Tamar

I see you're in Verona; have you checked out Bonjour Montclair, on Park Street in Watchung Plaza? I love their crepes. They have plenty of savory as well as sweet. This place in Fair Lawn sounds like more of a real restaurant. I look forward to checking it out.

I mostly lurk on this board, but um, hi. Anyway. I live in Montclair and have noticed that Raymond's is packed most nights (and weekend brunch and often weekday lunch during the summer), with a long wait for tables, while other nearby restaurants are readily available and open. How is this relevant to the discussion? It goes back to need. Montclair has some excellent upscale restaurants, also some good ethnic eateries. But families with children who want comfort food and reasonable prices, twentysomethings out for a casual meal, friends getting together for a straightforward but good lunch, they're a set of demographics, a set of needs, that I believe Raymond's meets far better than any other restaurant in the area. It's about filling a niche, but one that's broad enough to make enough people show up on a regular basis. Figuring out what that is in a given area is of course the tricky part.

Yes, Little Saigon is now in Montclair. It's one of my favorite restaurants. I was indifferent to Vietnamese food until I ate there. The Little Saigon 19 Elm Street Montclair, NJ 07042 (973) 783-3914 Hours: Sun-Thurs 11-930, Fri & Sat 11-10:30 It's a fairly short walk from either the Bay Street or Walnut Street stops on the NJ Transit Montclair/Boonton line from Penn Station. They have a sister restaurant (well, I think it's a more loose affiliation -- maybe run by cousins of the owners? something like that) in the East West Plaza in Bloomfield, called Binh Duong. It's also good, though I personally prefer Little Saigon.

Ditto on both fronts. I like the environment, and the owners are sweet, but my meals there ranged from mediocre to inedible, after which I swore off the place. I'm glad to hear the food is great now and I too hope they've switched around the wait staff too because boy were some of them out to lunch! What's the price range? And does it still have a fairly casual (read: kid friendly) atmosphere?

This is just to say thank you to eGulleters for your discussion on Sakura Bana. My husband, son and I ate here for the first time tonight after a lovely bike ride by the Saddle Brook River, and I think we're going to make a tradition of it. The crab shumai was hands down the best I've ever had, like eating really fresh, really crabby crabcakes in a dumpling wrapper. The seaweed salad was nice, not particularly unusual, but exactly what I felt like eating. We had the special dragon roll, with shrimp tempura inside and eel and avocado outside. Very tasty. I love good eel but hate when it's all fat and gristle. This was the good stuff, and the slight tempura crackle inside the roll was a nice complement to the fatty mouthfeel of the exterior. We also had toro, chutoro and hamachi negiri sushi. All outstandingly fresh, all excellent. Especially the chutoro, I thought, which had a suprisingly sweet flavor. My son had a chicken teryaki children's dinner, which he enjoyed, especially the strawberry pocky stick dessert.

Yes, Maggiano's is a chain. I ate at the one at the Grove (an outdoor mall) in Los Angeles a few years ago. Very mediocre and I thought overpriced.

I concur with Casey and Curlz. My son, now eight, has been restauranting since he was a baby. Somewhere in the preschool years we developed a "restaurant bag" stuffed with table-friendly items like wiki sticks, crayons and paper, books of mazes, small toy figures, etc. It was invaluable for the kid fidgets either pre or post- actual eating. He's now largely grown out of the need but often pockets a few of his favorite small toys on his way out the door to the restaurant. We've found a lot of warmth toward kids in Montclair and environs. Nauna's is very kid-friendly. So is Raymond's. So is Bluestone Cafe for lunch. Holsten's too. But really, everywhere. He loves Little Saigon (as do I) (though their service is a bit too slow for an ideal kid place), did fine at Brookdale Thai, likes Tomo's Sushi in Little Falls a lot (sweet sweet waitress there). Senorita's in Bloomfield has a nice kids menu -- Mexican tends to be kid-easy anyway. My son likes the booths at Greek Delights but hasn't been wild about the kid-food choices there. Ah well. My only real criteria for a restaurant when we're with him (which is always): is it too upscale? Otherwise, bring it on!

Can I ask what the fuss is about PF Chang opening in North Jersey? I used to go fairly often when we lived in LA (ie: last year). My 7 year old son liked it. But compared to NYC Chinatown? Or what I hear here about Hunan Cottage, etc? Not in the same league. Mass market Chinese. Pleasant but nothing to get excited about. On the other hand, I love Legal's. When I was in college, I haunted the Cambridge restaurant. Back then it was Boston-only, just a couple of locations, not yet a true chain. Lately, I've eaten at the Palisades Mall location a few times. Enjoyed everything. Excellent seafood.

I haven't sampled many in the area yet (just got here in September). Been to Dai Kichi a few times with friends. I like the food overall but found the sushi just okay. But this past Friday we checked out a place I'd read about in the Maplewood forum. Apparently they just relocated a few months ago from South Orange to Little Falls. It's called Tomo's Cuisine, it's a tiny place with GREAT sushi. The yellowtail and eel were quite good, as was the chicken yakitori appetizer (luscious sauce), but the real standouts for us were the specials we tried: the best toro I've ever had, bar none. Pale, flecked, and incredibly mouth-tender. So, so good. Also a thin-sliced fluke sashimi served with ponzu. Delicate and delicious. My husband flipped over this and he's not normally a sashimi fan. It was so amazing we got two orders. I've been missing the hole-in-the-wall fabulous sushi places of Los Angeles. Americanized Japanese restaurants have their place, certainly, and fusion is good, but this was the real deal and it made me so happy. What didn't make me happy: when we arrived at 6:30 on a Friday, the place was EMPTY. People didn't start coming till we left around 8. The waitress said that people in the area (Little Falls and Wayne, I guess) are kind of suspicious of the Japanese writing on the specials board (they post everything in Japanese and English) and the slightly exotic choices (live shrimp, I think?) and instead choose to go up the block to Sukuroku, a more American-style place. So they're still getting the bulk of their business from Maplewood/South Orange folk who miss the restaurant and make the trek on weekends. If you like sushi and live in the area, I hope you'll give it a try. It should be obvious from my post that I have no affiliation with the place, I simply want to see a high quality sushi place stick around for a long, long time. I don't think I've ever felt personally concerned about a restaurant's survival before! The service was good and the food was great, and I hope they make it, but boy do they need to expand their customer base! Tomo's Cuisine 113 Route 23 (Pompton Ave -- I think it's called Newark Pompton Highway right there) Little Falls, NJ 07424 (973) 837-1117 It's south of the Willowbrook Mall, about a block south of Main Street on the west side of the street. It's a small stand-alone building set back from the street, with a white (I think) sign out front. Parking in back (we didn't discover it till after we'd parked way up the block and walked a long way in the cold). Hours: Lunch: Tu-Fri 12-2:30, Dinner Tu-Th 5-10, Fri & Sat 5-10:30, Sun 5-9. Looking forward to hearing about other good sushi around here. How are Aozora and Nouveau Sushi? I haven't been yet because we nearly always bring our 7 year old son and I wasn't sure if they'd be too upscale for a kid (he's a good restaurant-goer, but still...).

I'm sure you can order sushi, but I have no idea what the proper etiquette is in this situation. I think someone at our table just had sushi and not hibachi, but it was a few months ago now and I can 't remember for sure. If I went back, that's what I'd do, though!

Somewhere along the way (I don't know, I just moved to town) Oyakama changed its name to Daruma. Just so you know. We went for hibachi; my 7 year old son got a kick out of it. I thought the food was overcooked, with WAY too much butter. Chef gave a good show, though.