Lambertville is a funky place. This small New Jersey city has a deep history dating back to 1732 and has visible ties to the Revolutionary War era. Beautiful row houses and narrow streets give this town a distinct historic charm.
There is a level of diversity we see here that we haven’t seen since living in cities like San Francisco and Portland. LGBT friendly, it is replete with artists, musicians, and a vibrant culinary scene that contributes to the rich culture of the town. It is a perfect mirror of neighboring New Hope which is right across the Delaware River in Pennsylvania.
We’ve dined at a number of restaurants here. The area provides a variety of different eateries whether it being Peruvian or an upscale steak house. One of our favorite places to visit is Bell’s Tavern.
It is a quaint yet very busy Tavern that’s has been family owned for years that offer excellent cocktails, wine and beer, and every Tuesday, they create a twenty dollar bottle wine menu and a twelve dollar pasta menu that comes with a salad and garlic bread.
My wife opted for the linguine with meat sauce. The portions are massive and we ended up taking half home. For an additional three dollars more, you can order another bowl. The pasta was cooked perfectly and their sauce was amazing. For two people, you could have wine and a full meal for less than twenty five dollars a person.
I opted for a steak, with mashed potatoes and a side of sautéed spinach. I haven’t had a steak in over a year, and it was spectacular. It was also accompanied by a side of roasted red bell peppers. Cooked a perfect midrare. The side of spinach had hints of chili flakes and a generous amount of garlic. We devoured it, no questions asked.
The place is always lively with a great mix of folks who frequently dine here. The service is friendly and efficient. We didn’t feel rushed even though the dining room filled up quickly. Our next visit we plan on sitting at the bar. It always gives off a party vibe when we pass through.
I highly recommend Bell’s Tavern to anyone who appreciates a well executed menu with great, friendly service.
La Maya Hellertown
June 2, 2026
In the vast culinary landscape of rural South East Pennsylvania, using the old adage needle in a haystack phrase rings true on many occasions when you are attempting to find food that doesnt fall under the category of tavern, Italian or diner.
I get it. The area is replete with my fellow working class folks who enjoy simple meals, but we are definitely witnessing a gentrification of areas once home to acres upon acres of farmland. Sprawling fields of agriculture being gobbled up by subdivisions of McMansions as far as the eye can see.
We find ourselves venturing outside of Bucks County to seek out food that doesn’t usually fit into the categories I just previously mentioned. Hellertown is a charming little borough in the Lehigh Valley county of Northampton.
Founded in 1742, Hellertown consists of a modest downtown that is home to a number of restaurants that continue to draw us to this charming hamlet. Typical Mexican restaurants where we live simply don’t exist or they aren’t very good. This place was highly recommended. We made the choice. Off to Hellertown we go!
Even though the place has a feeling of slight appropriation and a tad hipsterish, we do appreciate good food made with local ingredients. All in house liquor is PA made and it’s a scratch kitchen so we entered the vestibule with an open mind.
The bar and dining area is shotgun designed that seats around forty guests. It is well decorated and unlike typical Mexican restaurants.
Perusing the menu, we were greeted by an eager server who was definitely trained to steer us to fan favorites that he highly recommended. Having never dined here before, we put our faith in his hands and chose items from the menu he suggested.
We first decided on two cocktails. La Moda Mexicana and the Coco Pasion. Both delicious.
Our server suggested their most popular appetizers to start. The ceviche and guacamole and chips. We enjoyed the flavors of both dishes though they could have been simplified a bit so they could be navigated easier. The seafood on the ceviche was cut extremely small so we fumbled when trying to make it’s way to our mouths and the two large tortilla shells didn’t work well when breaking them apart as we dug into the guacamole.
We moved on to one of our favorite appetizers. Enfrijolada is Queso Oaxaca, corn and wild mushroom stuffed tortilla, bean sauce, habanero crema, and queso fresco. We found the flavors unique. It was a fantastic dish.
We shared the Pescado a la Talla which is butterflied grilled branzino, marinated in salsa verde, topped with red cabbage slaw, morita salsa, and verde cruda, served with house-made tortillas. It was delicious though we probably wouldn’t order it again. The amount of bones I encountered made it difficult to navigate and the micro greens made it difficult to identify the random bones as well.
We enjoyed our visit. Despite some of my mixed reviews on what we chose, we will definitely return. Their menu is extensive and veggie friendly which our dining companion really enjoyed as well.
The Only Tavern We Support
September 7, 2025
I realize Bucks County has a ways to go to achieve what other areas of the country have gained culinary. It’s rural, sparsely populated, and isn’t pushing envelopes we’ve been used to.
I get it. If you are going to serve food that pleases the common working man, you have to do it right. It has to be consistent, and above all, it has to taste good.
In the last couple of years, we’ve been loyal patrons at The Gardenville Hotel. A historic mid seventeenth century former hotel. With ties to the Revolutionary War, it is a wonderful tavern that serves really good American fare.
We only just recently started going there. One reason is I was already a chef at a Doylestown Tavern call The Farmhouse. We really had no reason to venture out to any other taverns because my wife loved my cooking, and I became acquainted with many regulars who were an integral part of my social life. Plus, other taverns in the area couldn’t touch our quality of the food.
After leaving The Farmhouse in 2023, we struggled to find a decent place for a burger or wings. We lived just down the hill from Gardenville and thought of the place as a drinking establishment vs. a full service restaurant.
One afternoon, we decided on drinks at Gardenville and wandered in. The bar was funky and old. Deer heads all over the walls, various pictures on the walls, many showcasing the owner’s fishing jaunts, and we immediately felt at home.
The servers, who have been there years, provide some of the friendliest and attentive service we’ve ever experienced.
Since we now go at least twice a week, they anticipate our needs immediately. It’s a rarity to find places like this in our area. Most of the Taverns just don’t care enough to go the extra mile. This place blows most local Taverns away.
We highly suggest their wings, the burgers are excellent as well as amazing fish and chips and turkey anything. It isn’t cheap, but nothing really is post pandemic. We only sit at the tables in the bar. That’s where the fun really is. The dining room is More suited for families and older folks. We like the buzz the bar provides.
The Gardenville Burger
Our Wedding Anniversary Trip To Easton Pennsylvania
August 30, 2025
We’ve been to Easton a number of times. It reminds me of old cities that still have their architectural charm like Cincinnati and Wheeling West Virginia. Both cities are surrounded by hills and turn of the century buildings.
We’ve never stayed overnight before and usually just visit their marketplace, which I wrote about earlier on this blog.
My wife surprised me by booking us a suite at the Grand Eastonian Hotel. They’ve turned a 1927 hotel into condominiums and reservable rooms and suites. Our suite was gorgeous with a balcony looking over the city and also has a heated salt water pool that was amazing.
Home
Surprisingly, the restaurant we made reservations with was directly across the street called Kabinett, which is named after a German style of wine. The meal and service were great. They have an enormous wine list as well. We do suggest sticking with noshing on a variety of apps. My steak, which was $59, came out a bit under done and wasn’t hot. They quickly remedied it, but we liked our apps much more.
https://www.kabinettwinebar.com/
We had a cocktail at a lounge two doors up that played great 60’s r&b that featured some excellent cocktails called Presley’s.
I highly recommend Easton Pennsylvania. If you are seeking a city, feel like New York but want more accessibility and a slower pace, this is a great town to visit.
There’s Only One Restaurant At The Shore
August 15, 2025
I’ve never really been a fan of the Jersey shore. I’ve lived on the West Coast for almost two decades. We enjoyed the solitude of dozens of empty beaches in northern California that gave us peace and solitude.
The Jersey shore always seemed to be the antithesis of this to me. Crammed beaches and boardwalks, tons of kids, strollers, and families, which is probably extremely fun and exciting to them but I prefer the comfort of empty beaches, dive bars and small eateries that we encountered in the bay area.
Now that I’ve gotten that off of my chest, I wanted to share an experience that my wife and I discovered as a fluke at the entry point to the Garden State Parkway, aka the Jersey shore. It’s called Seabright, which is just mile from the Atlantic Highlands. The Highlands is pretty basic place. Airbnb’s, some pedestrian restaurants, a couple of bars, and a vista of New York City
We chose the area because it’s less than two hours from our home and it’s relatively affordable compared to places like Ocean City or Wildwood. It’s perfect for us.
We’ve dined at a few places which were underwhelming yet expensive. Considering we are both in the restaurant industry, we tend to be more critical of our dining experience versus the casual diner.
As we searched for the diamond in the rough, we took a chance on a place on the Jersey shore jetty called ironically 2nd Jetty.
When we pulled up to the place and into the parking lot, we both said wtf? From the outside, it looked like a run-down tiki bar connected to a clam company. PERFECT!
We both committed and wandered in. The interior was a gaudy nautical themed dining room with huge booths and fishing decor on the walls, and we immediately felt at home.
The staff is young, funky, and seemed to love working there. The kitchen resembled the staff from the movie “Waiting,” which I highly encourage watching if you’ve ever worked in a restaurant before.
The core menu hasn’t changed in years. As a chef, I understand why. The chef creates an extensive fresh feature menu that consists of at least five items that the staff have memorized perfectly that even regulars wouldn’t be fatigued by.
Their cocktail and wine menu are both top-notch. The core menu offers a variety of shellfish, raw fish, and small appetizers that have both Asian and Caribbean influences. This is a win/win for us.
We decided on some starters to begin our journey. The Careless Navigator consists of six local clams and oysters and six jumbo shrimp. They literally get their clams from the adjacent business connected to the restaurant. The oysters were local as well. Small, succulent, and delicious. We loathe those gigantic, cow tongue sized oysters that litter many east coast menus. The shrimp were huge and fresh, and everything came with traditional cocktail sauce and mignonet. Amazing.
We continued our culinary journey with the poke of the day. Cubed yellow fin tuna over rice with a wadabi aioli, wakame, scallions, and rice chips. Again, outstanding.
Our final appetizer was the daily crudo. Sliced tuna belly over cucumber with yuzu, sweet soy and aioli with micro sprouts. Delicious.
We decided on our two core menu favorites. The mussels with a coconut curry broth with crostini. The portion was huge! The broth was balanced and had a great umami flavor.
My choice is the popular pan seared Corvina that was served over a “Risotto style” potato-bacon chowder topped with a quinnelle of spiced apple. I get it every time we dine there.
I highly recommend this joint. You can even “buy a round for the kitchen” if you like, and by watching the staff, they will literally give the kitchen that round why they cook you meal.
Finally, 2nd Jetty is seasonal. They usually close not much past Labor day and reopen around March, so visit soon! You won’t be disappointed.
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