GOOD TASTE IS A TROLLEY HOP AWAY

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May 5th, 2011 @ 6am

Toeknee Bianchi created this video document of the 2010 Taste of Sea Bright tour, which returns Saturday.

Think of it as a buffet a great, big, sumptuous, surprising, eclectic, indoor/outdoor, three-mile-long buffet. The kind where you need a trolley to get from one end to the other.

When the event known as Taste of Sea Bright returns for the latest in a successful series of culinary tours on Saturday, it will serve as a reminder that Monmouth County’s most stylishly slender borough knows how to eat very well indeed and that, in the words of Sea Bright Business Alliance director Joan Osgoodby, “this town is not just a summer romance.”

Scheduled to run “rain or shine” between the hours of noon and 5p, Taste of Sea Bright stands as the fifth such event since the epicurean excursions were first organized in 2008, as a way of reinforcing the community’s status as a year-round dining destination.

Presented either in early May or the late-summer days of September, the Taste tours are characterized by Osgoodby (proprietor of borough-based Advanced Marketing Solutions) as “an opportunity to get a sense of what our town’s all about the variety of experiences that include the beach atmosphere, the small-town convenience, and all of the delicious things going on at our restaurants.”

For a pay-one-price admission of $40, participants will be able to enjoy samples of food and beverages at each of the various stops, and in any order they wish along with unlimited shuttle transportation along the tour route, official event maps and “passports” that will allow them entry into a grand-prize Passport Drawing upon visiting all stops on the tour. There are also door prizes, giveaways and a complimentary Sea Bright Business Alliance tote bag to haul all that swag home.

More than a dozen sit-down dining spots, take-out eateries and purveyors of food and spirits from Something Fishy at the northernmost tip of 140 Ocean Avenue, down to The Dockside at number 1400 will take part, joined for the occasion by a set of booster-minded businesses that include a hair salon, a photography studio and an antiques shop. It’s a list that features such longtime mainstays of local life as The Mad Hatter as well as new neighbors like Philomena’s, the Italian ristorante (plus currently renovating riverfront tiki bar) that recently set up shop at the FairBanks Resort & Marina complex.

Conspicuous in its absence here in 2011 is Ichabod’s, the town-center landmark which (as reported here in redbankgreen) is scheduled to reopen under new owner Chris Wood as Woody’s Ocean Grille. According to Osgoodby, the Woody’s staff will be setting up an unofficial tour stop at the property to promote interest in the fully reimagined space that’s scheduled to open for business in early summer.

Among the non-restaurant stops, Sea Bright Supermarket will be offering tastings of craft beers and wines, while Waves Hair Studio will highlight a “gift wheel” (featuring various denominations of gift certificates), and Felicia Stratton’s Jersey Shore Skim Camp will continue its tradition of handing out such promotional giveaway items as novelty sunglasses.

While most of the stops on the tour are located well within walking distance of each other, the trademark trolleys will run continuously from noon through 6:30p and with three additional shuttle buses added to the Taste of Sea Bright fleet, Osgoodby emphasizes that ticketholders traveling to the far outposts of the route needn’t worry about spending precious tour time waiting for a ride back to the center of town.

“You’ve got time to get out at any stop on the tour, eat, and have a bus or trolley ready to pick you up minutes later,” says the director of the Alliance, whose other activities include a new seasonal schedule of summertime Movies on the Beach. “We keep it running smoothly, no matter what kind of weather we get that day and the rain never stopped anyone from coming out for this event.”

Admission tickets for the May 7 Taste of Sea Bright tour have been limited to a total of 1,000, and limited quantities are available for purchase at the participating businesses listed below (call ahead to check availability). Take it here for details on prize drawings, parking and other particulars.

Anjelica’s Restaurant

Bagel Boys, 1064 Ocean Ave. (732)450-1800

Brooks’ Something Fishy Restaurant

DIVE! A Coastal Bar, 1072 Ocean Ave. (&32)383-8151

The Dockside

Gracie & the Dudes Ice Cream

Jersey Shore Skim Camp

Jimmy Ryan Photography, 1070 Ocean Ave (2nd Fl.) (646)418-8802

Kotobuki – Fine Japanese Cuisine

The Liquor Store at Sea Bright, 1060 Ocean Ave. (732)842-8010

Look Back Antiques

Mad Hatter