I’m not sold on Crust and Crumble and I think the food at the Biergarten is so so.
Other than those I enjoy all the restaurants on the list, but Reyla and Barrio are up there for me as well.
Hotel Tides as well.
Not sure what goes into these lists and exactly who makes them, but there is a big stink in New Orleans right now as some food blogger/site sent out notices to restaurants in town for a list he was compiling of the best restaurants to go to during Mardi Gras.
Most of the restaurants bashed him and called him out as he wanted $500 bucks to list your restaurant in the top ten etc.
Hi all! I actually work with Sarah (who wrote the article) and I can give a little bit of insight on how she/we (I’m also a food writer, but for NorthJersey.com ) pick this list. We definitely don’t take any money and pay for all of our meals. Most of the time the chefs don’t even know we’re coming. Everyone has different tastes, so we can definitely debate which restaurants belong on the list/don’t belong, but I wanted to hop in to clear up how certain restaurants make the list.
I have mixed feelings about lists such as this. For instance - I am a big fan of The Galley. I want them to be around for a long, long time. However, I don’t want them to suffer from too much success. Does that make sense to anyone but me?
As a truly great sage once said, " Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded."
Totally get it! I haven’t been over there yet but friends who have have said that it’s VERY good-just a tad more expensive than other places like it. My response is that they’re using much better quality ingredients (based on what I’ve seen/rea d).
We went to the Galley Friday night, packed and people coming in to pick up to go orders pretty steadily as well.
The burger is very good, their off the menu chicken parm sandwich is my wife’s favorite
In other news, Best Market in Holmdel finally had their swan song on Thursday. I’ll never understand what happened: a few months ago, Lidl bought them with the intent of turning it into a SECOND Lidl even though there was one two miles away, then out of nowhere a few weeks ago, announced that would not be so and instead was just shutting Best Market down. Was told that all employees were offered jobs at other Lidls but as the one cashier told me who I became friendly with, her option was over an hour away and she had to decline.
I’ll really miss their steaks, friendly employees, “old school” market vibes, and BOARS HEAD cold cuts. Plus they had liquor* and every once in a while a good/unique deal could be found on it, though usually it was a tad overpriced.
*They put most of their booze on clearance last week. Snagged a couple of White Claw 12-packs for $9.99 (normally $15-17) and this no-name whiskey that ended up being really good for $9. I actually went back two days later to grab more, and it was all gone.
) pick this list. We definitely don’t take any money and pay for all of our meals. Most of the time the chefs don’t even know we’re coming. Everyone has different tastes, so we can definitely debate which restaurants belong on the list/don’t belong, but I wanted to hop in to clear up how certain restaurants make the list. 
