The Little Tuna

What makes a restaurant successful? Is it a well executed vision of food profiles and flavor? Is it friendly, passionate and knowledgeable staff? Or, is it in a name?

I had heard good things about The Little Tuna, located on "Restaurant Row" in Haddonfield, NJ, which is why I leaped at the chance to buy $50 worth of food for $25 on LivingSocial a few months back. However, when I got home that same day, in the weekly coupon saver, was a Little Tuna PAGE of coupons. It made me wonder if the restaurant was struggling, which in turn made me wonder about its quality.


Luckily, they (do) do tuna very well.


Let me preface this by saying that I have, thus far in my short relationship with fish, had a very volatile relationship with fish in any raw form. My first meal after becoming a pescatarian, about a year ago, I had sushi- nothing crazy, but some tuna rolls and some salmon ones. Taste-wise it was pretty uninteresting to me (I guess I'm all about the tempura-based sushi), but the real horror was that on the walk home and for the rest of the night, I started swelling up...everywhere. I had a severe allergic reaction- and to what exactly I'll never know- but that's enough to make anyone avoid raw fish.

Seared Tuna wins MVP

But, this tuna was seared, so I decided that I would try some peices off of their appetizer menu, instead of getting a tuna meal, and that it was safe enough.


The Little Tuna offers a series of tuna plates (they make it a point to tell you that it's "sushi-grade") that can be served with (a) wasabi and ginger, (b) jamacian jerk style, or (c), what we got, sesame encrusted. Truly delicious, and not overdone with sesame, the pieces came out a touch before warm with one sesame and one wasabi-based sauce for dipping. The tuna was a great pink, with no sliminess. In the past, I find that tuna in extended slices can get strange in the middle with the flesh tearing in strange, unappealing ways (especially at the moment where cooked meat meets with uncooked), but the transition on these pieces was perfect. I felt that I was actually just enjoying tuna in a very pure form with my own choice to enhance the flavor as much as I wanted. By far, my favorite part of the meal and something I would come back for.

Coconut Crusted Tilapia with Lime (?) Chutney

My main entree wasn't quite as delicious. I ordered the coconut crusted tilapia with a (supposed) lime chutney. I say supposed because the chutney was comprised of apples, and what I can only assume are a bevvy of spices, with (maybe) a squirt of lime over it. Very little lime was there to help cut through the coconut- which was thick and of the sweetened variety. This threw me off because between the reduced apples, the coconut, and the white fish (which was soft, and relatively tasty on their own) left the meal very sweet overall. Relatively delicious, but very strange. I had to salt it quite a bit to help the flavors balance out. The sides were decent- vegetables weren't too over-boiled, and my potato was yummy, as potatoes always are.

The Little Tuna served good food, however the restaurant was inconsistent to the point where it did not live up to my expectations. The Little Tuna did a nice job of creating a feeling of private dining even though most of the seating is an open table style. The tables were draped with immaculate white table clothes and came with its own bottle of imported, bottled water, which I'm sure was not complementary. We were seated immediately and our waiter hurried over. He was very eager, but that didn't make up for his lack of focus/forgetfulness since we ended up waiting for him most of the night. To put this in perspective we started out just getting water, he then said he would bring us bread, he came back and took our appetizer order without bread, reassured us he would bring us bread, came back minutes later with our appetizer with no bread, took our entree order, asked if there was anything else he could do for us, and I replied, "just the bread, please." Five minutes later we had bread. I know this sounds petty, but the point is I must hold The Little Tuna to a higher standard than Ponzio's Diner down the road.

Flounder Stuffed with Lump (?) Crabmeat

For my entree I ordered the Flounder Stuffed with Lump Crabmeat. As a rule, if I have the opportunity to eat more than one animal in an entree, I usually take the opportunity. The flounder was delicious. It was very flaky and tender. It was seasoned with an expected Old Bay-type crab seasoning making it feel very Maryland. Although it made sense it was boring. I expected that the lump crabmeat on the inside would tie everything together and bring the dish to the next level that it should be at. I was met with something I did not order. The lump crabmeat was much closer to a paste crabmeat. It was a bland texture that could have been fulfilled by the delicious garlic mashed potatoes (skin included) next to the fish. The end result tasted like delicious flounder stuffed with mushy crab-flounder. The second side on the plate was a pile of steamed, unseasoned vegetables. It was sadly uninspired and lacked an overall freshness that I look for in seafood. The natural texture and taste of crabmeat is what makes it special when paired with a flaky white fish. Don't pulverize the crab, please. Maybe I'll get a double order of seared tuna next time.

OM-NOM-NOM-NOM-NOM!

Pizza Extravaganza!!

and now, for a change of pace:

Usually Friday is take-out night, but last Friday I was able to get out of work a half an hour early and Chris and I decided we should actually make something since we've been doing very little cooking as of late. We decided to make pizzas, and below outlines our ingredients - all of which were purchased at Wegmans for approximately $45. The following makes FOUR LARGE PIZZAS, with a week's left of leftovers.

Toppings:
Onion (white), large -  sliced as desired, uncooked
Shitake mushrooms - tops only, lightly washed/dried in a paper towel, sauteed with truffle and olive oil 
Italian sausage - taken out of casing, broken into bite-sized pieces, and browned in a frying pan
Broccoli - sliced into bite-sized, crowns only, blanched 
Basil/Pesto mix (comes in an easy to squeeze tube!)

Sauce:
Cento Whole Tomatoes (large)
Cento tomato paste (small)

Sauce was started first and left to simmer over low heat while the rest of the ingredients were being prepared. Whole tomatoes were sliced up (so that they still retained a tomato flavor). The spices were added (see list below) with a heavy emphasis on depth of flavor. Hence, lots of middle of the road flavor (garlic/onion/pepper) and some salt to balance the natural sweetness from the paste. It was important to create a sauce that would go well with both meat-heavy pizzas and vegetarian ones. 


Cheeses:
Gouda (aged 18 months)
Mozzarella
Wegman's "pizza" mix (still not sure what's in it or what makes it a pizza mix)
Cheddar
Blue Cheese - (Note: we bought this, but no one ended up using it. Hence, it's not in the pictures.) 

Spices:
Garlic Powder
Minced Garlic
Onion Powder
Cumin
Black Pepper
Salt

Oven was preheated to 425 degrees. Each pizza varied slightly in baking times, depending on the ingredients, but overall super quick at a reasonable 10-15 minutes.  And the result? Whimsical, personalized, pizzas at a great value.  $45/ 4 people = $11.25 per person for a Friday night meal. See how gorgeous they came out below! 

Italian Sausage, Broccoli, Mixed Cheeses 

Sausage, Onion, topped with a layer of Mixed Cheese (heavy Mozzarella)

ANGRY PIZZA, is angry (Sausage, Mixed Cheese, Sausage, and Two Broccoli Florets)   

Shiitake Mushrooms, Broccoli, Mozzarella/Gouda, Truffle, Pesto

(The New) Maple Hill Restaurant and Maritsa's Part Deux

Two Eggs and Home Fries

I won’t lie. I remember very little from this experience. In fact, I’m pretty sure I went into this meal expecting that it would be forgettable, and thus got my standard 2 eggs with home fries (not even well-done) and wheat toast. If my veggie omelette orders are the basis from which I judge tastiness (eggs  are important to all diners, and the quality/cooking of veggies determines how fresh their produce is/their rudimentary skills of cooking/not overcooking things), then 2 eggs is what I order when I just want to eat breakfast and go. I remember everything being okay, with little happening on the delicious side or the not so delicious side. If anything, I would say that it was very satisfactory, with good prices. It’s very small, with a strong local crowd, so if you want more of a diner where you can hang out with your friends and be left alone, this may be a bit too social for you. However, it’s a great place for a small party (I wouldn’t suggest more than four or five people) to enjoy a quick breakfast. This being said, now that the renovations at Maritsa’s down the street is done, I would recommend that over the Maple Hill restaurant.

Looks Good, Tastes OK.

This restaurant is quite forgettable. Chi and brainstormed for about twenty four hours before we remembered the name of the New Maple Hill Restaurant. Sadly, Chi had even taken a picture of their exterior, but forgotten she had taken it. That was the first time that happened to us. Strangely enough, the food for me, even though boring, was still good. It  was just good though, vanilla, not vanilla bean. I ordered the french toast with sausage patties (always superior to sausage links, right?). The french toast smelled great due to the copious amount of cinnamon, but it was kind of soggy and limp. It tasted good, but it was boring and it was an example of when I left feeling I could have cooked the same dish better than they could have. The sausage links impressed me a little more. I'm used to tiny hockey pucks of sausage at other diners that are overcooked and unfulfilling. At the New Maple Hill, the sausage patties were larger than average and had decent flavor and above average texture. I believed it was real. Unfortunately they still need to work on their cooking time since the patties were brought out to me lukewarm.

Combine the mediocre food with the fact the inside looked like it was put together with glossy plywood and a nail gun, the over all experience left me glad to leave. With the concentration of diners in New Jersey I recommend you head out and explore for a different place to get your breakfast fix.


Chi sums it up perfectly,

If we ate at the NEW Maple Hill Restaurant, it makes me wonder what it used to be like.

Maritsa’s PART DEUX:

Yes, we’ve gone back to Maritsa’s since the muddy mushroom’s incident. I ordered French toast, and it was very soft/buttery although perhaps not as large portion-wise as other places. My home fries were a little too well-done for my liking, because I didn’t ask them to be so. Coffee was good, and the service was faster than last time and our cups never emptied.  The inside is complete (no more random ending to the carpet/stucco-looking walls) and the waitresses were wearing proper uniforms this time. Definitely no longer a place to avoid. We'll have to go back and try something more complex and see how they handle it.


Definitely a better experience at Maritsa's. Good thing my parents really like it or I might not have gone back. My second time around I ordered the short-stack of blueberry pancakes with sausage links and scrambled eggs. The sausage was average. The blueberry pancakes were almost disappointing. They were all loaded with fresh, delicious blueberries and they were cooked to perfection. They were sadly not nearly as tasty as they looked. The blueberry came through nicely, but the sweetness had a watered down taste to it and their Heinz Syrup packets didn't help out with the flavor. When I have blueberries I expect some tartness, and since there was not I left a little suspicious. The eggs, thankfully, stole the show and Maritsa's knows how to cook them right. They were super fluffy and light and buttery. Next time I'm ordering a plate of scrambled eggs and double toast.