DON MAHONEY AT THE ANCHORAGE; A NICE GUY WHO FINISHED FIRST...

May 2007

Nice guys finish first. In this case, they do, anyway.

Don Mahoney, owner of the Anchorage Tavern in Somers Point, is back to working hard as a chef/owner, after several months of working hard and worrying to get his restaurant open after a devastating fire.

Mahoney, talented, friendly and somewhat shy, turned down an offer to appear on the front cover of Ed Hitzel’s Restaurant Magazine, despite the fact that we believe he deserves the attention and applause. We have also heard many stories from his employees of his many acts of kindness towards them after the fire and prior to reopening.

No wonder most of them came back after the restaurant opened in February.

Turns out he didn’t need the extra publicity, as Mahoney shared with us that his opening in February was as “busy as August.” Indeed, when we visited on a winter evening in March, the famous Anchorage was packed, every seat filled, with lines of people waiting to get in. Just like a Saturday night in August. Wow. If anyone deserves the success it’s the Mahoney family.

STRAWBERRIES TO THE AMISH MARKET

We have been fans for years of the Amish Market on Route 42 in Williamstown and we have told you so.

So we were just so disappointed recently when three weeks in a row, the strawberries we purchased were rotten when we got them home. How does that happen? Nice and ripe and fresh looking under the lights and then within hours, turning into something inedible. On the other hand, there is a new vendor at the market whose chicken wings my family is fond of, especially the fried hot ones.

DEBBIE’S DAYDREAM CAFÉ WORTH A VISIT

The town of Tuckerton (or borough or village) is famous for its Tuckerton Seaport, whose culinary offering we will discuss below, but there is also a small building with shops in the center of town called the Tuckerton Emporium. It was originally built in 1921 and modeled after Macy’s in New York City. This attractive centerpiece contains a half dozen or more independent businesses that make up what is essentially a mall in a Victorian setting. For as long as we can remember, there has been a small café in the structure, and although it is small (25 seats or more?), the place has always been popular. We enjoyed two excellent lunches in the current culinary incarnation, Debbie’s’s Daydream Café, and recommend that you give it a try. The restaurant is open daily for lunch, and serves dinner for private parties.

SKEETER’S HAS NEW OWNER

Augie Elia worked in the Atlantic City casinos and also in New York City restaurants. He is the new operator of the restaurant still known as Skeeters in the Tuckerton Seaport, operated for the last three seasons by Donny Albanese and his wife Kathy. Elia has added Crazy Water Café to the name, spruced the place up, plans to enclose part of the outside deck, and has readied the menu for the seasonal crowds. Specialties include bouillabaisse, flounder oscar and she crab soup. The restaurant also offers Ipswich clams, the soft delicacies available rarely in this area.

MERIGHI’S EXPERIENCE IS HEAVENLY; RICK SPURLOCK IS THE NEW CHEF

We pass Merighi’s Savoy Inn several times each month, but have not dined at the restaurant in the past two decades. On a recent Saturday night, with the family elsewhere, I committed to dinner at a restaurant I have not tried and Merighi’s, on Landis Avenue in Vineland, was the place. I know there are readers who believe prime rib to be too common of a selection for a gastronome, but occasionally I get such cravings for a tender juicy rare slab, and when I saw it on the specials menu at the entrance lobby, I knew I was staying. What a nice reward. The generous cut was just what I was seeking, tender, juicy and luscious tasting, reminiscent of the best slices of my life. I was also interested in visiting Merighi’s because the owners had just completed a grueling search for a new chef and I knew many of the applicants who sought the job. I also know what an act of trust it can be to hire a new employee and to turn a portion of the family business over to that person. Some potential Merighi’s employees had called me and asked about Merighi’s, and Tom Merighi told me of the many folks he had interviewed. It was clear that many good chefs are looking for jobs.

The winner of the job search was Rich Spurlock, a CIA(Culinary Insitute of America) grad who was most recently chef at JD’s Pub and Grill in Galloway Township, and also worked at The Flander’s in Ocean City and The Old River Tavern in Hamilton Township. I visited a second time to find Richard on the job and happy. “I want this to be my last job search,” he told us. Congratulations Rich.

NIBLOCK’S PORK STORE; BY THIS TIME IT SELLS SEAFOOD

We had never heard of Niblock’s Pork Store on Route 49 in Quinton. In fact, when we found the place, we were across the street dropping off a stack of magazines at a farm market. We should probably wait until the Fall to tell you about the place because in the Summer, we hear, it becomes a seafood operation. It served its final pork product for the year on April 16th.

If you are a fan of pork, scrapple, sausage, pork chops, and other pork products, you should know about Niblocks, which is a few miles southeast of the Delaware Memorial Bridge and a few miles west of Salem. The scrapple tastes like the scrapple of my youth, when my dad would bring it home from various butchers in the Easton-Bethlehem area of Pennsylvania. Pork in various forms is available with or without spices. The pork chops looked just fine. We keep waiting for Salem City itself to gentrify and grow a few independent restaurants, but it has not yet happened.

STEW...

Hardwood floors at Allen’s Clam Bar? Yes. It’s true, Win Allen has installed hardwood floors in the region’s best clam bar, in New Gretna, known for its chowders and fried seafood platters. The concrete floors, though durable, and scenic, also retained water and became slippery. My contention to Win Allen and his dad, Win Sr., was to keep the rustic look, but I must admit the floors make the place look just fine, without taking away the homey appeal... Dinner at the bar on a Friday night at Winfield’s in Millville. Nice people. Great food…As reported here last month, John Merlino plans to open Manna on Ventnor Avenue between Fredricksburg and Washington Avenues in Ventnor this month… Amazingly good chicken noodle soup (as a special) at Bulldogs in Galloway Township.

A MONTH OF BUFFETS

We had not done the Sunday brunch route for some time, but hearing that Food For Thought in Marlton added a Sunday brunch, inspired us to revive our onetime favorite experience, the weekend mass feeding. One visit to Scotland Run Golf Course, two to Smithville Inn and one to Renault Winery reminded us why we enjoy the experience so much: friends, lots of food, great settings and the beginning of a new week. We were also reminded how few brunches there are anymore. With the removal of Tabernacle Inn, which has closed, and Thommy G’s, in Audubon, which stopped its Sunday extravaganza except for holidays, there are a little more than a dozen non casino brunches in all of the seven counties of Southern New Jersey. Perhaps it’s becoming less and less cost effective to offer a large amount of food for a fixed price.

GARY MONTEROSSO TO APPEAR ON CHRISTINA COOKS

Our beer critic will be doing some acting on the small screen. Gary Monterosso is scheduled to appear on two episodes of the new season of "Christina Cooks," seen nationally on PBS and regionally on the Comcast Network.

Last December, Gary visited with Robert and Christina Pirello at their Philadelphia home where the format was described. Christina will be recreating "comfort" foods in her own style and Gary will be offering suggestions, as a character still to be determined.

Gary explained it by saying, "The way it was explained to me was that Christina might be preparing a dish and say, 'I wonder what my brother, or cousin or someone' would do to match a beverage with this. That's where I would appear, offering my opinion. It should be fun to do!"

Taping is scheduled to take place later this spring in Philadelphia.

Gary first met Christina's husband Robert a few years ago without knowing his identity. He said, "I was at a food event and saw a guy wearing a Sly Fox Brewing shirt. I figured that anyone who wore that shirt must be a fan of good beer. I approached him and we had a discussion about beer long before I knew who he was. We became friends and I met Christina soon after."

Gary will be offering occasional beer tastings on the Cape May Seashore Lines, running from Richland to Tuckahoe. He added, "I am going to vary my program for each event. The first one will be a knockout and cannot be missed. Look for the schedule to be posted shortly at www.capemayseashorelines.org."

WE FELT SORRY FOR SERVERS AT MORTON’S

Ruffino’s hosted a wine tasting dinner at Morton’s in Atlantic City. The wines were quite good, and surprising considering that we remember Ruffino’s Chianti as the wines we drank in college with the basket weaving on the bottle. Chianti has come a long way. Morton’s was the perfect venue for the dinner. Their food is the right canvas for serious wine tasting, and the seamless service makes for an organized procession of courses and wines.

The crowd was appreciative, though a bit too raucous. It is more than a little distracting to have to ask your dining partners to be quiet so that you can hear the vintner’s description of the next wine. It was clear that my dining partners had a pop or two before the wine started flowing. They were knocking back the wine like it was iced tea. It is virtually impossible to taste properly if a couple of your sheets are on the way to being in the wind.

They missed an exceptional group of wines, and, it seemed to me, gave the wonderfully professional servers fits. Here’s hoping they left foolishly generous tips.

PORTERHOUSE, RAZED BY FIRE, WILL BE REBUILT IN CHERRY HILL

On Sunday, March 4th, an early morning, three alarm fire that took six hours to put out, destroyed two popular restaurants across from the former Garden State Racetrack on Route 70 in Cherry Hill. The blaze, caused by a lit cigarette tossed onto a mulch pile near the Chili’s Grill & Bar takeout window, quickly moved inside the restaurant and then to the adjoining Porterhouse Steaks & Seafood Restaurant.

No one was inside when the fire erupted. Quality Dining, based in Indiana, owns the two restaurants and nineteen other Chili’s locations in the Greater Philadelphia area.

According to John Firth, president of Quality Dining, all of the two restaurants’ 135 employees were transferred to other local locations until the Cherry Hill Chili’s and Porterhouse are rebuilt. The firm is planning to rebuild quickly since these two locations were among Quality Dining’s top performers. Firth adds that they were both fully insured.

BRAD SMITH IS NEW CHEF AT SWEDE’S INN IN SWEDESBORO

The Historic Swedes Inn in Swedesboro has a new star chef. Brad Smith, who recently left Cuba Libre in Philadelphia, joined Swedes Inn as executive chef in February. He has already reinvented its menu, introducing entrees such as pan-seared jumbo scallops served over lobster hash, caramelized duck confit atop green chile rice with a molasses port reduction, and soy glazed tuna with sesamepeanut noodles and crispy shrimp wontons.

Smoked salmon nachos and grilled lollipoplamb chops are new to the appetizer line-up. For the café & bar menu, Smith’s grilled flatbread with lump crabmeat, caramelized onions, roasted red peppers, shredded parmesan, tomato salsa, and balsamic syrup is a popular addition.

“The new menu reflects my culinary diversity throughout my career,” says Smith. “It brings a unique flavor to the Swedes Inn and expands upon its 28-year-old dining tradition.”

A graduate of the L’Academie de Cuisine Culinary School in Maryland, Smith has also cooked at Red Square Restaurant in Miami Beach and at several of Washington, D.C.’s most celebrated restaurants, including Red Sage, Aku, Addie’s, Grille 88, Café Atlantico, and the Chayote Smokehouse.

The Swedes Inn is open for lunch and dinner on Friday, and for dinner only Monday through Thursday and Saturday and Sunday. Reservations are recommended. It’s located at 1301 Kings Highway in Swedesboro. The phone number is (856) 467-2052.

CLASSIC CAKE COMPANY SOLD TO AMERICAN HARVEST BAKING

Classic Cake Company, the popular high end bakery in Cherry Hill and Voorhees, has been purchased by American Harvest Baking Company. Inc. (AHB), a national manufacturer of high end artisan breads and dessert specialties.

Former Le Bec-Fin pastry chef and Miel Patisserie owner Robert W. Bennett is the executive chef and director of operations of AHB, which is based in Cherry Hill.

“We are very excited with the opportunities that the acquisition of The Classic Cake Company. affords us,” says Jay Roseman, president of AHB. “Beyond a first step into the retail market, we will now be able to provide an even greater product offering.”

Besides Classic Cake Company, AHB’s other brands include Bellissimo, a line of customized, madeto- order gelato, ice cream, and sorbet delicacies for the commercial marketplace, created by Chef Bennett, Delicacies by Chef Bennett, and American Harvest Artisan Bread. Classic Cake Company was founded in 1982 and has two locations.

The first is at 2010 Springdale Rd. in Cherry Hill, and the second is at 36 Eagle Plaza in Voorhees. For more information, call (856) 751-5448 in Cherry Hill or (856) 435-7810 in Voorhees.

DIAMOND DINER REOPENS

For fans of the Diamond Diner, that homey spot with the great sandwiches and waitresses with attitude, that closed its doors in Cherry Hill four years ago, it has been resurrected. The Diamantis family has moved it to Route 38 near Creek Road in Hainesport.

Now called the Diamond Restaurant, the eatery serves a full menu of breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. on weekdays, and from 7 a.m. to midnight on Saturday and Sunday.

It’s located at 1390 State Highway 38 North (near Creek Road) in Hainesport. The phone number is (609) 267-0101.

Ed Hitzel is publisher of Ed Hitzel's Restaurant Magazine as well as Ed Hitzel's Restaurant Newsletter. He is also host of "Table for One" radio show, heard Saturdays from 10 am to 1 pm on Newstalk 1400 WOND. You can access information about Ed Hitzel enterprises at edhitzel.com For more information about Ed Hitzel publications call 609-909-9755.