jersey foodies

[dodge621]

[DO PEOPLE IN NEW JERSEY KNOW OR UNDERSTAND ANYTHING ABOUT FOOD? ]

Perhaps you should open a restaurant in another state. You seem not to respect the tastes of New Jerseyans.

[glenn]

top 5...

It's America (Love it or Leave it) - Ernest Tubb

Never Going Back to New Jersey - Less than Jake

Smokin' in New Jersey - S. Plotzkie Revue

Bakin' Soda in Minnesota - Mountain Goats

Colorado Kool-Aid - Johnny Paycheck

[chopjwu12]

[DO PEOPLE IN NEW JERSEY KNOW OR UNDERSTAND ANYTHING ABOUT FOOD? ]

Perhaps you should open a restaurant in another state.  You seem not to respect the tastes of New Jerseyans.

perhaps you should shut your mouth.

Knowone said anything about respecting the taste of new jerseyans since i am from NJ. I simply ask why dont the majority of new jerseyans order the more exotic items.

[Double 0]

Becuse like most people they grew up with certain foods that their families made for them and thats what they like. This happens everywhere.

[dodge621]

Fink, great post. The fact that we know you and where your restaurant is lends so much credibility to your posts.

[dodge621]

[i compare this to a dessert we currently have on the menu at the restaurant where i work. ]

does this restaurant have a name

[chopjwu12]

[i compare this to a dessert we currently have on the menu at the restaurant where i work. ]

does this restaurant have a name

Well if you knew anything about me you would know where i work, who i am, and almost everywhere i have been. Since all this information has been posted on egullet more then once. But i dont even know your name since its not even on your tag?

[tommy]

would you two stop acting like sensitive little tools.

thanks.

[chopjwu12]

IT started it.

[rozrapp]

[i compare this to a dessert we currently have on the menu at the restaurant where i work. ]

does this restaurant have a name

Well if you knew anything about me you would know where i work, who i am, and almost everywhere i have been.

David,

It really surprises me that you had so much trouble "selling" the white pepper apricot tart when you first put it on the menu. After all, one would think that your clientele -- despite being mainly New Jerseyans -- would have more wide-ranging experience with restaurants of this high caliber and, thus, more developed palates. I know that my husband and I would have no difficulty whatsoever ordering that dessert. So, perhaps I am wrong and many of your diners are experiencing this type of high end restaurant for the first time?

(P.S. If you're not telling dodge621 the name of your restaurant, far be it for me to divulge it. )

[ngatti]

Jeez, guys!...It's no secret. Chop is the poissinier at Restaurant Nicholas in Red Bank. Anyone following the Jersey board should be able to pick this up. I hope it calms things down.

Nick

[Steve Klc]

I'm sorry to all--just found this thread. There's alot of interesting stuff if we can control the bickering.

As Nick, another chef by the way, has mentioned, David/Chop of Nicholas is out--has been out for weeks--and has proven himself an interesting, valuable young voice. I am very happy to have him here and he intrigues me--and I've come to this realization after it seemed every single one of his early posts pissed me off for one reason or another.

David has raised some very nuanced issues--about New Jersey fine dining clientele and not least about one I sympathize with as a pastry chef: desserts sales, because dessert sales aren't solely or even mostly related to the dessert itself.

That may sound strange to some--but desserts typically underwhelm--even in elite food cities. It isn't a NJ thing. Ask yourself--how many good to great meals have you had where you've been let down by the dessert? Health and dietary concerns augur against ordering dessert. Good cheeses appearing on menus augur against dessert. Chefs serving you so much food and huge slabs of meat and starch augur against ordering dessert.

Mostly, though shitty perfunctory desserts by undertrained pastry people, chefs who can't afford to hire a trained pastry chef, a service staff who wants to turn the table and probably hasn't even tasted the desserts or have taken the time to understand them let alone SELL them to the customer all impact dessert sales.

Here's another--desserts don't exist in a vacuum--the name recognition of your pastry chef affects dessert sales--if diners have read about the pchef, if the pastry chef's name is alongside the chef's or on a separate dessert menu it helps and if a diner goes into the experience aware that the pastry chef is known--is significant in his field--you will be more likely to save room for dessert and indeed become conditioned to expect a satisfying dessert. The better inversion of this question--using David's line of thinking--is "Are New Jersey diners less pre-disposed to order and appreciate dessert than NYC diners?"

Someone earlier said "The reason that things like pepper in dessert are considered unique and special is that they ARE unique and special. If it wasn't considered odd and avante garde would a place like the gramercy tavern or the like put it on there menu."

Well, Claudia's desserts were good, very very good but not avant garde...and pepper in dessert is not unqiue. Her desserts matched her chef's cuisine and sensibility--which also was decidely not avant garde. There was a time when there was NO such thing as an identifiable dessert--and pepper was in everything--sweet and savory. What we eat today stems from this era. The only thing unique about any spice in dessert is that Americans have been conditioned and homogenized by vanilla to the exclusion of all other spices. (There was a time cinnamon was more prevalent in chocolate than vanilla--which is in every block of chocolate now.) These days, pepper on fruit can hardly be considered novel to knowledgeable foodies anywhere in this country. To argue otherwise just proves David's point about the possible lack of awareness of NJ's foodie and fine dining clientele.

Rosie mentioned the hits and misses as well--very good point. Even the very best pastry chefs have personally favorite desserts--desserts they created which rock and which please them--that no one buys. It happened even to Claudia when she was at Gramercy. The good chefs and pastry chefs take the time to figure out why--it could be a staff or communication issue, it could be wording on the menu, price, position on the menu, whatever. David mentioned moving it to the tasting menu--good choice; another mentioned comping guests with free desserts or dessert tastes to get it out there on the dining room floor--also good. Get it out there by hook or by crook.

Now--some other realities: fresh apricots often aren't good. Apricot is not an inherently popular dessert ingredient here in the US. David--my tip--add chocolate to the dessert and make it your summer chocolate dessert. Even given all these other factors--apricot, black pepper AND chocolate will sell. If it's good it will keep selling.

It just has to be good.

[Patrice]

You can sell anything if it contains CHOCOLATE!!!

[Rail Paul]

One need which is often unsatisfied in the suburbs is a place to go after the movies which isn't a club or a bar. Perhaps a Friday / Saturday only situation.

Many suburban restaurants take their last seating at 830. In my area of western essex / eastern morris, I can count the two or three places which have a 930 reservation. Whether a dessert / cappucino / brandy menu would work for after the movies, I don't know, but I haven't seen anybody try it. With good marketing (distribute flyers at the cinema, etc) it could fill a niche from 10 until 1.

I'd suspect dessert, coffee and brandy could well be the highest margin products on a menu. Promoting your highest margin products has often been a rewarding effort.

Edit: Replaced missing with unsatisfied in the first sentence)

[chopjwu12]

Steve thanks for backing me on this one i apreciate it. You beat me to the pepper fact though you basterd. Pepper in desserts has been around forever people just dont realize that. But i am glad to say the apricot dessert sells quite well especially after it was put on the tasting plate. I agree with the apricots not always being great but i think we have been preety lucky this year. We have gotten some very good apricots in.

I would like To see what rosie thought of it. She had it when she ate there.

But I dont want everyone to think this thread is only about desserts. I will give another example of a main dish item that went over like a fart in church. Instead of the plane and simple chicken breast they took it and stuffed it with i think braised sweet breads. Now sweet breads sold preety good on the menu. Chicken almost always sells good. Together the people weren't ordering it. There are a couple more examples but thats the only one my tirred mind can think up of right now.

On another note someone mentioned clientel. Yes we do get people in with sophisticated tastes but the average person comes in alot. Which i think is great. I love to see new people come in to enjoy good food. Sometimes they will be a little daring sometimes they wont.

We are opem preety late on the weekends. We stop taking reservations at 10:00. I think once the bar area is put in people will start to come in later.

[Rosie]

This is what I wrote on eGullet a few weeks ago about the desserts at Nicholas.

Next was a dessert tasting and the presentation was very impressive. Each plate had a semi circle cookie banner on the rim; one read happy anniversary and one read happy birthday. Each had a candle sitting in a plump raspberry. This is what I remember--an outrageously delicious apricot tart with almond ice cream and white pepper that I dreamed about all night; a warm Valrhona chocolate cake with a pineapple chip and vanilla ice cream; a crème brulee trio (ginger, pistachio and vanilla); and a mille-feuille with fresh berries and cream.

[=Mark]

The opposite of the dessert letdown can be found at the Jamaican restaurant Blue Marlin in Bradley Beach. Not only is the Caribbean cuisine great but his Summer Desserts are fabulous. Roy Reid the owner is a native of Jamaica and started in the restaurant field as pastry chef at the Channel Club and the Fromagerie. His fruit tarts are great!

[chefb]

I say make all the funky food you want in your restaurant, just make the discription of it for the lay-man. For example, in the past I have made a boned out frenched breast of chicken stuffed with portabella-mousse served with demi and called it MARSALA. No one ever complained that it wasn't a flattened cutlet with button mushroom and salty beef base sauce.

[Rail Paul]

I say make all the funky food you want in your restaurant, just make the discription of it for the lay-man.  For example, in the past I have made a boned out frenched breast of chicken stuffed with portabella-mousse served with demi and called it MARSALA.  No one ever complained that it wasn't a flattened cutlet with button mushroom and salty beef base sauce.

If you didn't use a sweet Italian wine of the same name in your preparation, I'd be disappointed.

The portabella mousse sounds intriguing...

[tommy]

If you didn't use a sweet Italian wine of the same name in your preparation, I'd be disappointed.

i wouldn't. that stuff tastes like butterscotch or caramel to me. does nothing for me. does anyone really serve that dish any more? i'm pretty sure leo's in hoboken still does, but they have an excuse, as they probably haven't changed their menu for 70 years, and make no apologizies for it.

[chefb]

I only cook with wines I would drink. I wouldn't drink marsala. I cut the demi with a gastric for sweetness.

[Rail Paul]

I only cook with wines I would drink.  I wouldn't drink marsala.  I cut the demi with a gastric for sweetness.

Now I am confused. If you don't use marsala wine, why do you call the preparation marsala?

why not just call your veal dish " flounder" or "chop suey"? If a person expects marsala in a dish named marsala, when there is a traditional prep called marsala, that's not an unreasonable expectation, I'd think.

[chopjwu12]

If you think this marsala thing is the only thing that gets lied about in a kitchen then you need to step into a profetional kitchen. Now im not saying every restaurant does it but alot of these little fibs along there menu. Most people wont even know it and chefs know that. Thats why they can get away with it. Do i personally agree with the practice....NOT EVEN CLOSE!!!!!!!!!! I hate that kind of stuff but what can you do.

[Rosie]

Chefb--Where do you work?

[chefb]

Marketing is how you sell you dishes. Rail, how many rest's use Vodka in there Penne Vodka sauces?? Could you tell? Then they should call them pasta with creamy marinara but that doesn't sound sexy enough.

Rosie, for three years I have been running my own Personal Chef service/ Catering in NJ. I still cook on the line at some friends places just because I like to be in the mix. I have been in the F&b industry for 10+ years. Growing up in a wine store, I am a JWU grad and have worked the gamet of rest, hotels and corporate food service.