MARTY GRIMS’ INLET REPLACES SAILS IN SOMERS POINT...

June 2007

Sails in Somers Point is now The Inlet, a casual restaurant and bar. The owner is Marty Grims, general partner of the Moshulu in Philadelphia, who also owns DuJour Café, Market, and Catering in Haverford, Pa., The Plantation Restaurant in Harvey Cedars on Long Beach Island, and Daddy O Restaurant and Boutique Hotel in Brant Beach also on Long Beach Island.

The Inlet opened in mid-May.

Featuring an all-day menu of affordable American cuisine, creative cocktails and live entertainment seven days a week, the 400-seat Inlet features bayside picture windows throughout to give guests a view of the harbor, a circular bar with high back stools, and two private dining areas for weddings, showers, or other family gatherings. The Inlet also will serve boaters with its 20 slips that lead to its dockside bar, and has multiple decks for outdoor dining.

“We are thrilled to become a part of the Somers Point community. We want to create a year round restaurant with an inviting atmosphere and an enticing menu that appeals to everyone,” says Grims.

On the menu are appetizers like tuna nachos with cilantro and red chili, a short rib slider with brie creamed spinach, crispy onion and wild mushroom, and lobster grilled cheese with avocado salsa, roasted tomato and fennel sauce. Entrée selections include pan-seared mahi mahi with golden pineapple, coconut-lime rice, peanuts and Thai curry, and sauteed chicken breast with beef steak tomatoes, fresh mozzarella and basil pesto. There also will be classic shore fare, including crab cakes, baked stuffed flounder, shrimp scampi, lobster bake, and a variety of choice meat cuts and fresh seafood grilled to order and served with a choice of two sides and homemade sauces.

The Inlet will be open seven days a week for lunch and dinner. It’s located on Great Egg Harbor Bay at 998 Bay Avenue in Somers Point. The phone number is (609) 926-9611.

GOLDEN INN IN AVALON HIRES NEW CULINARY TEAM...

John R. Allison, longtime general manager of the Golden Inn in Avalon, recently hired a new culinary team to make big changes to the Inn’s menus and décor. “We brought in a new chef and new food and beverage director.

We plan to unveil the new menus and dining room over Memorial Day weekend,” says Allison. “We’ve completely renovated the dining room both inside and out. There’s still the beautiful poolside view, but there’s also new landscaping. We wanted to keep everything fresh.”

Joining the Golden Inn team are Ralph Sitero, executive chef, most recently with Mac’s Seafood and Steaks in Somers Point, and Jim Zelewski, food and beverage director. Zelewski most recently worked at Kipper’Z Restaurant in Avalon, and owned The Race Street Café in Frenchtown for 23 years.

The Golden Inn Dining Room has been serving upscale food for the past forty years. The Inn also has a casual Italian restaurant called Luigi’s Pasta & Vino, and offers light bar fare at its poolside Sandbar and Veranda. Besides the restaurants, The Golden Inn is a popular choice for weddings, conferences, and meetings. “We’re booked year-round,” says Allison.

Due to that popularity with group bookings, Zelewski and Sitero are still working on finalizing the new menus for the summer. “The a la carte dining room will go through a real rebirth. The menu will be a little more contemporary and will have more of an Italian flair,” says Zelewski. “We plan to add some room dividers and plenty of plants to give the room a more intimate feel. Luigi’s also will go through a culinary transformation with Sitero as chef. “It used to be a ‘mix your own pasta’ type of thing. We’re going to turn it into more of a good Italian kind of bistro. It will still be child-friendly, though,” Zelewski adds.

Sitero plans to “raise the gastronomic bar” with a variety of cold and hot tapas for the Inn’s poolside crowd. Intriguing choices include Avalon lobster salad with asparagus, oranges, and basil; Tuscan white bean and marinated shrimp prosciutto and mint; grilled lollipop lamb chops with Moroccan pesto; and local day boat scallops with cous cous and aromatic red bell pepper butter broth. Tapas prices are $5 to $12. The executive chef plans to offer a large variety of salads, including a sushi grade tuna sampler, in the dining room at the Golden Inn. The menu also will feature small plates such as Maine lobster in puff pastry with sweet corn and lobster brandy sauce, and large plates, including chef Sitero’s 24 carat seafood tiramisu Maine lobster, jumbo lump crab and shrimp soufflé over a spring vegetable risotto finished with a sweet corn sauce, Maple Leaf Farms semi-boneless duck in a sour cherry sauce, and filet of beef with a wild mushroom sauce. Entrees will be $16 to $34.

The revamped menu at Luigi’s Pasta & Vino has six varieties of woodfired pizza; several ravioli and pasta choices; risotto; fish entrees; and meat and poultry dishes, including ossobuco alla milanese and grilled marinated lamb chops finished with rosemary and lemon oil. There also are a variety of cold and hot authentic Italian appetizers. Pasta dishes are $8 to $16.50.

Other entrees are $14.50 to $19.50.

The Golden Inn is located Oceanfront at 78th Street in Avalon. The phone number is (609) 368-5155.

LUCIANO LAMBERTI TO OPEN SHORE CLUB AT SITE OF FORMER ROMANELLI’S...

Luciano Lamberti will open The Shore Club in Seaview Harbor, Egg Harbor Township, in June or July of this summer. Lamberti, who also owns Lamberti’s in Margate, took out two ten-year leases on the property, which was formerly Romanelli’s. “I didn’t want to spend all of that money for just ten short years,” he says. “I went to see this location about ten years ago, but I had way too much on my plate at the time to do anything with it.” Lamberti also purchased the liquor license from the former HI Rib on Black Horse Pike in Egg Harbor Township.

The Shore Club will be an upscale crab house, bar, and grill. It will seat 40 people around the bar, and 120 in the dining area. “We will also have two rooms for private dining. One will seat 66 and the other will seat 12,” says Lamberti. “We also have several high-end televisions so that everyone can watch the games, and a large dance floor.”

The dance floor will be used by Bob Pantano, 98.1 WOGL radio personality and longtime friend of Lamberti’s, who will bring his popular Bob Pantano Dance Party to The Shore Club.

The chef will be Pasquale Illiano, Lamberti’s cousin and former executive chef at Caesars Hotel Delaware.

Lamberti says that the look will be reminiscent of Miami. “We have cherry hardwood floors throughout, lots of tile, and we’re doing away with the outside awning. We’re going to make it a permanent enclosure for an indoor/outdoor deck,” he says. “It will be a fun place.”

TUCKERS HAS NEW OWNERS

Tucker’s has been sold.

The restaurant, owned by Philadelphia chef Joseph Tucker, was purchased by brothers Rich and Anthony Fanucci and Jeff Celebre. The name and menu has stayed basically the same, says Theresa DiGiorgio, manager of the restaurant, “but we’ve added a large outside deck, raw bar, and bar. It will be open daily from 11 a.m.”

The new owners also have changed the interior look of the restaurant.

“They’ve given it a pale peach with white accents and blue rugs for that classic beach kind of feel,” says DiGiorgio. “They’re also putting in a banquet area upstairs that will seat 80 for formal affairs and 100 for more informal affairs.”

To make Tucker’s more of a neighborhood spot than just a place for special occasions, the menu now includes some more affordably priced pasta, fish, and veal dishes.

Tucker’s is open for dinner daily beginning at 4:30 p.m., and the outside bar opens at 11 a.m. It’s located at 800 Bay Avenue in Somers Point. The phone number is (609) 927-3100.

WHEN EXCELLENCE CAUSES PEOPLETO WANT TO SELL THE PLACE

Real life restaurant stories can be frustrating. Fred Belfus and his wife Sherry opened Fresh Deli on Bear’s Head Road, right on the border between Vineland and Millville, sometime last year. I had known Fred and his culinary background for years. He cooked at many fine area restaurants and has a very demanding culinary approach. All of the culinary degrees and seasoning mean nothing, however, if the food doesn’t please the customer.

We know some schooled chefs who are tired and lazy and their production does not match their degrees.

We have dined more than a few times at Fresh, however, and Fred has neither lost his passion for excellence nor his demanding nature in the kitchen. Our visits make us want to dine there even more often. Omelettes, for example, are awesome, enormous flavorful collections of fresh quality ingredients that are amazingly fluffy. Yes fluffy. A special French toast served on weekends has fresh berries.

Each customer who orders coffee gets an entire pot. It’s obvious that something special is going on here. Soups are rich with flavor and ingredients. Lunch items are the same as breakfast, each with a special quality, fine ingredients, delicate preparation and a noticeably excellent twist in either the preparation, presentation or flavor. We have not dined there for dinner, but imagine these meals – Wednesday through Friday - to be the same interesting collection of creativity and ingredients.

So why is all this frustrating?

During a recent breakfast visit, over a luscious farmer’s omelette and an outstanding order of berried French toast, Fred told us he wanted to sell the place. The workload was amazing, the challenge of training and hiring employees onerous and the rewards were not what he thought they would be. The strain on his family’s personal life was too much.

It is always my contention that in any great restaurant, there is someone working his or her way to a heart attack, either metaphorically or in reality.

It is personally and professionally frustrating to me – and I imagine to the Belfus family – that the strain of maintaining excellence on a daily basis is too much for human beings to handle over time. Taste those amazing omelettes – the best we have sampled in Southern New Jersey - while you can.

OYSTER CREEK IS PLAINLY ATTRACTIVE BUT FOOD IS ONLY SOMETIMES IMPRESSIVE

I have always been attracted to The Oyster Creek Inn, the place. At the terminus of a country road along a tributary of the Mullica River, in Galloway Township, the restaurant is surrounded by boats, water, and meadow- scapes. Off in the distance is the Atlantic Ocean, the skyline of Atlantic City and the old hulking fish factory, picturesque on the horizon. Inside are hardwood floors, a bar and lounge area and various maritime decorations and photos. Restaurants like these are ubiquitous along the eastern shore of Delaware, Maryland and Virginia, where culinary delights and surprises attract tourists and locals.

But alas, I have seldom been impressed with the Oyster Creek Inn’s food, so when friends suggested a Friday night out there, I was hesitant.

But the restaurant is perfect for such gatherings, old and new friends, dressed casually and setting expectations at a reasonable level.

I love that the Oyster Creek Inn serves its chowders and soups in a heaping style. The bowls and cups are filled to the brim. It makes such a great appearance, delivered to the table nearly overflowing. It’s too bad that the lobster bisque and the crab bisque were both bland. They are filled with seafood and gelatinous in texture and virtually flavorless. Sherry would have helped, but was not served. Clams on the half shell tasted just about fresh, with that flavor and gumminess of seafood that has been sitting out awhile, but not like freshly opened clams. They looked just fine.

All of our companions ordered two lobsters for $35 or so dollars. The lobster was perfect, delicious, fresh, luscious and omygod gimme more.

Everyone at the table ordered lobster but me, but everyone let me taste. Good friends are like that. Want some lobster Ed? Certainly. I ordered a fried seafood combination. In a visit several years ago, a broiled seafood combination was disappointing, so I was not sure what to order. I obviously chose the wrong thing again. The devilled clam had decent texture, but the flavors were dark and unappetizing. The shrimp was just perfect in the stuffed shrimp, but the stuffing again had flavors and textures that saw us take one bite and leave the rest, and it was a considerable amount. The scallops squirted water at us when we bit into them and had a mushy texture and a bland flavor that once again had us eat one and leave the rest. Same with the flounder. One bite and done.

Desserts have always been a highlight at the Oyster Creek Inn. Most seem homemade. Service was pleasant and quick.

STEW

Jonathan Karp is working for Steven Starr at The Continental on The Pier at Caesars. His plan to help open the former Mamma Mott’s fell through...Open this month...John Merlino’s Manna in Ventnor. Merlino is the former chef at both Mojo and Sails, now closed...It’s Debra’s Daydream Café not Donna’s in Tuckerton. We made that mistake in the April '07 issue...Cologne Avenue Café has closed in Galloway Township AND IS NOW Gilchrist’s Offshore...Tokyo Blue Japanese restaurant will open on Route 130 in the location of the former Max’s in Cinnaminson.

We tasted an amazing and also inexpensive stew of clams and oysters at Allen’s Clam Bar in New Gretna.

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.