SunnyNJ

Does anyone have any suggestions for a restaurant we could go to on New Year's Eve with a bunch of young children? We are looking for an early seating - maybe 5:30-7:30 and hopefully some type of entertainment / distraction for the kids. A roaming magician or the like would be perfect. We are in Morris county but can travel a little if anyone knows of a good place. Many thanks.

Had baked alaska at South City Prime in Little Falls, last night!

http://njmonthly.com/articles/restaurants/...estaurants.html

http://www.bellanottesrestaurant.com/ Friends want to try it next weekend but I can't stand to go out for another sub-par meal. Anyone been there that can comment? Thanks.

Thanks for taking the time to post pics. Looks great.

Thanks for the update. I am very excited!

Wonderful news! Thanks so much for sharing.

A while back there used to be a restaurant (maybe more of a cafe) at the Lincoln Park Airport that my kids LOVED to go to and watch the planes taking off and landing. One day, poof, it was gone. Apparently the owner did a runner in the middle of the night. Anyway, I happened to be driving past there the other day and there is a serious amount of work being done to the building both inside and outside. Dare I hope another restaurant is going in there? Anyone out there got the scoop? Thanks.

We went to Crave last Sat night. The decor was pretty slick, especially for being in Fairfield. The bar staff were great - friendly and organized. Specialty drinks were yummy. I had the Serenity (Mango margarita) which I highly recommend. We had plenty of time to indulge at the bar since our 8:30 table wasn't ready till 9:20 (and only then after I chased down the hostess to find out what was going on). The dining area is pretty small. I agree with others who said this is more of a club / lounge place (although we were the last table eating and even though they had cleared out a bunch of tables for what I thought was going to be a dance floor, the place was empty at 11:30). We were a table of 6 and ordered a bunch of aps to start. I only tried the mozzarella / tomato which was ok, not great. Had a bunch of miscellaneous "stuff" (I'm not even sure what it was) on it which was total overkill. Out of the 6 of us 4 people ordered the Grouper special. When we were just finishing the aps the waitress came back and said she was sorry they were out of the Grouper. Urgh - is that not the epitome of unorganized? So we ordered different meals and waited and waited for it to be prepared. Most of the food was average except for the duck which was cooked almost beyond recognition. Even I, the anti Martha Stewart, could prepare duck better than that. One other guy said his steak was tough but he was so hungry he didn't care. For dessert we got the chocolate sampler x 2 which was amazingly bland. Not somewhere I would rush back to unless it was for drinks and aps at the bar. Shame because I had heard such great stuff about Chef LoPinto , but on Sat night he did not deliver.

We ate here last weekend and it was terrible. Had a 8:30 res, table for 6 on Sat night. Had to leave a $25 deposit so they would hold the table. Short version is we didn't get seated till 10:40pm. And that is not a second of exaggeration. It's a long story why we didn't leave and go elsewhere, but it involved a 8 3/4 month pregnant person eating aps at the bar. I spoke to the hostess who was ridiculously air headed. Then I spotted the owner (Mark I think) wandering around in a ratty T-shirt, jeans and holding a glass of red wine. I talked to him and he seemed as amateurish as they come. Didn't even really get an apology, let alone an offer of a drink at the bar. I will say that the bartender (possibly John) was outstanding and ordered us a free bar pizza. Once we were seated and ordered our food was pretty good to average. Tuna was ordered well done and came out raw twice. I thought food was extremely expensive and for that price you can get better in many other places. At the end when we got our bill, they had taken off $75 for the wait which, if the management had a clue, they would have told us they were doing. Instead we just discovered it while divvying up the bill.

That's a weird way for them to post their hours, as is the phrasing about private parties. I read it 3x, and I think what they're trying to say is that you can only book private parties for Saturdays and Sundays. And that 10:30am-12pm listing must be wrong, as they're not going to be open for breakfast (to my knowledge)! But note that those Fri and Sat times end at 1am. Right now, no lunches, but dinners are Tues through Saturday nights; at least, that's what I was told. Either way, I'd suggest calling the restaurant to ask before you go! ← Thanks, I will call. I thought maybe I was too jetlagged to read it right! I think I'll give them a couple of weeks to get the kinks worked out.

Can't wait to try Crave. The website says the hours are: Monday – Thursday 10:30am-12:00pm Friday 10:30am -1:00am Saturday 3:00pm – 1:00am Saturday and Sundays private parties only So, I guess no weekend dinners yet?

Hi everyone – I’ve been an avid reader here for a while, first time posting. And my reason…Rosemary & Sage in Riverdale. I have been eager to try this place for sometime and finally made it last weekend. It was very poor, one of the most disappointing meals we have had in a long time. Based purely on their website I was expecting the interior to be quaint, eclectic even, but it was fairly lackluster. When we first walked we were greeted with a view of a double closet door and a coat rack. The place is tiny (no problem with that) but crammed full of so many tables the wait staff could barely get around. Walls are painted plain yellow with industrial drop ceiling tiles. Yawn – again not what I was expecting - I love places that are cool or interesting but I can forgive the lack of decor if the food is splendid. After an interminable wait at the coat rack (14 minutes with an empty table right in front of us) we were seated. The wine by the glass list was a joke – only 4 or 5 choices, we chose soda. The service was ridiculously slow. I don’t mean it was slow in a have-a-relaxing-meal-take-your-time-slow, I mean slash-your-wrists-slow. Our waiter who, it turns out, is the brother of the owner was fairly clueless and completely unsophisticated. He stopped reading the specials to us twice – once to talk to another table about their order and once to tell a waitress to bring water to yet another table. We ordered the fish special and the stuffed sole. Before our meal came out we ate a rather wilted salad which seemed a few days past its shelf life and listened to the table next to us saying “no really, he must have forgotten about us – he must have really” and they had a different waiter to us. Our waiter came back out to ask us again what we had ordered (seriously) and went back to the kitchen to get it. The stuffed sole was ok. Bland like my grandmother cooked it, but passable. The fish special was raw in the inside. Yep raw. My husband called over a different waiter – a young lady who took my husband’s plate back to the kitchen – not a word of sorry or “I’ll be right back”. I continued to eat (I know it’s not polite but eh, we have been married a long time and I was about ready to eat my own arm). Our original waiter eventually came out with he food (same piece of fish reheated) and put it in front of him, again not a sorry in sight. We declined dessert and asked (begged really) for the check. Took 10 minutes. Was brought over and mutely handed to us. We went to A&P and bought brownies and that was the best part of the night. OK – I feel better I got that off my chest. I know oodles of people like that place and it gets great Zagat ratings. I really wanted to like it but, alas, it was not to be. This weekend we also went to the Strip House and it was a better time, next weekend Restaurant.MC.