The New West Brook Tavern

525 Talmadge Ave
Bound Brook, NJ 08805
http://thenewwestbrook.com/

On Saturday, running errands conflicted with our eating at home plan, so we decided to go out and try a new to us restaurant.  A friend had mentioned this, and it sounded like a good and easy place to go after my look at their website previously.

It's pretty low key and the restaurant is on the smaller side with about 15 tables.  They have bands that play, and I can only imagine they remove tables to make the space for them.

Our server was great, giving us lots of attention and kindness to our two boys.

As far as the food, it's solid and portions are large.  The "kids" hot dog was enormous and came with an awesome looking roll, plus at $4.95 (with drink and ice cream), the price really can't be beat.  I had eggplant parm, which was really large as well and fairly priced.  It came with salad and was your typical restaurant eggplant parm dish.  When I looked at the menu, I noticed a sandwich that was like it was invented by my husband, having all the ingredients (and in a sandwich, no less) that he loves.  Not surprisingly, he really enjoyed it.  As far as the bar, they have a pretty standard selection of drafts, with probably 8-10 choices.

In short, this is a really solid neighborhood bar and restaurant with reasonable prices, great service, and good food.

 

Pilsner Haus

1422 Grand St
Hoboken, NJ 07030

(201) 683-5465 

http://www.pilsenerhaus.com

We met friends here for an adults only night out.  The original plan was for us to meet at the Biergarten in Jersey City, but our friends like the Pilsner more, so that's where we went.
I can't tell you about the beers we sampled.  I overindulged.  The food, though, was great!  I can't imagine much of it going along with summertime, but it was great in December--very comfort food.  We started with the Bavarian pretzel, and it rocked.  I could probably have just eaten that and been good to go, but I also got a Weisswurst, hoping to relive my time in Germany.  It was excellent.  It's a pretty cool system; for grill food, you just walk right up to the grill, though you can order other food from the menu via your server.

The atmosphere is pretty cool; you eat at a long table and it does feel European.  It's a bit loud, so it's kind of hard to hear the people across the table.

I had a ton of fun at the Pilsner.  The food was awesome, the atmosphere rocked, and the beer flowed!