“A good space with friendly energy,” the Sledger says.
Today’s Star-Ledger reviews the Bistro at Red Bank, and finds that the Broad Street eatery manages to pull off an eclectic menu while adding “an effervescent buzz” to the downtown.
From the review:
The trouble with many something-for-everyone restaurants is that they usually fall flat with all that striving; here the strategy works.
One reason: The Bistro has an executive chef and an executive sushi chef, whose expertise was evident in the tuna trio (a combination of sushi, sashimi and spicy tuna) and the Zoe roll (salmon, tuna, tobiko and crisp little bits of asparagus).
The tuna was as deeply red and translucent as stained glass in a church window, not quite but almost as perfect as the tuna we once ate just hours off the boat. The generous Zoe roll is as impressive as it is beautiful.
We liked, too, the Kobe beef pot stickers ($12), the refreshingly crisp gazpacho, the generous and spicy crisp chicken and vegetable egg rolls. The lobster filling in the ravioli ($20) was creamy and lush, clamped into surprisingly large and sturdy pasta, which itself was as vividly red as a Chinese dragon; the best part of this dinner was the lobster meat hidden in the side of sautéed greens. A gigantic Kobe burger ($15), all smoky and meaty under a brioche bun, was all you could ask for in a burger and more. A thin-crust pizza margherita ($11) was simple and light, its sauce sweet.
