A Girl Walks Into a Sushi Bar...

Name: Oh Yoko!
Location: 1428 Rte. 70 West, Cherry Hill, NJ
Personnel: Megan, Me
What We Ate: Okonomiyaki; Chef's Sushi Appetizer; House Salad; Grilled Barbecue Pork with Wasabi Fries and Julienne Vegetables
Condiments: Ginger Dressing; Wasabi Sauce
Observations: It sounds like the name of a chain but this Jersey-based Japanese BYO where the Fab Five provide an all-night soundtrack is actually independently owned. (Speaking of chains, I recently had my first encounter with the Bamboo Club, which was one of the most terrifying restaurant experiences in recent memory. Let's just say I've had more appetizing meals in hospital cafeterias.) At first, we were a little put-off by the aggressiveness of the service, which went well beyond the realm of helpful into the territory of domineering, essentially forcing us to order the Okonomiyaki. The server also laughed inexplicably when I ordered the pork chop. Inside joke? Nervous tic? Porcine issues? I had to hand it to her, though. The high-pressure appetizer was an intriguing blend of salty, sweet and smoky flavors and crisp, chewy and flaky textures. It was also a sight to behold: The Japanese-style pancake was topped with interlaced squiggles of sweet, soy-based sauce and a creamy white mayonnaise sauce and a feathery layer of bonito flakes that shimmered in the AC breeze. Nigiri sushi — salmon, halibut, tuna, red snapper and shrimp — was impeccably fresh and buttery soft. The hilarious pork chop (two big ones, actually) was grilled and served glossy with barbecue sauce, along with sides of carrot and squash sprinkled with sesame seeds and insanely addictive tempura fries with bright green wasabi sauce. I enjoyed my leftovers for lunch and dinner the next day, even though the fries were a little soggy by then. If Oh Yoko! suddenly went bigtime and took over, say, all the Bamboo Club franchises, I would certainly not complain.

Landlocked

Name: Cap'n Cat's Clam Bar
Location: Route 561, Voorhees, NJ
Personnel: Bethany, Rocky, Me
What We Ate: Garlic Steamed Clams, Rolls, Coconut Shrimp, Fried Oysters, Spicy Fries, Broiled Combination Deluxe (Scallops, Shrimp, Crabcake, Flounder), Coleslaw, Diet Rite
Condiments: Tartar Sauce, Cocktail Sauce, Piña Colada Sauce
Bill Total: $58
Observations: I don't know why I went looking for a taste of the sea in a Voorhees stripmall. In retrospect, it seems kind of dumb. It was a holiday weekend, though, and not having planned a trip to a beachy place, I was craving crustaceans. At the front Cap'n Cat's has a little fish counter. In the grubby back dining room, where we were seated, the service was slow and distracted. To start, we got a bowl of steaming clams for sharing, but since we had no plates of our own we had to huddle over it like it was fondue. The clams were rubbery and the broth was not rich enough to justify bread dipping. On a positive note, I was pleased to find Diet Rite on the menu, a beta cola that got pushed aside in the fierce Coke and Pepsi wars of the 80s. For a main, Rocky had oysters that were so heavily breaded they might have been cow thymus for all we knew. Bethany had fried coconut shrimp, which were a better choice — if only because they came with a piña colada sauce that tasted like the TGI Friday's cocktail mix they sell in the state store. My platter was hardly worth the $16.95. The crabcake had nice fresh meat but its crust was unappetizingly dark. The scallops came slightly overcooked; shrimp were tasteless; the fish was watery. Even the spicy fries were underwhelming. Also, as Bethany pointed out, it's kind of lame to serve condiments in wasteful plastic containers to people who are dining in. Would Red Lobster have been better? Perhaps.

A Slice of Jerz

Name: Romanza
Location: 1900 Greentree Road, Cherry Hill, NJ
Personnel: Keith, Jesse, Me
What We Ate: Caprese Salad, Pescatore Pizza, 1 Complimentary Roll, Diet Coke
Condiments: None
Bill Total: $24
Observations: Romanza is a modest joint in Cherry Hill, actually in the same shopping center as one of my favorite chaat places, Rajbhog. It's got kind of a split personality. On one side of the restaurant there is table service. On the other is a counter and the casual seating you usually find in a pizzeria. Like the seating plan, the menu also seems to merge two types of eating establishments. You've got your regional pizzeria fare — sandwiches, pizza, cheesesteaks, and variations thereof that can be embellished with cheesesteakiness. But there are also more traditional Italian pasta, veal and chicken dishes. On our visit we sat on the fancier side and ordered salad and a large, 17" Pescatore pizza. The salad was bland, oily and pale, with anemic tomatoes and half-dry ribbons of prosciutto, and it came with a single flour-dusty roll that we split between us. Fortunately, the pizza was an improvement. Chunks of garlic, tender clams, and the baby shrimp that in the wrong context can give me the willies were nestled in melted mozzarella on a chewy crust. It was briny and greasy in the best possible way. Good enough that I would go back, but only if I had a guarantee that I would not get sucked into the black hole of jughandles, incomprehensible signage, and generally frustrating road trickery that is New Jersey.

Ladies' Night

Name: Royal Orchid
Location: 370 East Windsor Plaza, Rte. 130, East Windsor, NJ
Personnel: Jon, Nicole, Jesse, Me
What We Ate: Complimentary Rice Crisps and Chili Sauce; Tom Yom Koong; Duck and Pineapple Salad; Thai Chili Shrimp; Bean Curd in Ginger Basil Sauce; Vegetable Green Curry; Chili Lamb; White Rice; Thai Iced Tea and Coffee.
Condiments: None
Bill Total: $73
Observations: I always assumed Ladies' Night was a way for bars to level the playing field and distract their male patrons from getting in brawls. Royal Orchid in East Windsor, NJ, however, is hardly a sausage party. On Mondays entrees are half price for the fairer sex, and you don't even have to wear a skirt. Apparently Royal Orchid's owner operates a gaggle of restaurants in the region, and his suburban empire managed to attract the attention of The New York Times. (Though it is unlikely, as the window posting suggests, that the 2003 review of Royal Orchid appeared on the front page.) The tabletops are glass, and beside each one is a wall-mounted mini-fountain, water running in a perpetual trickle over faux pebbles. Fully engaged paper umbrellas hang suspended from the ceiling. Even the menus are embellished with the three dimensional metallic elephants. It's all very pretty, very dressy. The offerings, ranging from escargot and frogs' legs to tamer noodle concoctions, are notated with warnings of pork (P) or nuts (N) or meatlessness (V). Everyone seemed to enjoy what they had. The shrimp, shellacked with chili glaze, were plump and luxuriant, though the duck in a pineapple sweetened salad was a little dry and chewy. In and of itself the food isn't front page material, but the deep discounts are certainly newsworthy.

Strong and Hot

Name: Sila Turkish Restaurant
Location: 4313 Rte. 130, Edgewater Park, NJ
Personnel: Aubrey, Me
What We Ate: Humus, Babaganus, Haydari, Aciliezme, Adana Kebab, Yogurt Kebab, Baklava, Turkish Coffee
Condiments: None
Bill Total: $48
Observations: I live for Turkish food. My sister Aubrey and I visited Turkey in the late-’90s and ate baklava every day for three glorious weeks. Now, when I dream, it's of pide, pine nuts and raisins. Unfortunately there is very little Turkish food in Philly. Sila was written up in the Inquirer about a year ago, and I have been waiting for the right opportunity to get there. It's about 20 minutes outside the city, in what has to be one of the most strip-mall-tastic parts of New Jersey. (Yet I wouldn't be surprised if I were wrong about this.) Aubrey came along for the trip because she was as excited as I was to relive our experience. Park Plaza is an odd little enclave that also hosts a Curves and a ballet school. Sila itself is quite fancy, with murals, and a dance floor and an area where the food is laid out under glass for ogling. Our bread came out with a dish of butter and crumbled feta cheese. We shared a selection of cold dips, which included the usual garlicky suspects. The babaganus (Turkish spelling) was wonderfully smoky. For an entree she had the yogurt kebab, a classic dish with roasted lamb and rich tomato sauce slathered on buttery bread cubes. I had oblong lamb patties, which had nice charcoal flavor. These were accompanied by traditional accompaniments: raw onions and parsley, a grilled tomato and a grilled chili pepper. Over the baklava, which was sweeter, more syrupy and rosier-tasting than what we usually get around these parts, we learned that Sila had changed ownership recently. Our teenage server, clad in a tuxedo vest, is the new owner's daughter. Next door, she told us, there's a men-only cafe and they are also building another room for daytime gathering. She wanted to make sure that we knew what we were getting into when we ordered the Turkish coffee. People had complained, she said, because they didn't realize how strong it was. We knew, we told her, and we had no complaints.

Big Champin'

Name: Champa Laos
Location: 219 Haddonfield Berlin Road, Cherry Hill, NJ
Personnel: Rachel, Me
What We Ate: Mang Sa Vi Raj (Vegetarian Appetizer Plate With Corncakes, Spring Rolls, Fried Tofu; Two Kinds of Vegetable Dumplings and Cabbage Salad); Aom Laos With Chicken; Sticky Rice; Wild Ginger Tofu; Coconut Jasmine Rice; Tea
Condiments: Chili Sauce; Fish Sauce; Sweet and Sour Sauce
Bill Total: $50
Observations: The owners of the excellent Cafe de Laos on 11th Street have now opened a suburban outpost in the Centrum Shoppes strip in Cherry Hill. Like Cafe de Laos, Champa Laos is beautifully decorated with vibrant colors and gold stenciled walls. The menu is a similar mix of Thai and Lao specialties, but if memory serves, some of the offerings are different. Either way, you can't really go wrong here: A vegetarian Thai style appetizer sampler is a great start, with delicate spring rolls, ginger-inflected corn cakes and blocks of golden fried tofu. These crisp, oily treats are nicely balanced with a shredded cabbage salad dressed in chili and lime. I loved the light, tangy broth of the Aom Laos curry, with its herby scent of lemongrass and dill. The accompanying sticky rice came in a traditional bamboo basket which, when you're done sopping up sauce with the rice, could double as a cute little purse. The service is friendly, too. A word of advice, though: If you plan to go to this restaurant, don't Mapquest it.

Continental Style

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Name: Coconut Bay Asian Cuisine
Location: White Horse Road, Voorhees, NJ
Personnel: Keith, Jesse, Me
What We Ate: Pickled Cucumbers With Chile Pepper; Hong Kong Noodle Soup With Seafood; Cold Sesame Noodles; Thai Fried Rice With Chicken, Pineapple and Raisins; Eggplant and Chicken in a Clay Pot; Lemon Jasmine Iced Tea
Condiments: None
Bill Total: $52
Observations:I read about Coconut Bay over the Internet, and we wanted to see Neil Young: Heart of Gold, so we decided to combine it with a blog dining outing nearby. (It should be noted that for a Philadelphian, New Jersey suburbs are exceedingly difficult to navigate. We drove around in a Mapquest-induced state of confusion until we finally realized that White Horse Pike and White Horse Road were two different thoroughfares.) Coconut Bay is in the Echelon Village Plaza, which boasts a Genuardi's and a Panera Bread.

If "Asian cuisine" sounds vague that's because the menu here truly spans the continent. You got your Malay beef, your Hirame, your Kung Pao, all in a fat bound volume that demands prolonged, furrowed brow concentration. I don't think restaurants ought to aim for diner-style comprehensiveness. It seems a little too deferential to picky diners. If we don't like curry, we'll go somewhere else. What we had was nicely presented, like the cold sesame noodles with cherry tomato buttons lining the plate, and the fried rice in a cute Polynesian pineapple bowl. The former was greasy and flavorless but the latter was actually quite zesty. I was surprised to find chunks of lobster tail floating in the Hong Kong noodle soup broth, but otherwise the dish was not worth the work of maneuvering two utensils. Jasmine iced tea was sweet, syrupy and herbal all at once, like a drinkable cough drop. We were running late for the movie so we didn't get a chance to sample dessert. (Oddly, there are only four on the menu.) It was all decent enough but next time I think I'd rather go back to Coriander, the excellent Indian restaurant a few doors down from the Ritz. The movie, on the other hand, was fantastic.

Goodbye Saigon

Name: Pho 38
Location: Route 38, Pennsauken, NJ
Personnel: Me
What I Ate: Banh Xèo Chay; Com Thit Nuong Bi Cha
Condiments: Nuoc Cham
Bill Total: $18
Observations: This particular strip mall has seen better days. Back when Flower World was still open and filling the parking lot with lawn tchotkes, Pho 38 was another Vietnamese restaurant called Saigon. Saigon was pretty good, and it had an elaborate fountain inside as well as a big aquarium—fancy, but in a way that was kind of decadent and depressing. Now the shopping center is all but vacant, the fountain is dried up and unplugged. Saigon has become yet another pho restaurant named after a number. (Good for remembering the address, but not so great for marketing purposes.) The aquarium is still there, though, and now there's a rotary shot dispenser on the bar that's filled solely with cognac. And fortunately, the food is still better than decent—as good as anything on Washington Avenue. You've got your array of pho, of course, each kind with one less meat than the next. There's steak, and steak and flank, and steak and flank and fatty tendon. And so on. I enjoyed the vegetarian Smiling Pancake, at once crisp and creamy, aromatic with coconut milk and punctuated with a smattering of cool mung beans. Of the many rice plates I chose the one with shreds of julienned pork, and slices of sweet marinated grilled pork, plus a wedge of egg cake, all of which got doused in tangy nuoc cham. Very tasty. Which is good, because Pho 38 might be this plaza's only hope for salvation.