Farm to Table: Harvest

I’m a dreamer, I’ve got my head in the clouds and I’m always making big proclamations about life and our future.  Thankfully, Evan keeps me grounded and focused with his analytical thought process.  I throw something at him and he tries his darnedest to creatively come up with a way for that abstract (usually off the wall) idea to become a reality.

One of my big ideas is to someday have a home of our own where we can grow some of our own food, eat totally unprocessed food (excluding all the fabulous jams, jellies, preserves, and pickles I’ll be learning to make), ditch plastic, travel like nobody’s business, lead a minimalistic lifestyle-possibly in a tiny house, cook fantastic meals that have been meticulously planned in advance, and shop regularly at farmers markets (yes my ambitions might seem odd and weirdly specific but hey, why not?).

Evan’s pretty awesome in that he shares my ideas but unfortunately for us, we aren’t able live out our ideas quite yet. While we’re working hard to make sure our dreams for the future come true one of our favorite things to do in the interim is to eat out at all different kinds of cool places.

This past weekend we went out to this awesome little place in Farmingdale NJ called Harvest.  The restaurant who’s tagline is “Local Seasonal Cuisine” is a charming little place with adorably rustic décor and even better food.  Right when we walked in we saw a collection of chalkboards boasting where specific ingredients came from.  It was so cool to know exactly where our food came from!

We had some Farmingdale Breadsticks and bread, Sandy Hook clams, veggies from Howell and beef from NY, PA

They update their menus (and the chalk boards) quite frequently depending on seasonal availability.  Our (rather extensive) menu even had the date on it that’s how new it was! There was plenty to choose from on and off the menu and we were basically like two kids in a candy shop…so many awesome choices!! We ended up opting for garlic bread and clams in a fennel, garlic, butter sauce as our appetizer.  The clams (and the sauce they were served in) were fantastic.

My soup-loving-self ordered a big ol’ bowl of corn soup.  I was anticipating a cream of corn type soup and that’s almost what this was but instead of it being hot, the dish was cold (as stated on the menu, its a chilled summer soup) which was a bit of a strange thing for me to get past but it was pretty good.  In the middle there is some corn salsa they sprinkled on top and little bits of salty and delicious pork.  I don’t think I’ll be ordering it again (I just can’t get past the idea of cold soup) but I’m really glad I gave it a try!

Evan ordered a steak with chimichurri sauce…dam. That was awesome it came with sweet plantains on the side and honey glazed carrots.  My only regret was that there wasn’t more for me to sneak when he wasn’t looking.

Sorry for the lousy quality of this one, clearly we were way more interested in devouring the dish than we were capturing the meal’s aesthetic appearance.

 

I’ve never been so happy to receive our check after a meal – look at this mini clip board..so much cuteness!

 

We absolutely loved Harvest and can’t wait to try what they come up with next!