white castle

[1/11/2007]

[4/2/2007]

[2/9/2008]

This is our friendly neighborhood White Castle–yes, just like the movie Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle. Some people think of White Castle as a Jersey thing, but it got its start in Wichita, Kansas, and there are restaurants in 11 states (and the rest of the country, except for 10 states, sells White Castle products out of the freezers of various retail stores).

This particular location apparently needed an update. As you can see from the photos, over the course of 6 months or so (I didn’t get stopped at that light during the daytime for several months after the renovations were finished), they changed the crenellation pattern, replaced the real tower with a fake one (…I don’t understand that), and completely changed the placement of the windows.

Plus new awnings.

Oh MAN, everyone will be coming in for White Castle Sliders now that the awnings are striped and the tower is only a façade.

 

mirror world

Carmella’s Cafe, Pier Village, Long Branch. They serve coffee, danishes, and a sparse selection of paninis. If you’re a foodie, go to one of the other restaurants in Pier Village… but if you’re like me and prefer informal dining experiences (and if you happen to be wandering through Pier Village anyway), check it out.

…I was gonna title this “reflections,” but I have, over the course of my life, created a ridiculous number of things with that title. It’s even one of my commonly-used (overused, even) tags.

 

circus!

Opened in 1953, the Circus Drive-In is one of the few restaurants around here where you can get curbside service. (We have no Sonics–the closest one is in Pennsylvania!) The clown signs and variagated tents have become a noteworthy landmark on Rte. 35.

I’ve never actually been there, but I’ve been meaning to go for years now.

 

carrion (yum yum)

So I was hurriedly packing my bag for class today, and I glanced at my bulky Fuji with 10x zoom, and I said to myself, “Self, you’re not going anywhere interesting today. You probably won’t need that big heavy camera. But pack your cheezy little Nikon Coolpix just in case you see an interesting manhole cover.”

NATURALLY, because I ONLY had the camera with crappy zoom capabilities, I saw a couple of far-off turkey vultures.

ARGH.

Anyway.

Maybe it’s because I’m not a birder, but I don’t see a lot of vultures around here. We’re deep in the heart of a tree-laden suburbia here, so we get a lot of robins, Canada geese, crows, starlings, mourning doves, woodpeckers (sometimes), and various uninterestingly-colored songbirds… but vultures are a new one for me.

 

americana

Top of the Americana Diner in Shrewsbury. Never actually been inside, but it’s all chrome and neon on the outside, and you can see the sparkly barstools through the windows. Looks kitschy. But probably fun.

Today was a crummy day. Apparently it got up to 70°F (21 C) in Trenton, the state capital… but it stayed around 42°F (5.5 C) here. And mostly overcast. Blah.

 

feesh!

Valentine’s feeshies! Makes this whole day a lot better.

Embarrassingly, the flash went off.

(This is Sallee Tee’s. Don’t get the pasta primavera, but I hear their seafood is pretty good.)

 

blue swan

We have diners here. Very few of them are the retro-1950 visions that everyone seems to associate with diners.

Every town has one, and the one for Ocean Township is the Blue Swan Diner. This is where my high school friends and I used to hang out.

The menu features an awful lot of Greek food, and I’ve never been entirely sure why.

(Edit: the diner is apparently owned by the Lambrinos family.)