Crab Meat

Bring the tastes of Arctic Avenue to your house with these recipes from Barbera Seafood Market. DOM'S FAMOUS GARLIC CRABS 1 dozen cleaned crabs 1 cup olive oil 1 stick butter 10-12 cloves minced garlic Old Bay Seasoning to taste To clean crabs, remove top shell and run under water thoroughly to remove all dirt inside and on the surface of the crab. Sprinkle crabs with Old Bay. Melt butter with olive oil in sauce pan. Lightly cook garlic over low heat. Sauté crabs in pan with garlic mixture for about 15 minutes.

You're not going to make this New Year's Eve at home one worth remembering if your meal is a frozen dinner zapped in the microwave. Food is an essential part of the festivities. It makes the evening elegant and worth sharing with a loved one. Begin with a Champagne Cocktail. It's an old-fashioned drink, but a fine one, with a slight bite that whets the appetite. Serve additional champagne, unmixed, with the meal. Then, for an incredibly rich entree, prepare Crab Pot Pie. Crab meat is bound with butter and half-and-half, studded with corn and diced sweet red pepper, then topped with biscuits.

Strip-mall Italian restaurants may be a dime a dozen in South Jersey, but more and more, they're serving up some pretty outstanding fare, despite their unimpressive locations. Such is the case with Anthony's, a pretty BYO that's been dazzling the locals for the last 12 years from the Peppercorn Plaza in Turnersville. On a recent Monday night, the main dining room was bustling with the "long day at work" crowd, and being two of those guests ourselves, we were starving by the time we settled in. Being so hungry, the wait for fresh-from-the-oven bread probably seemed longer than it really was, but once it arrived, along with complimentary marinated mushrooms and peppers, we dove in enthusiastically.

All around is red: the walls and carpet and chandelier tassles. The chandeliers show mountain and valley scenes. The walls hold brass sculptures of dragons. The carpet features spilled egg drop soup and crushed noodles. A seemingly typical Chinese restaurant in Chinatown. Yet the Riverside has at least one thing not found at most Chinese restaurants: knives. Yes, folks, no more trying to pick apart the duck with the chopsticks. No more sawing the egg roll with a fork. Just use the knife.

The toasty fire burning in the main dining room of the Fisherman's Kove restaurant was a welcome sight the evening of our mid-week visit. It was one of those raw and rainy nights that seemed to beg for a burning fire and a hot toddy to warm the old bones. The weather had kept away all but a handful of stalwart diners, and a raucous bunch of sports fans at the bar, giving my friend and I free run of the dining room. Our server led us away from the crackling fireplace, which is in the smoking section, and sat us at a table by the window.

Jane and Michael Stern, authors of Square Meals and Roadfood and Goodfood, have once again taken to the blue-plate highways of the nation. The result is their newest culinary adventure, Real American Food (Knopf, $19.95), an appetizing journey from Second Avenue matzo balls across the country to a Muscle Beach smoothie. Most of the recipes are favorite everyday dishes from the numerous eateries they have encountered while on the road. Together, they form a colorful and delicious food map of America.

Every neighborhood needs a local tavern where folks who live nearby can meet for drinks, meals and good times. Mulberry Street on the Black Horse Pike in Runnemede is that sort of comfortable neighborhood place - with an outdoor deck for warm summer nights and an indoor bar and restaurant for the rest of the time. Once a nightclub called Chicago, the restaurant took on a new personality last July based upon general manager Rich Peterson's childhood recollections of Mulberry Street in New York.

With a huge menu loaded with tasty, moderately-priced Italian dishes, the new Clover Leaf restaurant seems to have everything going for it. The Clover Leaf, open six months next to the Blenheim Inn on the Black Horse Pike, is remarkably similar to its predecessor, Rico's. Indeed, the decor is virtually unchanged. The menu fairly groans with 71 entrees, 13 appetizers and 11 desserts. If you can't find it here, you likely never will. Best of all, the home cooking is fairly decent.

The Forked River House has been serving food since 1820, a record few places can match. Judging by the excellence of a recent meal, this Shore restaurant will likely be around another 172 years. The restaurant's rustic decor belies its location in the fast-growing suburban area of Ocean County; indeed, this is something of a neighborhood treasure, a place where local folks go for good home-cooked food. The cavernous dining room's country setting is created by rough-hewn planked walls, paneled wainscoting, exposed ceiling beams and a large brick fireplace.

Although little-known, Players, the restaurant in the Center Square Golf Club that is open to the public, should be added to your Hit Parade list. The place is a delight. Housed in the club's wonderful old fieldstone building not far from Blue Bell, the comfortable dining room is bathed in candlelight at night; during the day, myriad skylights in the unique mansard ceiling let in shafts of sunlight, while recessed picture windows look out on the green golf course. Decorated in subtle earth tones, the dining rooms guarantee a relaxed visit.

Bring the tastes of Arctic Avenue to your house with these recipes from Barbera Seafood Market. DOM'S FAMOUS GARLIC CRABS 1 dozen cleaned crabs 1 cup olive oil 1 stick butter 10-12 cloves minced garlic Old Bay Seasoning to taste To clean crabs, remove top shell and run under water thoroughly to remove all dirt inside and on the surface of the crab. Sprinkle crabs with Old Bay. Melt butter with olive oil in sauce pan. Lightly cook garlic over low heat. Sauté crabs in pan with garlic mixture for about 15 minutes.

To open a new butcher shop headlining prime-beef stars on the order of Kobe, Charolais and grass-fed is tricky enough business, especially without claim to family tradition (say, Stoltzfus, Giunta or Ochs) or prime location (center court Reading market, say, or appended to Di Bruno Bros., 18th and Chestnut). In fact, the very conjunction of "new" and "butcher shop" has a mildly worrisome ring; you want to buy your meat from a guy with a pedigree, roots, a track record, deep meat history.

STEVENSVILLE, Md. - It is deepest October on Chesapeake Bay, peak crab-picking season, the blue crabs coming in thick and fast and, blessedly, fat after an erratic summer and drought that sent them skittering up-bay, away from encroaching salt water to refuges in the Sassafras River, and the Elk. But the hubbub in the handful of crab houses that are left on the Eastern Shore - the Mexican pickers picking jumbo lump, the machines shaking out the flaked...

For most people, Columbus is a little off the beaten path, but when the Olde Columbus Inne was first built in 1776, the Sun Inne as it was then called, served as a command post for Hessian troops and later became a stagecoach stop between Trenton and Atlantic City. Today, the colonial inn creatively combines a yesteryear feeling with contemporary cuisine and very friendly service to make it worth the trip to the far reaches of Burlington County. Entering the restaurant on a recent weeknight, we were treated to a good piano player, Bill Peele, lending his rich voice and personal flair to a nonstop string of standards.

Every neighborhood needs a local tavern where folks who live nearby can meet for drinks, meals and good times. Mulberry Street on the Black Horse Pike in Runnemede is that sort of comfortable neighborhood place - with an outdoor deck for warm summer nights and an indoor bar and restaurant for the rest of the time. Once a nightclub called Chicago, the restaurant took on a new personality last July based upon general manager Rich Peterson's childhood recollections of Mulberry Street in New York.

When a popular, well-known restaurant changes hands, I'm always eager to see what the new owners have to offer. So, when Clayton's on Main Street in Marlton turned into Scargo on Main shortly before Christmas, I was looking forward to giving the new place a try. After allowing the management several weeks to work out the kinks, a friend and I made our reservations for a Tuesday night and were encouraged by the warm welcome on the phone and confident...

Strip-mall Italian restaurants may be a dime a dozen in South Jersey, but more and more, they're serving up some pretty outstanding fare, despite their unimpressive locations. Such is the case with Anthony's, a pretty BYO that's been dazzling the locals for the last 12 years from the Peppercorn Plaza in Turnersville. On a recent Monday night, the main dining room was bustling with the "long day at work" crowd, and being two of those guests ourselves, we were starving by the time we settled in. Being so hungry, the wait for fresh-from-the-oven bread probably seemed longer than it really was, but once it arrived, along with complimentary marinated mushrooms and peppers, we dove in enthusiastically.

The first thing you notice about Madalyn's, a relatively new restaurant in the Whitman Plaza in Turnersville, is the fabulous aroma coming from the kitchen. The second thing we noticed was the decor. Through the magic of wallpaper and a little clever decorating, what used to be a deli or a pizza parlor, is now a cozy yet-modern BYOB. Believe it or not, Victoriana actually meshes nicely with grape vines, funky dishes and servers dressed in grape ties and aprons. It's an odd assortment, but somehow it works.

Country club restaurants offer a certain camaraderie, but are not usually known for their culinary achievements. Not so Ristorante Bruschetta at the Wedgewood Country Club in Turnersville, which is open to the public. Chef/owner Joe Scarpinato, who spent 23 years honing his culinary skills at the family restaurant, Scarpinato's in Blackwood, turns out great meals that are heavy on creativity and fresh ingredients, but light on the wallet. As hungry, but unwitting, first-timers, we ordered an appetizer sampler special ($10)

Timing is everything. And in the case of Grill Fish and Co., a casual yet somewhat sophisticated new restaurant on Haddon Avenue in Westmont, the time is just right. Restaurateur Pete Delimaris, who previously operated the Spaghetti Castle on the same site, says he developed the concept for Grill Fish several years ago. He knew the time was ripe to bring it to fruition because of today's skyrocketing demand for freshly-prepared seafood. Delimaris must have a crystal ball. Just two months after opening, Grill Fish and Co. is bustling, even on a Tuesday night.