What is considered "expensive" anymore? (NJ)

Regional Dining Discussions New Jersey
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So, I have mentioned Costa Verde in South Amboy as an example of LOW prices that just cannot be met. I’ve just come from there, so here’s the breakdown:

2 house Chardonnay for Justin, 2 Bombay Sapphire martinis, fried calamari appetizer, whole barbecued chicken for him, and grilled shrimp entree for me.

I remember my martinis being $8 and change and his wine $7 per glass when we ate there a month ago. Tonight, mine rung up as $10.25 (still great for Sapphire) but his were now $5. So it equated to the exact same. We sat in the bar area instead of dining room, so was there a difference? I don’t know.

When we ordered entrees, our server asked if we wanted “small or large portions”. I had never been asked that before. It was 9:30 PM so maybe she was considering the time and eating a big meal. It wasn’t for her benefit since they close at midnight (website says 2 AM but I think that’s not up to date). We both said small since we shared an app and had bread.

Anyway, check comes and I noticed our entree prices were a few dollars lower than what the menu said. I then saw that she charged us lunch prices. Like, who does such a thing??? How considerate. And honestly, what would dinner portions have been anyway? They gave me a dozen jumbo shrimp and his whole chicken was a whole chicken. So what’s the lunch/dinner difference? Or was it just to be nice? We’re semi regulars in the dining area (with a waiter I’ve known since I was a child who only works weekends) but we are not usually in the bar area. They didn’t know us from a hole in the wall.

Total bill before an appreciative tip: $76.

I’ll repeat: $76.

As given as examples in this thread, we have done drinks and apps at far inferior quality at other places for $100+ and still had to eat dinner when we got home.

I know this is a bad example because Costa Verde has been there forever and just has prices stuck in time. But its also nice that such a place still exists.

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I’m amazed and can’t believe that happened. Good to know I haven’t been there in years but that’s going to change.

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We don’t go out much anymore, but the problem with Costa Verde was that damn divided highway–we had to drive north of CV, then make all sorts of loops to turn around. I realize it wasn’t a really long distance, but it was annoying and confusing. Maybe with a GPS we could find a better route.

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Your story reminds me of about a year ago my wife and I went to Rincoln De Espana in Bayonne where my family is from. We got a pitcher of sangria, crab soup, a garlic shrimp app, a stuffed scallop app, Paella Valencia and a stuffed lobster and I think it was about $125.00. A couple of weeks before we went to Albarino and got less food that wasn’t as good for more than triple the price.

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Despite the fact that Costa Verde is about 20 minutes from our house, and we’ve passed by it countless times over the years, we’d never tried it. Intrigued by @gcaggiano’s post and, since we are still not doing indoor restaurant dining, I decided that we should try take-out. Since we wanted soup, I had to call to find out what the soup du jour was. I then gave my order and told the gal I spoke to what time we wanted to it up.

We ordered a quart of vegetable soup; a whole bbq chicken which comes with saffron rice, mxed vegetables and chips; and, when we were told the “chips” were not fries, we ordered those. I had been assured when I called to ask the previous evening that even though we were ordering in the afternoon, I could get the whole chicken from the dinner menu and not the 1/2 on the lunch menu. When we got to the restaurant, our order was ready. The cost was about $25. Mr. R. commented about how inexpensive that was.

When we got home, I found they’d givn us what appeard to be half of a huge loaf of bread. A nice surprise. However, we then enountered a major problem. Our intention had been to have enough food for two meals. Unfortunately, we discovered there was only half a chicken! There was a boatload of rice, plenty of vegetables, and lots of chips, plus the full order of fries. But with only half a chicken – and a fairly small one at that – the second meal, for which we needed the second half of the whole chicken, wasn’t going to happen. There is no way of knowing how the miscommunication at the restaurant happened. There is a $3 difference between the lunch 1/2 chicken and the whole dinner chicken. We were charged the lunch price. Perhaps if we had looked carefully at the receipt at the restaurant, we might have realized the mistake. (We paid cash to avoid the additional charge for using a credit card.)

The bread was terrific. The very flavorful soup had a nice assortment of ingredients: potatoes, carrots, red beans, and cabbage along with spaghetti, unusual in a veg soup. I thought the chicken was a bit dry while the rice, vegetables, and chips were tasty. The fries had gone limp, so to crisp them, I heated them in the oven.

If we had gotten the whole chicken, the cost of this take-out would have been a huge bargain. Even so, it was still very inexpensive in comparison to what we usually spend for restaurant meals, including take-out. In spite of the chicken glitch, we were pleased overall and will order take-out again from Costa Verde.

Photos of this meal can be seen in my Flickr here: Costa Verde (Take-out) | Flickr

(@eleeper: GPS easily got us from 9 North around and under the highway to 9 South very close to the restaurant.)

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Shorter version, Roz gives it 5.5 stars. (out of 10)

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I’m glad you found it worthy enough to order again, despite the mix-up.

This is a pic of Justin’s chicken from that night when we were charged the lunch prices. Looks whole to me but we can’t remember specifics.

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By the time we ate, it was 10 PM. Maybe they were just tired and threw in the whole bird!

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Thank goodness for Shanghai Bun , large Wonton soup, steamed dumplings & lunch special chicken dish $21.05 fed 2 of us and was delicious

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Shanghai Bun for us is two egg rolls, a large noodle soup, and two dishes from their “authentic” menu, from which we get three meals for the 2 of us for about $45 total.

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Yeah they’re the best. My brother & I went to my gym at Bell Works & nothing there interested us foodwise so since he was up from Florida and he was jonesing for dumplings and I wasn’t that hungry it was a perfect stop

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FYI:

While on the subject of Costa Verde, we ate there again last night since we were passing by on our way home. Justin had the chicken and rice ($21 I think) and it came in this massive pot that no human could ever finish. Even no apps or bread, not humanly possible.

He ate a decent amount and then tonight we BOTH ate the leftovers for dinner. I let him have all the chicken which was plentiful but we had shrimp in the freezer so I just took some rice for myself and had the shrimp on the side.

There were STILL leftovers. We got three full meals. And we eat a lot. Smaller appetites could be fed for a week.

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When I mentioned to my husband that Costa Verde has chicken and rice on menu — which I presume is the Portuguese version of the Puerto Rican arroz con pollo I’ve made many times — he said he’d like to try it. So maybe we’ll order that next time.

As I mentioned in my write-up, they gave us such a huge amount of rice with the half chicken that there was enough left over for me to use as a side with the breaded and fried chicken cutlets I made a few days later.

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Yes, it is their version of arroz con pollo. I can attest, as Justin is Puerto Rican. He loves theirs though it is admittedly not as flavorful and popping as the Puerto Rican version. But he’s very picky with such dishes and the fact that he actually enjoys this dish (not just tolerating or settling for it) says a lot.

A pot of yellow rice, cubed chicken, peas, diced carrots, and diced pimiento. As he ate through it, it was almost bottomless.

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Sorry, it has to have pigeon peas and olives to satisfy my Puerto Rican soul.

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@gcaggiano Thanks for the description! Glad Justin gives this version his seal of approval. The only time we ordered it in a restaurant was pre-pandemic at Latin Bites in Manalapan. It was very disappointing. I posted about it here.

Latin Bites, Manalapan - Regional Dining Discussions / New Jersey - Hungry Onion

The recipe I use I clipped ages ago from The NY Times. Always delicious. I did try America’s Test Kitchen’s version once after seeing their cooks prepare it on an ATK tv episode. Didn’t think it was nearly as good.

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So while we’re discussing Portuguese & inexpensive let me discuss Saturdays late lunch at Marbelo. We were in the neighborhood and exhausted from car shopping we decided to take a chance.
It was excellent nowhere near as inexpensive as Costa Verde but we had 2 different Paella’s a small pitcher of Sangria which was enough for 4 glasses
A cappuccino and a coffee just over $100, ok I realize CV would have been about half but we did have plenty of leftovers & the warm crusty bread was served with a great garlic herbed butter. Saw lots of people ordering steak so maybe that’s the house specialty we will try dinner there sometime but we will see if we can get to CV soon.

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Resurrecting this thread because I recently had dinner with a friend and was blown away by the prices at Miznon Kosher, which is at Bellworks in Holmdel. I’ve been a fan of the building/concept from the outset so I do know what to expect there. We weren’t able to go on a night when Mabel was open (next time!), so we ended up at Miznon.

For starters, I absolutely love Israeli/Mediterranean food, so I was happy when my friend suggested we try this spot (which replaced Hummus & Co.), which I had enjoyed on previous visits. Miznon has a liquor license but a very small selection of wines by the glass/bottle or your choice of just a few cocktails. We each had the Arak ‘mojito’ and were happy with those ($14 ea, which is in line with most places, imo).

We then ordered the ‘Bag of Green Beans’ which was EXACTLY that - see photo below. The surprise was they weren’t just served room temp, but cold. That said, they were garlicky and lemony and we enjoyed them. I ordered the Lamb Kabab Plate, which had 2 large lamb kofte kebabs already taken off the skewer - NOT cubes of lamb (which is what I had expected) but the truth is that I prefer the kofte style, so I was happy! My only complaint was the minimal (understatement) amount of grilled onions and the (maybe) teaspoon of tahini sauce under the lamb. It also came with one small thick pita. $28. My friend ordered the ‘Golden Bag of Meat’ (no, I’m not making up these names), which was a BAG of brisket and onions, also $20-something (it’s not on today’s menu so I can’t be sure).

The place is casual - you order and pay at the counter, and then they had someone delivering the food and clearing it when we were done. It’s lively - there’s culturally-relevant music playing, and even on a weeknight, there were plenty of people in there.

I know that Kosher meat is expensive, but the bill for the two of us at this very casual spot with tip was close to $120 - 2 bottles of water, 2 cocktails, green beans, and 2 entrees. And while the entrees were served on trays, they were sitting on paper and/or in BAGS. Odd concept. If I had a falafel sandwich served that way for lunch, I wouldn’t think twice about it, but it’s a stretch for entrees and certainly entrees at that price point.

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Yikes. I picked up a menu last time I was there and was pretty surprised too. Would you go back?

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I might try it for lunch, but definitely not for dinner again. The lamb I had was very tasty - no issue there. The official plan for next time is dinner at Mabel!

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I live in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and the restaurant prices here are generally higher than at comparable spots in Manhattan too. It’s so bizarre to me. I get that there are a number of things that drive up costs here: We live far away from both coasts. It’s a desert, so seafood and some produce are more expensive. And, as a very car-based city, there’s almost no place outside the university area that has reliable foot traffic. But our commercial rents are less than a third of NYC rents. Our advertising costs are nowhere as expensive. And minimum wage is considerably lower than NYC’s. I guess the combination of high demand and fierce competition in NYC keep restaurant prices from skyrocketing as they have elsewhere in the US. But our New Mexico restaurant prices are still bewildering to me.