Chart House Restaurant (chain restaurant)

Rating:

Quality, Taste, Cleanliness, Environment, Price, & Staff

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Positive: Excellent view of the water with a large array of seafood and delicious, warm chocolate lava cake.

Negative: Mediocre tasting food.

Overall: Large, high quality seafood selection with excellent ambiance. The food taste, however, is average.

Revisit:  Not again.  Despite the great quality and large selection the taste is just not good enough, and even the excellent ambiance does not make up for it.

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UPDATED APRIL 4, 2012:

I had the chance to try the Chart House Restaurant in Philadelphia overlooking the water and Camden NJ.  The restaurant had the same, excellent ambiance I remembered from their other restaurant in Northern NJ.

I enjoyed the Calamari appetizer and thought it was great.  The Macadamia crusted Mahi with Peanut sauce and Coconut shrimp with crab fried rice were both of excellent quality but the taste was mediocre at best.  In fact I thought I made them better at home.  The chocolate lava cake was as excellent as I remembered it from my prior visit.  Since the restaurant wasn’t as busy, the service was excellent and the server was very helpful.

Although the seafood selection is pretty large with many great things available for pescovegetarians on the menu, I would not be coming back due to the lack of taste. 

FROM APRIL 7, 2010:

Does your family always go to Halal only restaurants?  Are you tired of going to restaurants that always look run down?  Do you want to take your special loved ones to a nice restaurant on an important occasion?

If you answered yes to any of those questions then Chart House Restaurant is an excellent place for you and your family to try. More than half of the menu is seafood and everything tastes delicious.  The best part is that the food does not have a “fishy” taste as it is seasoned very well.

I recently tried this place with my family and absolutely loved it. It is located in Weehawken, next to the Hudson river, with the most beautiful view of The New York City skyline. They offer outdoor seating after Memorial Day Weekend, which is a great option to have. They also have a brunch buffet which costs $35 per person, a great price for the food and the unobstructed view of the city.

My family and I did not choose to do the buffet. We ordered the spinach and artichoke dip with crostinis for appetizers (this was one of the specials of the day) and we all loved it! We also ordered Clam Chowder which was great too but had too much clam meat for my taste. For the entrees we ordered different types of fish including the Macadamia Crusted Mahi Mahi with Coconut Rice, Parmesan Sea Bass with Fettuccine, and Flounder stuffed with Crab Meat. My favorites were the Parmesan Sea Bass and the Macadamia Crusted Mahi Mahi.I am really picky with seafood and this has become one of my favorite seafood restaurants as all the fish were fresh and tasted very good. We also ordered the coconut shrimp for an entree. For those that do not like fish, this is always a safe option. All the entrees were normal proportions and could be finished by an average person. They weren’t extremely large and sharing may not be an option if you are moderately hungry.

The last thing we had was the Chocolate Lava Cake which was just mouth-watering and is definitely a must have! (Although maybe the Grand Lux Cafe probably has a better tasting lava cake.) Just remember to order this with the rest of your food as it takes 30 minutes to make. Our waiter did not tell us about this until we were ready to order dessert. This was the downside to this restaurant. You pay $40-$50 per person to dine but don’t get that kind of service. Our waiter only came to us to take our orders and to give us our food. It was hard to get a hold of him because we would hardly see him near our table; he did not have many tables that he was serving either. He did not even come to ask us if we needed anything, something that’s expected from waiters at all restaurants. Despite the service, I highly recommend this restaurant because of the delicious food and amazing view of NYC. It would also be nicer if you go at night rather than the day.

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Chart House Restaurant Website

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Self-serve Frozen Yogurt (Central NJ)

Rating: (see below)

Quality, Taste, Cleanliness, Environment, Price , & Staff

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Positive: Aside from Red Mango and Phileo Yogurt (not located in Central NJ), Yogurt Land has unique, delicious high quality yogurt flavors with an average number of toppings.  Yo Mon has the nicest environ (although small) and topping selection with average quality yogurt.Wicked twist is in third place with lower quality yogurt and an average number of toppings.

Negative: Twist and Fruity Yogurt have lower quality frozen yogurt which doesn’t taste like its respective flavors with below average toppings.

Overall: Go with Red Mango or Phileo Yogurt if they are in your area.  Otherwise if you live in central NJ go with , Yo Mon (if you are into toppings and environ), or Wicked Twist.  I wouldn’t go to Twist or Fruity Yogurt.

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I had a chance to visit multiple self-serve frozen yogurt chains in central New Jersey and compare them to well-known chains like Red Mango and Phileo Yogurt. (I did not include Pinkberry as it is not self serve at the moment in the Tri-state area) What I gathered from my experiences was that Red Mango is probably the best in terms of its quality, healthiness, and the fruity yogurts they carry. Phileo Yogurt was not far behind either and I would eat yogurt at any of those chains any day of the week.

I would regard these chains as the standards to compare other frozen yogurt places with.   The self-serve frozen yogurt trend has made its way to New Jersey with a wide variety of small businesses opening to offer their customers a wide variety of flavors and toppings for around 45-49 cents per ounce.  The way it works is that you come in and choose your cup (small or large), taste a few small samples of the flavors, fill up your cups as you wish and add the topping you wish before weighing, paying, and obtaining  a spoon to eat your delicious concoction.  

Yo Mon, located in Freehold, NJ is best known for its exciting environ with a colorful, young scheme and multiple TVs as well as a small sitting place right outside the door.  Although it is one of the smaller places I have been too, they make full use of the space even though most of the time the lines are out the door.  Their frozen yogurt selection is nicely varied, although they have less fruity flavors at one time like Red Mango. Their quality of frozen yogurt is not as good as Red Mango, again, but it is nonetheless better than the other places in Central NJ.  Their Espresso and Mango flavors are probably the best they carry and their wide variety of toppings really makes the yogurt  even more worth it.  Aside from the typical variety of fruits, nuts, cookies, etc they also have a lot of liquid toppings like corn flakes dipped in nutella as well as crushed, warm Ferrero Rocher chocolate.  This place has the most variety and best toppings from any other place I’ve been too, including Red Mango and the other location for you to jersey has an excellent environment as well as a huge number of toppings.

Wicked Twist, located in Old Bridge, NJ is located in a small shopping center similar to Yo Mon and has a good variety of frozen yogurt treats, similar to Yo Mon with less quality in the yogurt.   They also have  a small location and sitting places both inside and out.  The local crowd keeps this place busy as well.  Their topping selection was average and therefore similar to the toppings offered by Red Mango, with a smaller fruit selection.  

Twist, located in Princeton and Fruity Yogurt, located in New Brunswick, NJ are definitely well placed in ideal locations to tap the huge number of students in their respective areas.  Sadly, they don’t taste as good as Yo Mon or Wicked Twist.  Twist does have smoothies and frappes that you can order.  Red Mango, though, also has a wide variety of smoothies, shakes, juices, and teas that you can order from the counter. 

Yogurt Land, is located in Hamilton and Denville, NJ.  This place has a larger variety of delicious, unique flavors than other yogurt chains in Central NJ including Devil’s Food and Red Velvet Cupcake Batter.  I had a chance to go there recently and was very impressed with their selection and quality.  Their topping selection, however, is not as good as Yo Mon.  It is a chain that recently opened and seems to be doing very well.  I think it is better than Yo Mon in terms of quality and sitting room, and therefore I would recommend going here if you are in the Central Jersey area and want high quality yogurt but willing to compromise on the toppings.

Overall I would consider going to Red Mango if in the mood for a fruity flavor like Pomegranite from POM, White Peach, Mango, Blueberry or any other flavor while visiting an area in which it is located.  If I am in the Philly area of parts of New York where Phileo Yogurt is located I would go visit them as well.  However, if in Central NJ I would go with Yogurt Land or Yo Mon followed by Wicked Twist.  But if I am in the more busy cities like New Brunswick or Princeton I would rather have ice cream or some other sweet ending rather than the frozen yogurt places open there.

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Red Mango

Phileo Yogurt

Yo Mon

Fruity Yogurt

Twist

Yogurt Land