Rosie will be on vacation until mid-March. Today, a post by guest blogger Tammy La Gorce.
If you’re an inventive and accomplished home cook, chances are you’re on the lookout for silver linings when you try a new restaurant. Since it’s not a sure bet you’ll be knocked sideways by the food—you might be able to turn out something as good in your own kitchen—you may feel compelled to find something else to like about the place. Maybe the location is good, or the lighting just right. Arming yourself with that kind of shallow praise proves entirely unnecessary at the new gastropub Essex Junction Craft Kitchen & Bar.
On opening weekend, the 200-seat place was as close to perfect as a just-hatched restaurant gets. The food, large plates and small, prompted humility and a hasty appreciation of the skill that goes into cooking genuinely flavorful food (try the stir fry with black rice and seasonal vegetables, as comforting as comfort food gets, or the deliciously sticky fried Brussels sprouts with sweet soy, sriracha, shallot and garlic, both on the small plates menu; among the large plates, don’t miss the artful, perfectly cooked salmon with purple Peruvian mash and haricots verts). All the non-food elements dazzle at Essex Junction, too. The location, right next to the Bloomfield train station, is all-around ingenious and a commuter’s dream.
Inside, the space feels futuristic and party-like with its soaring ceilings, front-and-center bar (with 40 craft beers) and bursts of bright blue at the tables (it’s the chairs; the color pops). The wait staff is young, tattooed, quick and friendly; you will want to buy your server a drink – maybe the “Colbert Bump” with Journeyman gin, cherry herring and fresh-squeezed lemon juice and club soda, one of several specialty cocktails named for NJ celebs — or a piece of cheesecake, served in fat slices with raspberries. If Table Hopping with Rosie used the star system, this substitute reviewer would award Essex Junction Craft Kitchen & Bar the full galaxy, mostly because of the inspired, taste bud-invigorating cooking. Chefs Justin Caldwell and Andrew Orphanidis hung the moon.
Essex Junction Craft Kitchen & Bar
90 Washington St.
Bloomfield
973-680-8110
