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For fellow cheapskates, gift certificates for Alice's Restaurant are available on Restaurant.com. http://www.restaurant.com/microsite.asp?rid=371093&mcn=00074662 For those unfamiliar, you can buy a $25 gift cert (really a coupon) for $10 on restaurant.com. And with some googling it's usually easy to find a promo code that drops it from $10 to $5 or so.

My sister had her wedding reception there 7 years ago. I remember that it was a very pretty old building with a lot of character. There was a room to the right of the entrance for the cocktail reception and then a larger banquet hall type room for the dinner and dancing. There were nice little "bedroom" type rooms upstairs which was nice for the bridal party. I thought it was a great place and I know my sister was really pleased with the reception. Unfortunately I don't really recall anything about the food, except that it was a wild free-for-all when they brought out the self-serve shrimp cocktail. But I think that says more about the guests. The location is nothing special-- right at a major intersection. So there's no gardens or anything outside.

Raul's Empanadas deserves to be mentioned in case other people are looking for non-business lunch recommendations. But the dining area is about what you'd expect for a fast food restaurant so it probably wouldn't be good for a business lunch.

Penang Malaysian & Thai in East Hanover is a great value. Our usual two dishes plus appetizer comes to about $30 total + tip. Basically Applebees prices. It's BYOB which always helps. It is a family restaurant, so don't expect a romantic atmosphere.

We went last night (a Tuesday) after reading your post. We showed up at 6 and were the only people there until about 6:30, when it suddenly became packed. This was our first time at Next Door; we've been to Blu a few times. The Restaurant Week menu last night was: 1) Small simple salad or pasta fagioli 2) Meatloaf, tilapia with ginger sauce, or spaghetti bolognese 3) rice pudding with poached pears or caramel panna cotta I had the simple salad, tilapia, and rice pudding. My wife had the pasta fagioli, meatloaf, and rice pudding. We really enjoyed it. The rice pudding was the highlight. 3 courses was plenty-- we were stuffed. The portions are bigger than at Blu. A great bargain at $40 for two people plus tip. It seems that the early complaints about the bare decor and lack of music were resolved. I thought the space looked very nice, and they had some funky 80's music playing (Prince, Rod Stewart, etc). We look forward to going back.

I didn't realize that the Wellmont had reopened as a music venue. That's awesome! Looks like they're getting some high profile acts.

I don't know of those places west of the Rt. 10/46 merge (that's Ledgewood, by the way). But there is a decent BBQ place about 5 miles east of there -- Hot Rod's on Main St in Wharton, about 1 mile north of Rt 46. Everything I've had there has been pretty good. It's a definite notch below some of the bbq places in NYC, such as Dinosaur, Virgil's, RUB, etc, but it's good for NJ. I think they consider ribs to be their specialty. The pulled pork is okay, although I found it a bit dry and without enough flavor. They've got the full complement of traditional bbq sides, like hush puppies, corn bread, baked beans, etc, and I've found those to be pretty good.

That's interesting you say that, because my wife and I just went to DD for the first time two weeks ago and were a tad disappointed. Everything was fine, a couple things were very good, but nothing wowed us. The desserts in particular were a little boring. We're not exactly experienced gourmets, but we've been to Blu a few times and we felt that the dishes at Blu were on another level than at David Drake, on this occasion at least. I do have to say though, the atmosphere and service at David Drake were the best of any restaurant we've been to and we still had a very good time. But for the price and reputation, we expected to be more impressed by the dishes.

We got there at 2:30 and were turned away at the gate by the organizers. They said they were overwhelmed by the turnout and the vendors were running out of food. I'm glad they saved me the money after reading the reports above. We walked down the street to the brewery pub at the corner and had a very good lunch and some tasty brews, so all wasn't lost.

I'm actually a Morris County guy, so I don't get out there too often. The nearest place that I'm a big fan of is Penang in East Hanover.

My wife and I ate at Café Serene recently and I want to highly recommend it. It's a fairly new BYOB in a strip mall on Rt 10 in Livingston. We ordered off the specials menu-- Mushroom Explosion appetizer— Shitake, Portobello and Button Mushrooms sautéed in a Ginger Cream Sauce with Chopped Tomato, Scallions and Whole Wheat Angel Hair Entrees: Garlic Roast Pork Loin with Bourbon Glazed Fruit and Nuts served with Sweet Potato Latkas and a Baked Stuffed Apple Fish of the Day: Snapper with Basil and Crab Crusted in a Garlic Fennel Broth over Roasted Baby Yukon Gold Potatoes Dessert: A kind of oreo cake/brownie. The mushroom appetizer was fantastic. I would have been happy to have it as an entrée, it was so good. The snapper dish was excellent as well. The pork dish was good in that the pork loin was very tender and lean, but I wished the fruit flavors blended a little better with the pork. Still, it was enjoyable. And the oreo cake was awesome. It was very slow there for a Saturday night. I hope it gets more traffic soon as they probably can't sustain such a high quality and interesting menu otherwise. We'll be back. You can see their menu on the web Cafe Serene

Sorry, this isn't within 30 minutes of Fort Lee (maybe 40 min w/o traffic), but I want to put in a plug for Donut Towne in Wharton, NJ. Right off route 80. It's so refreshing to have non-Dunkin doughnuts sometimes. I work in an office and you'd think that it was corporate policy that every birthday must only be celebrated with Dunkin Donuts.

Our reception was upstairs in the Weehawken Chart House. We had a brunch. I always hear the food was great but I was too nervous to eat it!

Sounds great! Please post if you find out the opening date.

^I would think that would be very possible because the chef's specialty seems to be seafood.