudding before, but it was good. It tasted somewhat similar to rice pudding. Other times it’s something more “English” like Boston cream pie. Their Boston cream pie was one of the best I’ve ever had. I’m hoping to be around one day when they have shoo-fly pie!
Another nice touch is that they conveniently have a calendar on every table that tell you what specials are coming up in the weeks to come so you can plan your visits.
Update: This restaurant has changed hands and is now called the Village Grille. I’ve been there once and it is NOT what it used to be. None of the food appeared to be homemade. You can read my review of the new place here.
Looking at the good side first, the atmosphere and decor of this restaurant is fun. It’s an old train station and they’ve embraced their history not only in the name of the place but with the decor as well. The theme of the restaurant combines train memorabilia with a New Orleans theme. Personally, I immediately noticed the Community Coffee sign on the wall, one of my favorite coffee companies. The train theme is cool because who doesn’t like trains. One of the waiters was making sure the little boy at the table by the window was seated facing the right way to see the train when it passed by on the still active tracks.
The food, however, wasn’t so great. We tried the bengiets and they weren’t bad. You don’t see them much around here so i dobt have much experiencw for conparison. However, our meal was disappointing. I ordered an omelet and it was quite overcooked. It was dry and mostly brown on the outside. The “railroad potatoes” were unfortunately also overcooked and bland.
While I wanted to like this place because of the cool concept, I don’t think I’ll be back.
I’m a sucker for Greek food. Finding a really authentic Greek restaurant in South Jersey is tough. (not counting Greek diners that have some great Greek items but not a full Greek menu) I don’t know how I never tried Kuzina by Sofia In Cherry Hill before now. The food was as authentic as it gets. It was hard not to order more than we could possibly eat in one sitting because everything on the five page menu sounded so good. We finally settled on the spanakopitakia and saghanaki appetizers which were both delicious. The Greek style steak and moussaka were both fantastic and were accompanied by potatoes roasted in lemon, olive oil garlic and herbs.
We didn’t intend to have dessert, but is there a person alive who can resist baklava? Theirs wasn’t the very best I’ve had, but it was still quite good. We also had an almond roll that was even better than the baclava. (I wish I could remember the name of it, but I’m terrible with Greek names!) and a cup of Greek coffee. As we ate our dessert, we were already planning our next visit to Kuzina!
The Pub is far and away my favorite restaurant. It’s unique in every way. It’s beena round since long before I was born (since 1950). It’s survived burning to the ground and once going out of business. Through all of that nothing much has changed at all. One of the first unique things about The Pub is the HUGE dining room. The slightly medeival themed room seats over 500 people at a time yet it’s still quiet. I’ve never heard anything above a low murmur and there is always plenty of room to move around as you go to one of the two salad bars.
Speaking of the salad bars, they are fantastic. They include blocks of cheese from which you can cut off slices, various kinds of cake breads (in case the delicious crusty bread on your table isn’t enough for you) fruit, applesauce, along with a wide variety of salads and salad ingredients. However, I usually skip past most of this stuff and head right to the giant bowl of Caesar salad and pile my plate high. The Pub’s Caesar salad is one of the best I’ve had. The always fresh salad is made especially delicious by the plentiful anchovies scattered throughout.
The focal point of the dining room is the row of six coal fired ovens where chefs in big white hats turn out fantastic steaks. The pub has a fair number of entees ranging from seafood to chicken, to all sorts of steaks. I, however, typically stick to the best filet mignon I’ve had at any restaurant. It’s served wth massive onion rings and a potato. I recommend the twice baked stuffed potato. I also recomend taht you ask for some of their browned onions to go with your steak. They’re free, but you have to ask for them. In another unique touch, your steak will arrive at your table on a cart to be taken from a heated tray and plated right at the table.
If you want something a little more unique, try my father’s favorite, the capetbagger. It’s a filet spread with crabmeat and hollandaise sauce.
The only negative is the location. Although, it’s certainly never stopped me from going. The Pub is located at the maze of an intersection that used to be Airport Circle.It might take you a few tries to get in the correct lane. Of course, this should be no problem for a practiced New Jersey driver.
Most people might think the summer is the best time to go down the shore. I much prefer to go in the fall or winter. The crowds are smaller; the weather is so much nicer and much less smog. I just added some photos from Atlantic City that turned out great because it was such a clear day.Check them out right here.
If you’ve never heard of Batsto, it’s an historic village in New Jersey. It’s an old 18th/19th century bog iron and glass industrial center. I’ve been there many times through the years and took some photos on a recent trip.
Check them out here.
I just posted some of the photos I took last weekend at the Fire and Ice Festival in Mount Holly, NJ. This chili cook-off and ice carving competition was a fun a unique event. I got there after the chili cook-off was over, but I did make it to the carving portion and the dog sled demonstration.
Check out the photos here.
I just arranged the Photos section of the website. I tried to better organize it by breaking my photo collection up by years.
At the same time, I also added quite a few new photos. The Winterthur album contains photos from my recent trip with Beth to Yuletide at Winterthur. The Hofbrauhaus album is from my grandfather’s 85th birthday celebration. There are also photos from the Adventure Aquarium in Camden, NJ as well as a ton of photos taken during a business trip to Hampton Roads.
Enjoy!