Recently, my wife and I celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary. We started our romantic evening at my 9-year-old daughter’s school open house where we met the parents of the other kids in her class and learned about the upcoming year.

That put us in the mood to go out for a romantic dinner at an incredible local restaurant called Savona where we could dine, enjoy an adult beverage and reminisce about our years together and the school open house we just attended.

We have been to Savona several times but it is a very high-end restaurant that we frequent only on very special occasions.  We have enjoyed their tasting menu, as well as their wine pairings because of their extraordinary, diverse wine cellar.  The service is impeccable and the atmosphere pleasant and comfortable. But all these stellar attributes come at a price and that is why we dine there only on special occasions.

That is until now. Executive Chef Andrew Masciangelo and his partner Stephane Buliard added a new dimension to the restaurant by adding a comfortable outdoor patio and upstairs lounge that offer a more casual menu featuring regional Italian dishes inspired by the Chef’s Abruzesse heritage.

You still get the great service, the wonderful atmosphere, the incredible wine list and the extraordinary food coming from Chef Masciangelo kitchen but at very affordable prices. And if you do want to order something from the downstairs menu to go with your more casual entree like I did, that’s available too.

Our Night’s Fare

photo from Savona Restaurant

My wife was there a few weeks earlier with a friend and recommended I order the Yellow Fin Tuna Ribbons, Baby Tomatoes served with a Violet Basil dressing. This appetizer came from the downstairs menu. The tuna was excellent and the presentation was astonishing because they served the dish on a plate-sized square of ¼ inch thick ice.

My wife started with a classic Caesar Salad with hearts of romaine and a homemade Caesar dressing. The serving was large and could easily be enough for two especially if you want to share one of Chef Masciangelo’s other great looking starters including golden fried artichoke hearts  or Tuscan white bean soup topped with a Parmigiano Reggiano  melt.

For our entrees I ordered orecchiette pasta, those are the ones that look like little ears, homemade fennel sausage, broccoli rabe in what I think was a veal stock reduction sauce. I have made a dish like this at home but with mozzarella cheese and a tomato based sauce but this dish was simply elegant.

My wife was served Loch Duart salmon with braised escarole, white beans and pancetta. Loch Duart salmon is from northern Scotland where they use “safe, sustainable techniques to produce lean, fit fish.”  They use a “Best Practice” method of producing fish by rotating the areas they farm fish and leaving each area fallow one in every three years. Great idea and one we should be practicing off our own coastlines.

I’m not sure how they prepared the dish but it looks like they started out by pan searing one side of the salmon and finishing in a poaching liquid. I will have to contact Chef Masciangelo and see if I can get him to participate on my Novice2Pro interview page and get his secret to this dish. It was delicious.

For dessert, we each had a decaf cappuccino and shared the Warm Chocolate Cake served with Vanilla Gelato. This was luscious and when the waiter took the clean plate away and asked how it was, I told him jokingly it needed a little more of the scrumptious vanilla gelato. He told me next time ask them to add two scoops. I think I will.

photo from Savona Restaurant

Wines

I mentioned Savona has an extraordinary wine cellar. Well actually I’m not sure if it’s in the cellar or not because we sat next to a large glass windowed wine storage area upstairs and I noticed other large wine storage cabinets across the way from where we were sitting.  Let’s put it this way, this restaurant takes their wines very seriously.

My wife started off with an Extra Dry Prosecco by Fantinel from Veneto Italy. Prosecco is a sparkling wine similar to champagne and a great alternative at a very reasonable price.

With dinner she enjoyed a 2007 Wilson Vineyard Viognier from Clarksburg, California while I tried a glass of 2007 Morellino di Scansano, Santa Vincenza from Tuscany, Italy. They were both delicious and worked well with our meals.

It was a great experience and now that we have become familiar with the casual dining option at Savona, we are bound to be there more frequently. I only wish I knew of this menu sooner.

Just because you are at the Jersey shore doesn’t mean you can’t find innovating food and be stuck eating sausage and peppers, overcooked fried flounder or any of the other foods we equate with beach resorts. Last night we had a fabulous meal at a relatively new restaurant called Jay’s On Third in Stone Harbor, NJ and a few nights ago we dined at Quahog’s Seafood Shack  for one of my favorite entrees, Grilled Barbecue Pacu Fish Ribs.

Jay’s opened last year and we heard about it from some friends who dined there last week. Don, from Texas and a big steak fan, described the Hanger Steak with BBQ butter sauce as one of the top 5 hanger steaks he has ever eaten and his wife Kim loved the Tuna Tartare & Sashimi.

Chef – Owner  Jason Hippen, whom I met after the meal and found very personable, put together a great culinary resume before opening Jay’s  On Third. He graduated culinary school at the Academy of Culinary Arts in Mays Landing and over the years worked with some of the top chefs at some of the most esteemed restaurants including Jeffery Chodorow’s Red Square, Stephen Starr’s Buddakan, Morimoto, Sumile and Aureole in New York City.

I read a 2008 review of Jay’s On Third in the Shore News Today that said,

“After graduation, he found a job in Philadelphia that changed the course of his career, but it didn’t come without some humbling advice from celebrity chef Morimoto, of Iron Chef fame.

“Boy, did he ever kill me. ‘Get rid of your bad habits right now,’ he would tell me. ‘This is a five-star restaurant. I don’t care what you think you’ve learned so far.’ But that job really boosted my career,” Hippen said.”

Chef Jason, who grew up in Wildwood, NJ, told me his mom is from Thailand and his sous chef , who also graduated from the Academy of Culinary Arts, is from the Philippines  and their menu really brings out the cultural heritage from both regions. I enjoyed a delicious Red Snapper with long beans, aromatic Jasmine rice, toasted cashew nuts and a Thai coconut Langoustine sauce that was incredible. I’m hoping to interview Chef Jason and get him to share this recipe with me.

The kids split the Grilled Hanger Steak Medallions that were served with fresh local fingerling potatoes, green asparagus and a BBQ butter and there was nothing left to share with their dad. Lucky for me someone else ordered the steak and I was able to glom a bite.  My wife ordered the salmon special, which was served with a pureed pesto and asparagus.  I didn’t get much of that either!

We started out table sharing the Crisp Calamari appetizer served with Japanese Chile salt, Napa cabbage & lime aoli as well as the “Tempura” Gulf Shrimp with asparagus & Japanese seaweed. I only wish there were more of them, they were so delicious.

Because Jay’s On Third is BYOB, we enjoyed his “fresh and fragrant” food with a Ferrari Carrano fume blanc and a Burgess Cabernet Sauvignon. The wines worked well with everything on the table.

We never got to the desserts because everyone wanted to go to Springer’s Homemade Ice Cream but I’m sure they would have been delicious. A few of us enjoyed wonderfully prepared espressos after dinner before the march to Springer’s.

And one last thing I would like to mention is the service was impeccable. You may have heard me say this in other posts, but to me I don’t care how good the food is at a restaurant if the service is off, the meal is ruined.

Here at Jay’s, the 66 seat dining room was run like clockwork. Granted the room wasn’t full because it was late on a Monday night, but you got the sense the staff knew what they were doing and were professional. Really makes a difference in the dining experience.

I hope to interview Chef Jason soon and share with you some of his thoughts on cooking and maybe a few of his secrets for those amazing sauces. You can learn more about Chef Jason and Jay’s On Third at his web site.

Big Recipe Contest - Taste of Something Better

The folks at LG Electronics along with one of my favorite cooking magazines, Bon Appétit are looking for “foodies, gourmands and gastronomes” to enter their Taste of Something Better recipe contest and cooking competition. They are looking for “original recipes from “amateur chefs across the nation, challenging top entrants to a cook-off in the LG kitchen at the highly anticipated Bon Appétit Supper Club & Café® in New York City this September. ”

The competition is open to all “home chefs and cooking enthusiasts” but professional chefs are not allowed to enter. You are asked to submit your favorite “entree recipe for a chance to demonstrate (your) culinary chops first-hand in a national cook-off event.” The top three recipe finalists will be selected by renowned chefs and food critics and get the chance to participate in the LG “Taste of Something Better” competition in New York City.

“Some of the best culinary innovations were born out of the home kitchen, and we would like to recognize and give amateur chefs the opportunity to share their masterpieces with the world,” said Peter Reiner, senior vice president, marketing and strategy, LG Electronics USA. “LG strives to make everyone feel like a talented chef by providing them with the tools to cook up something better in the kitchen, including our a new line of gas cooktops, built-in wall ovens and ranges, all blending powerful performance and sleek, contemporary design.”

The competitors in the New York City event will have a chance to represent the United States in LG’s global “Life Tastes Good” cooking competition taking place in Bangkok, Thailand in November. The top three competitors can win

• Grand prize:  Trip for two to Thailand to compete in LG’s global cooking competition, a premium LG kitchen package, including gas cooktop, double wall oven,  4-door French-door refrigerator, dishwasher and microwave oven, along with $1,000 to enjoy while in New York for the competition.
• Runner-up: LG premium appliance package including gas cooktop, double wall oven and 4-door French-door refrigerator, along with $1,000 to enjoy while in New York.
• Second runner-up: LG double wall oven, along with $1,000 to enjoy while in New York.

How To Enter

For more information, answers to your questions and how to enter your recipe, go to  www.lgcookbetter.com.

Looks like fun with a chance for some great prizes.