A Week at the Jersey Shore

RRR, Mr. RRR and I hit the Jersey Shore for a week of beach time. Our culinary adventure started on Monday evening with a trip to Red's Lobster Pot, a gem of a restaurant located in Point Pleasant.

Red's is a tiny restaurant (although they expanded their outdoor area some time ago to include a waiting area and raw bar seating). If you go to Red's on a weekend night, you can expect to wait for awhile which is why being able to go on a Monday evening was particularly appealing.

We were seated with barely a wait. The most interesting items on Red's menu can be found on the Specials Board. Mr. RRR (making his f-is-for-foodie debut!) ordered the twin lobster tails stuffed with crab meat, RRR had an order of crab cakes and I chose the penne with lobster meat, shrimp, pesto, zucchini and mozzarella. The crab cakes were chock full of crab meat with just enough bread crumbs to bind but not overpower the crab; a mistake many shore establishments tend to make. My pasta was al dente and the flavors were light and fresh - a nice departure from my usual pasta in a spicy tomato sauce with seafood ventures.

Tuesday evening we met up with Dad at his favorite place, Jack Baker's. Since I've already written about Jack's ad nasuem; I won't bore you with the details but suffice to say, a nice time was had by all.

Wednesday evening included a trip up to Pier Village, a sprawling new development of condos and shops on the Long Branch promenade. After surveying the menu options at a few of the restaurants we decided on Sirena, a contemporary Italian restaurant located on the beach. We ate outdoors on a deck overlooking the ocean and there's nothing like having the ocean as your dining soundtrack.

One of the highlights of the Sirena meal was my dayboat sea scallops over corn risotto. The sweetness the corn added to the starchy risotto was a perfect companion to the scallops which charred just the way I like it. I'm sure the great atmosphere and well made cocktails added to the pleasant dining experience but it seems like Salema will only get better with time. I'm really liking this new development and would love to make the rounds to the other restaurants in Pier Village in the near future.

The grand finale of our Jersey shore dining adventure was a trip to Bum Rogers in Seaside Park. Bum Rogers is a panel palace of a restaurant, known for it's garlic crabs and cold beers. The cleaniness of the place might be a bit suspect (the restrooms are nasty) but you can almost always count on a great meal here.

I chose a crab dish with marinara sauce on this visit over linguine. The tomato sauce was surprisingly sweet and the lump crab meat on top of the dish was an extra bonus to the two full crabs that came on top of the pasta. RRR also enjoyed a crab as well as part of her pasta dish which included scallops, broccoli rabe and shrimp in a garlic white wine sauce.

One other meal of note came from RRR. In our "let's clean out the fridge in foodie's apt" venture, we decided to make a "peppers and eggs" sandwich for lunch. What made this sandwich so special was that it also included garlicky broccoli rabe and a Portuguese wheat roll from the Garden of Eden. So simple yet so fantastic!

The Jersey Shore... don't knock it until you try it!