THE BLUE DANUBE

Last night I ate a tremendous meal, and I ate it in Trenton. And I ate it at a restaurant that I'm betting most followers of this blog have never heard of.

The kids and I joined friends (Dr. John Hamada, his son Joe, Joe's schoolmate Max and John's friend Teresa) for dinner at The Blue Danube, tucked away on tiny Elm St., just off Broad St. not too far from the Sun Bank arena, in Trenton's South Ward. John is a chiropractor and accupuncturist, and before moving to quieter and safer Pennington to practice his healing arts, he had a well-known and vital office practice just a few blocks away from the restaurant.

It was one of the best dinners I've had in a restaurant in years.The Blue Danube is old school, and it specializes in Hungarian, Romanian, German and Polish cuisine. But instead of the
heavy gravies and sometimes leaden preparations that are often associated with these cuisines, the dishes we enjoyed last night were executed with a light touch and a deft hand. Some of this food brought back echoes from my childhood, growing up with both Italian and Polish grandmothers who were themselves terrific cooks.

At the Blue Danube, Peter Pulhac, who owns the restaurant with his wife, Margaret, is the chef and he is a master of his domain, an extensive menu of the familiar and not so familiar. We started with soups: a dark, rich cream of mushroom filled with a dice of several mushroom varieties; a chicken-spinach-egg drop soup with an intensely chickeny broth, shreds of chicken and tangles of spinach and egg, a spectacular soup; and cream of potato-tomato, a blush pink, surprisingly light cream soup with a whisper of dill, a really stunningly simple cup of potato and tomato goodness. Pierogies were also surprisingly light dough wrappers plumped with potato and cheese, glossed with sauteed onions. Potato pancakes were two big, golden, greaseless, peppery-oniony discs that overlapped the salad plate on which they were served. They were firm but amazingly light.
Entrees included chicken parmigiana and spaghetti for the kids, and one of the best versions of chicken parm I've ever had in a restaurant. Beef Stroganoff was a silky, creamy stew of beef over feather-light spaetzle, the beef almost sweet with hints of nutmeg and wine; pork schntizel was a huge, flawlessly, greaselessly fried cutlet atop a puddle of brown gravy, sided with some curly buttered noodles and sauteed spinach studded with garlic; beef goulash was intense with paprika,dill and onion notes with more of those good noodles, and brussels sprouts studded with bacon alongside. Entrees were in the low teens. Low teens. Low teens!

Desserts were a glass goblet of tira misu that was so good, we ordered another; a Romanian flaky pastry stuffed with ricotta cheese; a chocolate mousse pie that my son Ben gobbled up in about 4 bites, and some very good coffee.

The dining room at Blue Danube is small and cozy, the service is gracious and deferential,the music is gentle polkas and various folk music and the wine list features some well chosen Hungarian and Eastern European wines, a few domestic bottles for the unadventurous, and some decent German, Polish and Czech beers.

This was a deeply satisfying meal, at a place worth discovering. Savvy Trentonians have been eating here for years, but I'm betting many of you have never heard of the place. Don't wait. This is a restaurant worth supporting. I plan to be back soon--and often.

The Blue Danube
Elm & Adeline Sts.
Trenton, NJ 08611
609-393-6133
www.bluedanuberestaurant.net
Facebook: Blue Danube Restaurant

TRENTON MAKES

I've lived in the greater Trenton area for over 14 years now, and despite its shockingly inept, nakedly corrupt current mayor and his cadre of cronies, the town has grown on me. I'm crazy for the city's tomato pie (don't say pizza). Waterfront Park is a jewel of a ballpark, hugging the Delaware River. Cadwallader Heights and Mill Hill are two gorgeous neighborhoods that proudly survive despite the crumbling elsewhere in the city. The Art All Night festival in June is an unexpectedly, wacky, intensely creative 24 hours of fun. And the city has a great, hard-nosed newspaper, The Trentonian, to which I've become addicted. Terrific sportswriting and provocative columnists--Jeff Edelstein is flat out hilarious, even when he's making a serious point--and some of the best headline writers in the country.

Well, a few days ago, I---actually The Omnivore---was invited to be part of the paper's Blog Center, and yesterday a link to this blog appeared on the paper's website. You can find us in the Blog Center's LIFE section, alongside some really cool fellow bloggers. Now I have some more jewels of Trenton to explore: the minds and hearts and opinions of other bloggers like me.

So WELCOME to all of you new visitors to this space! I'll try to make the posts here as interesting, timely and compelling as possible. Lotsa food and beer and wine and life stuff. Just read below a little bit and you'll get the idea of where I'm coming from. And let me know what you think. We're all going to be part of a very exciting newspaper adventure. Hang on for a while.

TWO FOR TRENTON.

Last week I had the good fortune to eat at TWO terrific new restaurants in Trenton.
Yes, Trenton.

There's been a bit of a culinary lull in the town, with the departure of several Chambersburg places for the outlying suburbs, but these two new places are very good news indeed.Last Sunday I joined friends for a great dinner at the new La Tropical, corner of Lalor and Centre Sts., in the place that was once The Corner Inn. The re-do is impressive, cream and pumpkin colored plaster walls, new large windows and some skylights. Spaces that were once in shadows at The Corner Inn are now inner porticos with romantic tables for two.

The food here is classic Puerto Rican, with pasteles, rellenos de papa, exquisite pernil and the best mofongo I have had anywhere, including 3 trips to Puerto Rico (and the mofongo landmark, Ajili Mojili).We ordered a plate of pasteles, pastellidos bistec and pernil, and relennos de papa, and they were all terrific, light, greaseless and filled with well roasted and seasoned beef and pork. The rellenos de papa are huge and as addictive as crack. Be careful with them, at just 2/$2.50, they are a huge bargain. In fact the entire menu is quite inexpensive.There were a half dozen aguas, and we tried them all; I liked the tamarindo and horchata myself. Kids liked them too.At the hearty recommendation of a friend who had been there several times already, I ordered the pernil as my entree, a heaping platter of roast pork and crispy skin, rice with pigeon peas and plantains, with soupy red beans in a dish on the side. 11 bucks. But the highlight for me was the mofongo. We ordered a mofongo with shrimp, and it was a huge ball of mashed plantain, overflowiong with good fresh shrimp studded inside and flowing outside of the mofongo. Moist, flavorful, with broth for dipping, though it was not necessary.Best I've ever had. Killer.

Grilled chicken and skirt steak with onions were the kids' dishes and they were both superb. The kids menu has some expected stuff, but I ordered traditional stuff for them from their menu and they, and I, enjoyed the platters. Portion are huge, even for the kids' meals. 4 adults and 4 kids, dinner check was around 90 bucks. Amazing.


THE VERY NEXT DAY, I found myself in an unfamiliar place: downtown Trenton, a wasteland of a downtown if ever there was one. But rounding the corner onto E. State St, I spied a large sign on a newer building that said "KEBAB HOUSE", and I had to find out more. Kebabs, felafel, hummus, gyros, salads on the menu in the window. It's at 226 E. State St. and they have a website: http://trentonkebabhouse.com/. It was just past lunchtime and a patron exiting the place, says: "Good stuff, man. Gotta try the place."

And so we did. Nice enthusiastic staff, including the owner, a Turkish man who formerly owned a limousine service. A co-worker is dropping fresh felafel mixture into a bowl to make patties. I order a felafel sandwich and a doner kebab gyro platter. Lentil soup. Chicken kebab, too. Salads come with the platters, dressed a zingy lemony dressing. Lentil soup arrives and is pureed red lentils, redolent of mint and garlic. Fantastic. It's always on the menu, the waitress tells us. I can see why.All the other food arrives next and it's madness at the table, but fun, Good french fries, good hummus, good grilled pita for dipping.. Felafel and gyro sandwiches are huge. Chicken for the chicken kebab platter comes in large chunks, expertly grilled. Owner checks on us quickly, and we're too engagged to do anything put give thumbs up. Kids are munching on everything. All is right with the world. I'm a sucker for any felafel, but I must say that the felafel here does fall a bit short, oddly blander than any Ive had before. Everything else we're eating is as well made as any Turkish/Middle Eastern food we've ever had. And we've had a lot of those cuisines. On second inspection, the menu here is quite large, with baba ganoush, other salads, kefta and other Turkish and Middle Eastern dishes. Worth follow-up visits. MANY follow-up visits. I hope they attract the business to stay open. This one is a keeper.