Elements Cafe - Haddon Heights NJ

Posted on March 13, 2008

It is that time of year again here in New Jersey, SJ Hot Chefs Restaurant week. While tough on my liver and waistline, this is one of my favorite weeks of the year. First up we went to Elements Café who from their website claim:

Tapas style dining, or the ability to eat smaller portions of a variety of different foods, is a traditionally Spanish way of eating in a casual way. Because of this small plate approach to dining, tapas are adaptable to all cuisines and cultures. Blending a variety of flavors from French, Asian, Mediterranean and other influences into a New American tapas allows you to build a dining experience to suit your palate and allows everyone at the table to sample a variety of different choices.

I thought the description was fairly accurate, as we pretty much had the same experience. While the starter portions where small, we had a total of five courses which left no one at the table hungry. Our group arrived more or less on time, some early, some “late”, all were greeted warmly by the hostess. No one even turned their nose up when they saw my brother carry in his six pack! We were then greeted by our server for the evening, Madison, who I’m sure now regrets waiting on our party. I did mention I went with family right? :)

We started off with our first bottle of white, a very nice bottle of White Oak Sauvignon Blanc. I only had one quick glass, but it was a pretty damn good one. Since I only had one “half”, it is hard for me to give you an actual review. I’d drink it again to try though. :) Some of us have started to switch over to red, the first red was a tasty 2004 Yellowtail Reserve Shiraz.

On to the food, I was pleased with my starter, three fried green tomato’s over a tomato potato hash. The trio of soups were again, small but very tasty. The shellfish bisque with grilled corn relish was the favorite of the table, followed by the butternut squash, sausage and white bean soup, and getting mixed reviews was the 5 onion soup with Gruyere crouton. About this point, the third bottle started to pour around the table and the next course arrived. I had an straightforward and enjoyable heart of romaine salad with a pepper parmesan dressing w/ roasted garlic crustini (crouton).

For my main course, as much as I tried to stray from a meat dish, I ordered the coffee marinated NY strip with corn and red pepper posole. Again very enjoyable taste, it was slightly undercooked for my usual preference, but I did enjoy it very much. The corn and red pepper posole was delicious and went very nicely with the wine. As we finished our main courses and the good strong coffee started to arrive we began our assault on the final course, desert. Again a trio with no choice, we seemed to enjoy the cappuccino pot de creme, the mini apple pie and the ice cream sandwich in that order.

We had a great BYOB experience at Elements Cafe in Haddon Heights, great company, food and service. For having a full table, and being in a full restaurant the packed restaurant, the staff seemed really on the ball. The staff was friendly, and courteous. We did not seem to wait much between the courses, nor did I feel rushed into leaving. I’m quite pleased to recommend Elements Cafe, as a matter of fact I might try to get there one day for their sunset menu.

Elements Cafe is located at 517 Station Avenue Haddon Heights, NJ 08035. Feel free to call them for a reservation at (856) 546-8840

» Filed Under BYOB Restaurants Tags: Tags:, , ,

Comments

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.