Rhonda and I drove up to New Brunswick yesterday to visit Aaron. The plan was to stop at Stokelan Estates Winery on the ride up, then Dinner with Aaron,, after which we’d retire to a nearby Marriot. Sunday would be some shopping with Aaron before heading back home. I am taking a vacation day tomorrow to take the Sunday Scaries out of robbing some joy from the occasion.
Our attempt at sharing a bottle and a flatbread at Stokelan was foiled by other people with the same idea. We stopped there, but they had no seats. We tried nearby Iron Plow/Tramonti, but they were closed for a private event. We figured we’d just high-tail it to New Brunswick, scoop up Aaron, and check in at the hotel.
We had stopped at Bagliani’s for salami and Gran Padano cheese, so we thought that we could grab a bottle of wine to take back to the hotel with us. We drove straight past Aaron’s house to a corner liquor store called Peters. The joint was full of students, and lots of them coming and going. Aaron was calling me on the phone while I was shopping; he saw us roll by in search of Peters.
Casa Ragazzi
Casa Ragazzi is a trendy Italian restaurant in downtown New Brunswick. I was excited to try it after I saw the menu, which appeared to offer the formal Italian dinner sequence: apps, followed by a small pasta course, and then a secondo, or meat course. We ordered this way and the waiter was surprised. That set off alarm bells; the arrival of both courses at once confirmed our suspicions. Our cocktails were great, though, and the food, while arriving at too-quick-of-a-pace, was delicious. Aaron and I split a T-bone florentine, and I finally had a chance to try guanciale.
Ruby Ke Kitchen Se
This week on Designed in California, Jason Snell interviewed Ron Johnson, the guy who created Apple’s retail stores. Johnson recently released a book about his career, including his long tenure at Apple. One thing that struck me is how Johnson talked about brick and mortar retail: he loves it. He talks about the opportunity to see things, to interact with aspirational purchases. He even posits a kind of communal effect of mall-shopping.
I don’t know about all of that, but as a kid of the 80s, I’ll always have fond mall memories. Sprinting between the anchor stores and stopping by KB to check out action figures, later shopping for acid-wash jeans, and countless slices of pizza. In that spirit, we often find outselves at the Menlo Park Mall when we visit Aaron.
It’s a nice mall, much nicer than our local malls, and they have an Apple Store. So we popped in to check out the 18 Pro, from the new colors (that burgundy is really dark!) to the aperture controls on the camera.
Between all of the walking and the 30-minute Peloton ride this morning, I was starving. We all agree to Indian for a late lunch/early dinner, and Yelp helpfully pointed us to Ruby Ke Kitchen Se, a quaint spot in nearby Edison. We had no recommendation save for Yelp’s, so we dodged the rain and ran inside.
Ruby Se Ktichen Se proved to be a revelation. We ordered a couple of chaat appetizers, including an Indochinese version of fried paneer. The sauce invoked both Thai and Chinese likenesses, and we were all well impressed.
The gentleman who served us (I’m guessing he’s the owner) shared a number of enlightening details. He talked about the Chinese cultural influences in the cuisine due to Chinese immigrants in India. Similarly, when we remarked about the difference in color between Aaron’s goat Korma and Rhonda’s chicken korma–Aaron’s was a darker, richer color, while Rhonda’s had more of a red, tomatoey aspect–he offered that making the same sauce and just swapping out the protein isn’t true to the cuisine, and hence the differences.