Vinnie's Brick Oven Pan Pizza

 

Located at 61 Main Street in Millburn, Vinnie’s Brick Oven Pan Pizza offers pizza and Italian dishes. It is open from 11-8 Sunday and Tuesday-Thursday, 11-9 Saturday and Sunday, and closed on Monday. Online ordering is available.

 

I promised my wife that we would find good pizza during a trip to New Jersey, and after a bit of searching, Vinnie’s seemed like it would be able to deliver. It’s a small spot – two tables inside, two tables outside – but the stacks of empty pizza boxes mark it as a popular one. They do sixteen-inch pies here (sorry, no slices) as well as sandwiches, pastas, and wings. After describing what we were looking for in a pizza, the young man at the counter suggested the Gramps (sweet Italian sausage, hot cherry pepper, and onions) with olives added, and we were sold.

 

Fifteen minutes later, we were digging into a glorious pie. The crust was thin without being floppy or greasy. The sauce and cheese were both high quality. The peppers added a nice burst of heat. Cheap it was not (upper $20s after the additional topping), but there are some things you can’t put a price on, and a sublimely delicious pizza is one of them.

 

Truthfully, I’m not back up North often enough to say how well Vinnie’s stacks up against other Union County pizza options (I grew up on Cioffi’s), but compared to much of what I’m used to in the Tarheel State (where good pizza is good often by virtue of innovative toppings), it more than holds its own.

Skylark Diner & Lounge

Located at 17 Wooding Avenue off of Route 1 in Edison, Skylark Diner offers globally inspired diner fare for breakfast, lunch, and dinner seven days a week. Food specials change daily, and online ordering is available.

Skylark is in some ways the embodiment of the New Jersey diner experience and in other ways a subversion of it. The veritable army of bustling blue-clad servers and the large menu are hallmarks of Garden State eateries of this sort, but the elevated cuisine and elevated prices set Skylark apart. There exist both better and worse (and certainly cheaper) diners aplenty, but Skylark’s international focus sets it apart.

Like many Jersey diners, the exterior and parts of the décor seem like they haven’t changed since JFK roamed the White House. But Skylark plays retro-futuristic to its competitors’ retro, sporting a look that would be right at home in The Jetsons. Seating is plentiful, which is a plus given that this place gets quite busy.

Despite the eatery’s reputation, Skylark does offer a number of diner staples. You can still get a cheeseburger, a Greek salad, an omelet, and a BLT here. However, it just so happens that you can also get tuna tostadas, lobster mac and cheese, a salmon kale-quinoa salad, a bulgogi pork chop, and Guinness-braised short ribs as well. While this may seem like a lot of posturing – and while Skylark isn’t going to beat out steakhouses and good Asian joints – the concept wouldn’t have worked for as long as it has if the kitchen didn’t have a clue.

Among these myriad options, our group settled on a baked spinach, artichoke, and cheese dip, an Argentine baguette (sirloin, onions, and lettuce with a chimichurri sauce), and a Basque breakfast sandwich (chorizo, egg, manchego, and piperade on ciabatta). The food was a bit uneven. In the plus column, the dip was warm and satisfying, the meats were not overdone, and both sandwiches were bursting with flavor – the chimichurri sauce was a very nice touch. In the minus column, the Basque sandwich was a bit dry, a side of Mediterranean chickpea salad was disappointingly bland, and a side of fruit salad included some questionable-looking grapes (which, to Skylark’s credit, were replaced).

Skylark sports elevated prices to match its elevated cuisine, but even then, it isn’t exactly thievery. Our dip ran $9 and the sandwiches (with one side apiece) were $11and $9 respectively. Servers are polite and professional though they seemed hard-pressed to keep up with the restaurant’s busyness at times, and the wait for food reflected that volume.

Not Your Ordinary Diner is Skylark’s motto, and it fits. The ambitious menu outclasses other diners by far and the food delivers on flavor. However, uneven execution and immodest pricing keep Skylark from soaring high.

7.5/10