Last night, my husband and I had reservations at 7:30PM at Shipwreck Point in Point Pleasant Beach. We arrived a little early and took a walk up to the beach boardwalk. I am a sucker for the beach. I love looking out at the expansive ocean. It helps to put life and its little quandaries into perspective.
After a few moments of gazing out over the sand and water, the cold breeze caught up with us (I mean it is only the first weekend in April), and we rushed back to the restaurant for dinner.
Before I go into the "good" and the "great" about this new restaurant, there are still a couple hiccups that the restaurant needs to address (I mean nobody's perfect right?) that I would be remiss in not mentioning. Before I begin with those though, I need to preface it by saying that despite these little glitches, my husband and I both had a very delicious meal and are excited to return to the restaurant (after Labor Day of course since Point Pleasant during the summer just like all other Jersey shore beaches are a nightmare to navigate). So here I go. There was the act of sending us to the bar when there was an open table in what seemed to be a shady way to have us order a drink before dinner. Alas for them, they didn't win that one, and after hovering in the corner of the bar for a couple minutes, we were seated. There was also the lack of fresh pepper for my caesar salad. However, once I flagged down a waiter to request it, it was quickly brought to the table. There was the strange moment when the waiter brought the wine bottle to the table to show my husband the vineyard, but then he disappeared for three minutes and came back with the bottle opened and poured. It was just very weird. In my experience, waiters usually open the bottle of wine at the table. Also, not that its one of my priorities when eating out (the food matters more to me than the "experience") but the restaurant had a view of the parking lot and when a car parked there, the bright lights shone into the restaurant. The dining room too was pretty loud. Lastly, when my husband's steak was undercooked, they took it back and cooked that same piece of meat a couple more minutes. While it was then served to my husband's liking, it still just seemed a little odd that they wouldn't have gotten a new piece of meat that wasn't already sliced down the middle.
Now that the negative is out of the way, I can tell you that the food we were served was delicious. My husband and I spent the first six years out of college living in Northern Jersey which was not for lack of New York style, "meat and potato" style steakhouses. A couple weeks ago, I wrote about Witherspoon Grill in Princeton which was definitely a similar style (and also very delicious). However, aside from these two restaurants, we have been hard pressed to find similar places. Excitingly, Shipwreck Point did not disappoint in terms of food, wine, service and experience. After we were seated, we were brought the wine list and cocktail menu to peruse. We decided on a bottle of Susanna Balbo. The bread server then brought around the basket of three breads to try. I selected mine. My husband wanted the same, but there was only an end piece left. The server went back into the kitchen and replenished so that my husband would get a center piece and not the end. There were also three different spreads on the table: a regular butter, a special flavored house butter and sea salt. The house butter was delicious. For dinner we order caesar salad and shrimp cocktail to start and surf and turf (filet and lobster tail) and filet for dinner with a side of "pommes frites." The shrimp were gigantic but very fresh and flavorful. The cocktail sauce had a nice "kick" to it. The salad was fresh with a very light, refreshing caesar dressing. The meats were also delicious. Mine was cooked perfectly, and even though my husband had to send his back to be cooked more, when it came out the second time, he greatly enjoyed it. The french fries were also the perfect thin, crispy fries that I love. I'm not a fan of steak fries. They're too potato-ey for me. I like the crispy texture and the saltiness. Since it's Lent, we passed on dessert, but maybe next time, we'll test out one of the options. The only thing was that while the initial description of the desserts peaked our interest, there was the little subtext underneath that mentioned different aspects that weren't appealing.
All in all though, we had a delicious meal and will definitely be returning (after the craziness of the Jersey shore summer of course). Shipwreck Point, we'll see you when summer ends!
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