I have never been to the Jersey Shore before and like most people probably only know about it from the awful MTV show. So I was never really dying to spend any time where most people spend their days fist pumping. But when a B-school friend of mine invited me and a bunch of us down to her house in Spring Lake, I was actually pretty excited because it just seemed like something I should do at least once in my life. I should say that Spring Lake is not the same area where they filmed the show and it was so much nicer and more peaceful than I pictured it. I was surprised by how much I really liked it down there. It was a gorgeous and lovely beach town.
While most of the time we were being lazy bums and tanned by the pool, we did manage to go out to dinner Saturday night. We had 7:30 reservations at Brandl and we got there about 10 minutes after our designated time but we figured it wouldn't be too big of a deal. When we checked in with our hostess, she looked like she could really care less that we were there, so that was kind of annoying to deal with. When she told us that our table wasn't ready yet, we asked how long it would be. She looked like we had asked her some quantum physics question "I have no idea". Now, mind you, this was not a huge restaurant and as a hostess I really do expect them to be trained to give an answer to that commonly asked question. She mentioned that we could sit at the BYOB bar while we waited, which was fine since we had brought 7 bottles of wine with us. So then we sit at the bar and then proceeded to be ignored for 15 minutes and then finally when they bring us wine glasses, they only brought enough for half of our party. The hostess finally comes around and tells us that if we want to sit outside, a table will be ready soon. As a follow-up, we ask how long it would be for a table inside and again, it's a deer caught in headlights look "Ummm, I don't know". Awesome. We didn't feel like waiting so we opted for the table outside, but honestly it was not ideal because there was a local band playing outside and it totally drowned out all of our conversations. When we asked how long they would be playing for...you guessed it, "Uhh, I guess until the sun sets?".
At this point we were a bit grumpy but doing ok with the wine. When we did sit down, the waiter totally redeemed the experience from the clueless hostess. He immediately apologized for the wait and even brought out complimentary calamari as a thank you. Now that's great customer service. While it was a nice gesture, the calamari was ok. It was a bit greasy and the breading wasn't binded to the squid enough, so a few times I would grab a piece and the breading just fell off entirely. The menu here is mostly seafood since it's located near the beach but it does also have a few delicious sounding chicken, duck, and lamb options. As a seafood lover, I was torn between scallops, tuna, shrimp or lobster. I ended up ordering the special salad of the day which was green zebra heirloom tomatoes, pea shoots, goat cheese with thick cuts of bacon and the signature dish of the restaurant the lazy lobster ($35). The salad was exactly how it was described but I wish it was heavier on the greens instead of the bacon. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love me some thick cut bacon, but it didn't really feel like much of a salad but rather a bacon dish with some side vegetables sprinkled near it. Then we waited and waited for our entrees. Thank god for all the wine we had. At this point, it was definitely after sunset and the band was still in full gear so clearly they had no idea how long they would be playing for. Our entrees finally came out and I was very impressed with the presentation of the lazy lobster. There were huge chunks of the tail and claw and I was ready to dive in. The dish had a risotto base with bits of asparagus and then it was all poached with vanilla bean butter. While I did appreciate the large pieces of lobster, I wasn't a huge fan of the vanilla bean flavoring. It just didn't sit well with a seafood dish and besides that it was lacking any major seasoning. I could have done with less to no vanilla bean and more dashes of basic salt and pepper.
At the end of our meal, the waiter brings out 2 of their signatures souffles, again on the house as a thank you for being so patient. I have to say I've never seen or heard of this level of graciousness before so I do really want to acknowledge that they went out of their way to do right by us. There was one dark chocolate souffle and another white chocolate version with raspberries. Even though I'm not a white chocolate person, I really enjoyed the white chocolate one because it had a nice light fruity touch to it and didn't taste like white chocolate at all. The chocolate one was pretty heavy and more cake-like than souffle like. All in all, I really appreciated the effort they made to fix what was initially kind of a crappy welcome. The food itself was fine but honestly definitely not the caliber of something you'd get in the city (especially at those prices). Total bill: $68/pp with tax and tip.
Photo Credit: Yelp
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