Tomasello Winery

My first experience with Tomasello Winery was back in 2005. My wife and I went to the annual Grand Harvest Wine Festival held at Alba Vineyard in Finesville, NJ with our friends, Donnie and Denise. Each year over twenty wineries from New Jersey are represented (you should definitely go to a wine festival if you like wine. You simply pay $20 per person and you receive a souvenir tasting glass and you get to go around to the different wineries’ tents and sample anything that they have on hand. It’s a great way to try new wines and find new favorites. I highly suggest going if you’ve never been). This is where I became acquainted with Tomasello and I have been a big fan ever since.

Tomasello is one of the oldest wineries in New Jersey and boasts one of the best varieties of wines in the state, from dry reds to sparkling champagnes to sweet whites to tart fruit wines. If they don’t grow the grapes or fruit that they use on their own land, they purchase it from a local grower. That itself is admirable.

My favorite kinds of wine are the dry reds (as I jokingly like to say, I want to be able to taste the soil the grapes were grown in). I think that dry red wines offer some of the deepest and richest flavors and that is one of the reasons why I love them.

Now, to be perfectly honest, I’m anything but a wine snob. I have tried to sniff, swirl, check out the legs, and the clarity, but a lot of that stuff is lost on me; it just doesn’t make sense. My palate must be severely underdeveloped because I can’t taste the difference between oak, tannin, star anise or any of the myriad other flavors that other people seem to be able to detect without effort (unless they’re faking it to make themselves seem like smarter than their friends). To me a wine either tastes good or it doesn’t. Either the wine is bitter or it’s sweet or it’s something else entirely.

And forget about smelling the wine. I like to smell a wine because I think that its aroma is one of its most intoxicating qualities, but I’ll be damned if I can isolate scents like vanilla, honeydew, citrus, sweaty saddle (gross, I know (think about it if you don't get it immediately), but it is an actual scent some folks use to describe wine. Really. I read it in a magazine) or anything else. To me either a wine smells good or it doesn’t. That’s the way it’s going to stay until my palate develops more or I decide to try to fake people out and just outright lie to them (“This wine has an aroma of honeydew with subtle nuances of citrus and essence of frog”).

Tomasello has some of the best smelling and tasting dry reds I’ve ever had. I used to have two bottles of their Shiraz and Pinot Noir and one bottle of their Chambourcin (I went a little nuts last time I went to a festival. I spent nearly $200 on wine. It was an awesome day…until I added up the receipts after I’d gotten home and sobered up). I’ve long since drank those and just this past weekend picked up another bottle of their Shiraz. It is amazing stuff.

My wife likes their Ranier Red because she doesn’t like dry reds. We were introduced to Ranier Red by our friends, Dan and Lisa. I like it, too, but Ranier Red is a sweeter red that I can only drink a little of at a time because to me this wine tastes like candy. Any substantial amount has a tendency to turn my stomach. If you like sweeter reds, this is definitely the one for you.

As far as whites go, I’m not much of a white wine (or rose or blush) person. I have had some in the past and I do prefer drier whites to their sweeter counterparts, but they’re just not my area of expertise (there technically is no area of expertise for me, really). Unlike Tomasello’s Shiraz, Chambourcin and Pinot Noir, I have not found that one white wine that screams for me to love it. I keep hoping that Tomasello would produce a white that I totally fall in love with but so far they just haven’t. And that’s disappointing to me because I really admire their wines.

Tomasello produces some of the best fruit wines I’ve ever had. Their blueberry in particular is extremely good. It’s not too sweet, preserves well the tartness of the berry, and the alcohol blends well with the wine. Have you ever had a wine where the flavor of the alcohol takes over the flavor of the wine to the point where it tastes more like a liqueur? Not here, my friends. This wine is a perfect balance. Their Cranberry and American Almonique wines are also worth mentioning, as is their champagne. In fact, at the last festival I was at they mixed equal parts champagne with blueberry wine (a type of Kir) and it was amazing. You should definitely try it if you get the chance.

I have been a fan of Tomasello wines for almost five years now and have enjoyed every drop of that time. I look forward to the next time I’m able to go to a festival and just spend the afternoon sampling their wines.

4 stars out of 5

Tomasello Winery Tasting Room

The Good:
Great wines

The Bad:
The sales lady did not know the wines
Prices jacked over retail store prices

The Ugly:
Limited to four samples

New Jersey is home to over 30 wineries and some of the best, in my opinion, are located in the southern part of the state. Our daughter was at my parents’ house for the weekend so my wife and I decided to go on our own little wine tour, which is where you travel to several wineries and sample many of their offerings, something we’d never be able to do with a rambunctious (albeit, lovable) 6 year old in tow.

One of our favorite wineries is Tomasello Winery in Hammonton, NJ. I like their reds, Tiff likes their Almonique, and we both love their blueberry wine. It is very convenient because there are many different wines that come out of this winery that we both love. So when we decided to go on our little wine tour, it made sense that Tomasello be a part of our itinerary. Actually, it was the very first stop on our trip.

We were excited when we pulled in to the driveway at Tomasello partly because we’d always wanted to visit the winery and their tasting room. The building looked nice; to the right was the tasting room (we didn’t concern ourselves with the room to the left). We entered the room and there was another couple just finishing up their tasting adventure. My wife and I went to the other side of the bar and picked up a wine list and started to talk about what we wanted to try. It had been about two and a half years since either of us had gone to a wine festival and our supply of Jersey wines has long since been consumed, so we were due to stock up.

The other couple finally left and we walked up to the bar, Tiff to the right near the white and sweeter wines, and myself to the left, hovering near the reds. The bar itself was small and overcrowded with just about each different type of wine they offer represented, awards dangling from the bottles’ necks. In fact, there were only two narrow places on each side of the bar in which to pass your tasting glass back and forth to the sales person.

We stood in front of the bar and the woman, who really didn’t speak much and seemed somewhat cold and snobby, told us their tasting rules: she would give each of us four tickets and we could taste one wine per ticket.

Wait a minute; did you just say I could only taste four wines? Four out of 42? I had better luck than that with women in college (and I got pretty much nowhere with women when I was in college, by the way)!!!

We weren’t there to get drunk and we weren’t even going to attempt to get close to trying even half of the wines. My one goal was to try a few different things and see if there was anything new that would interest me, especially the whites. My wife was looking forward to trying their Port and some new fruit wines. But our thought process evolved into: why waste a ticket on something we may not like? So I decided to play it safe and make sure the things I liked two years ago were still good (their Shiraz, Chambourcin and Pinot Noir). I took a chance with my last ticket. I tried their Port (it was pretty good).

Seriously, if you’re going to be limited in what you can taste, why bother? It’s hard enough to find a new favorite when you can try as many as you want let alone being limited to less than 10% of their offerings!

Okay, so we resigned ourselves to being limited to four measly sips of wine. Meanwhile, we made the mistake of trying to get the bartender to talk to us. First of all, she didn’t really know much about the wine. This was made apparent when she told us that she doesn’t really know much about the wine. My question: then why the hell are you working behind the counter trying to sell wine?! That’s like having an English professor that only speaks Swahili. Stupid!

She eventually started to loosen up and lose the stuck-up demeanor that we’d pegged her for early on. She started to make recommendations for my wife, which was nice. The only problem was that she insisted on recommending wines that my wife told her that she wasn’t interested in. Then the sales lady began talking about her grandson named Gray and her other grand kids. I appreciate the recommendation attempts and the conversation, lady, but my wife and I need to strategize our next samples so we don’t waste them, so please shut the !@#$ up, is what I wanted to say. But I didn’t. I am a gentleman.

What kills me is that Tomasello Winery turns out such great wine and yet their tasting room is bound by such dumb rules (and that sales person. She must be a relative because otherwise she should have been fired a long time ago, and would have been if I were in charge). We were there for maybe half an hour and I did not enjoy my time there at all.

A word of warning, and another reason not to go to their tasting room: They sell their blueberry wine for $10 per bottle in the tasting room. If you can find the wine at a wine store like Wine Legend in Cherry Hill, NJ (on the wall to the right as you enter the store) you will pay about $7.50 per bottle.

You’re welcome.

After we left we went to three other wineries and we were not limited in the number of samples we could taste. They seemed to understand that sometimes customers need to try a variety of wines in order to find a wine that they like. In fact, the other sales people kept pouring and insisting that we try other wines! And that is how I believe it should be when you go to taste wines. You should not be limited - within reason (i.e. if you are visibly drunk and/or belligerent).

Based on this experience, I would recommend only tasting Tomasello wines at a wine festival where you can pay $20 and taste everything they have as well as everything everyone else has. Do not go to their tasting room. You have been warned.

0 stars out of 5

McDonald's of Mt. Ephraim

I’m not a big fan of fast food in general, and of all the various hamburger joints I would have to say that McDonald's is my least favorite. The best thing that McDonald's has going for it is its brand recognition. Put any little pair of eyeballs in front of a television set running a commercial with the Golden Arches and that kid will know that means McDonald's.

Before I go on a rant about McDonald's, let me start over by saying that this is not a review of McDonald's Corporation. In general I don’t have a problem with McDonald's as a company; in fact, I sort of admire the company in some regards, their food notwithstanding.

No, this review is about the McDonald's located on the Black Horse Pike in Mt. Ephraim, NJ.

More specifically, this review is about the death trap piece of $*!+ drive-thru service at this particular McDonald's.

Like just about any red-blooded American I have been to McDonald's more times than I can count. I’ve also experienced quite a few different McDonald's restaurants in quite a few different states. It makes sense that some of these locations would provide better service than others and minor hiccups in service don’t really bother me. As someone who has spent many years in the customer service industry I understand that some days are better than others and that just because the service is crappy one day that doesn’t necessarily mean that the service is crappy every day.

Unfortunately this has not been the case at the McDonald's in Mt. Ephraim, NJ. Their service – at the drive-thru – has been consistently crappy every time I have ever been through there. The reason for this, and I am convinced that I am correct in making this assumption, is that there are two drive-thru lines that merge and lead to one register window that is manned by one person who takes orders from both lines. Either that or the people manage the drive-thru are really really drooling-out-of-the-side-of-their-mouths-stupid, or it could be a combination of both.

Case in point: I went through the drive-thru last night to get my daughter a Happy Meal, my wife a caramel iced coffee, and a McDouble for myself. There were two lines formed, but the last cars in both lines were past their respective ordering points. I pulled up and wasn’t quite at the microphone so I was unable to order. I didn’t move for four minutes. I finally was able to order then waited in line for another six minutes until it was my turn to pay.

Seriously? Ten minutes?!

I could probably understand ten minutes if we were stuck in the middle of the dinner rush and there were twenty cars ahead of me. But it was after 7:00 pm! The dinner rush had long since ended!

The second example occurred on July 15. I pulled up to the drive-thru at 7:52 am intent on getting a crappy cup of coffee. That was all I wanted. I’d eaten breakfast at home and was craving some coffee. I prefer Wawa and Dunkin’ Donuts’ coffee, but I didn’t want to stop and get out of my car. I have been inside the facility once and it’s a fairly nice place and the employees are pretty friendly, but I just wanted to zip through the drive-thru and be on my way. There were three cars ahead of me who had all given their orders so I was able to give my order immediately. By the time I actually had my coffee in hand it was 8:04 am.

By comparison, I went through the drive-thru at Chick Fil-A in Mount Laurel, NJ for a cuppa Joe the other day. There were six cars ahead of me and I made it through the line in five minutes - during the breakfast rush!!!

WTF?!?!?!

So what’s the problem? I have never been through another McDonald's drive-thru that has taken as long to get through than this one. Is it strictly because one person handles both lines? Or is it just that there are two lines that merge into one? Either way it’s a horrible way to manage customers. Add to this the fact that last night was the first time they got my wife’s coffee correct (they usually give her hazelnut) and that doesn’t make for a very good track record.

I get annoyed when I think of all the time I could have saved by going into the building to place my order, but drive-thrus are supposed to be about convenience, and the drive-thru service at the McDonald's in Mt. Ephraim, NJ is anything but convenient.

½ stars
I gave the store one half-star instead of zero stars because they got my wife's coffee right one time. And Rick Moranis taught all of us the importance of doing something well "one time" in the movie, Little Giants:

Cake Boss

Reality food shows seem to be all the rage right now. For example, Food Network has Dinner: Impossible, Ace of Cakes, and, Food Network Challenge. Fox has Hell's Kitchen. Bravo has Top Chef, Top Chef Masters and coming soon to TLC: Ultimate Cake Off. And that's just naming a few.

The show I really like is Cake Boss, also on TLC. Here you won't find any executive chefs from some fancy restaurants you'd never be able to afford - even if you could make a reservation - using big, fancy culinary terms that make cooking seem more mysterious than it really is. You also won't find a bunch of Generation X, Y or Z pseudo-slackers churning out artistisan cakes. There's no pretentiousness here. It's just the ongoing adventures of Buddy Valastro, owner of Carlo's Bakery in Hoboken, NJ, who just happens to be a kick-ass 4th generation cake maker.

Cake Boss is a refreshing look at the day-to-day operation of a small, family owned and operated Italian Bakery. Buddy's family works with him behind the scenes and each character is authentic in that no one seems to be putting on a show for the sake of the camera.

The cakes, though, are the true stars of the show and the cakes that Buddy and his crew make are simply incredible. One of tonight's episodes had Buddy and crew making a Chinese dragon cake (the end result was exquisite). Another episode saw Buddy and crew make a zombie cake to help celebrate the Asbury Park Zombie Walk. In another episode Buddy and crew built a 400 pound Indricotherium cake. It's truly amazing to watch each cake come together throughout the course of each show.

And what would a television show be without drama? Every episode also features some sort of tension within the group (which some people find as amusing as seeing the finished cakes). Tonight someone left a big vat of cannoli cream out in the 90 degree heat. A few weeks ago someone dropped a finished cake down the stairs. And a couple weeks before that, some bitchy bridezilla came in to see her cake before it was done. When she didn't like what she saw, she wrecked the cake with colored icing and made Buddy make her a new cake...the day before her wedding!!!

In the end, Cake Boss is a fun look at a local bakery that employs an engaging cast of characters who turn out some of the most amazing cakes you've ever seen. If you can't find Cake Boss on TV you can find and watch full episodes on TLC's website. It's definitely worth your time.

5 out of 5 stars

Cici's Pizza Buffet

The Good:
Plentiful Options
Fresh, hot food
Cinnamon Rolls!!!

The Bad:
A little on the salty side
No locations in New Jersey

The Ugly:
Apple Pie Pizza

Cici's Pizza Buffet

If you live in the South Jersey/Philadelphia area, chances are that you've seen a commercial for Cici's Pizza Buffet. The only problem is that there isn't one nearby. In fact, the closest one (to my house, anyway) is in Lancaster, Pa which is about 58 miles away. I certainly wouldn't make a trip out to Lancaster just to try Cici's, but seeing as I was already out there I figured why not? I mean, I've been teased mercilessly by the commercials like this one over the past year or so, so why pass up the opportunity:



Their advertisements used to state that the buffet was under $5 per person which caused me to question the quality of their pizza. I mean, what kind of pizza is $5 for all you can eat? Honestly, I was a bit nervous, but for $5 per person, in the end does it really matter?

My first impression of the restaurant was not too great because it looked absolutely normal (read: boring) as just another store in a strip mall off of route 30 in Lancaster (right down the road from Dutch Wonderland and, no, that's not why I was in town, although my daughter has been practically begging me to go). Cici’s is situated next to a Game Stop which looked more appetizing to me as we were driving up. As you enter the restaurant there is a big board with a couple options on it: Take out or Buffet. The price for a large 14" pizza for take out is only $5.99 which is a pretty good price, barring quality, of course. The buffet is now priced at $5.49 per adult and $2.99 for children under 10. Drinks are $1.49 ($0.99 for kids), so after tax we spent $19.23 for the three of us (Rachel Ray would be proud).

What struck me right off the bat was the demeanor of the employees (I guess I’m used to the jaded scowls of New Jersey folk): the employees were polite and welcoming. The employees with whom we interacted all seemed to a) want to make our visit a good one b) enjoy their jobs and c) generally enjoy life (a vibe which you just don’t get from many Jersey folk, especially those who work a cash register at a buffet, for example).

Just past the register is the beginning of the buffet line. As soon as you are issued your receipt you can pick up a tray and some plates and you start at the salad bar which, although limited in its offerings (then again, who goes to an all you can eat pizza place to eat salad?), was nice because the salad was fresh (however, I would go so far as to say that if you went there and only ate salad (and dessert – more on dessert later), you’d still get your money’s worth).

The pizza, though, is the reason anybody goes to Cici’s, and the pizza definitely has its moments to shine. Overall what impressed me about the pizza was the crust. The crust wasn't greasy and crispy like it had been fried in oil (I'm looking at you, Pizza Hut), and it wasn't wet or undercooked like at Chuck E. Cheese. In fact, the crust was chewy without being too thick and tough, it was not thin like a cracker like some thin crust pizzas (anyone remember Donato's Pizza?) and did not taste like unseasoned flour (anyone thinking Papa John’s?). In fact, my only real complaint was that the pizza was a bit too salty, and that goes for all of the pizzas I tried.

Cici’s offers a whopping 20 types of pizza and garlic bread to choose from on the buffet line. Due to the rapid turnover, the pizzas were all fresh, none of them getting a chance to sit under the heat lamps for very long. And one thing that I really appreciate is that if something you want to try is not present you can ask for one to be made and then they will bring it out to your table. Case in point: my wife wanted to try the taco pizza which wasn’t on the line and they brought out three slices to our table about five minutes later. This was a nice touch because who wants to spend their time defending their place in the pizza line against other ravenous patrons (anyone who’s waited for more crab legs to be brought out at a Chinese dinner buffet knows exactly to what I am referring)? Certainly not me.

Of all the types of pizza that they offer (here is a link to their menu), I tried the following: Pepperoni, Buffalo Chicken, Mexican Style Ole (a taco pizza), Spinach Alfredo, Macaroni and Cheese (this was the closest I came to the Pasta portion of the buffet), Pepperoni Jalapeno, Classic Chicken, Zesty Pepperoni, Flip Pizza (stuffed pizza), BBQ, and, the garlic bread (I had the garlic bread with the salad). I know, it looks like a lot of food but hey, I was hungry. It’s also important to note that most slices of pizza can be consumed with as little as two bites (if you’re like me), leaving just the thick part of the crust behind. The pizza slices are small, and that is good because it lets you sample as many different pizzas as you want without filling you up right away.

When all is said and done I’d have to say that my favorite pizzas were the Buffalo Chicken, which was nice and tangy without being overly hot or not spicy at all, and the Flip Pizza, which had a nice, golden brown top crust and delicious, gooey cheese and pepperoni on the inside. All of the others were pretty middle-of-the-road, standard offerings that you could probably put together at home using store-bought components; you just wouldn’t be able to make all these pizzas at home for $7 per person, though.

Once I had sampled all of the pizzas that I was going to try I went for a spot of dessert. One of my all time favorite desserts is Apple Pie, so how could I go wrong with their Apple Pie Pizza? Well, it really wasn’t that good. It was pretty bland and too chewy for a pastry-style dessert. The big winner was the cinnamon rolls, which were light, fluffy, rich, and, very sweet and flavorful. I didn’t even bother to try the brownie which looked pathetic. My wife did, and confirmed my suspicions.

All things considered I definitely recommend Cici's Pizza Buffet. If nothing else, the price is incredibly reasonable. Where else can you get a dinner buffet for about $7 per person? The cheapest price I've ever seen at a Chinese buffet was $7.99 and that was for a lunch buffet; the dinner buffets usually average $10-$15 per person. It's important to remember that this is not gourmet pizza. It isn't even your local mom-and-pop-hometown pizza. This is fast-food pizza and it was as good as, or better than, most other fast-food pizzas. Also, the employees seemed to really enjoy working there; everyone we met and spoke with smiled and seemed genuinely interested in making our visit a memorable one.

It is just too bad that the closest Cici’s is in Lancaster, PA, which is pretty far from Jersey. If you’re going to go all that way out to Lancaster and visit Amish country or another attraction in the area, there are lots of good local places to eat that I could recommend to you. If your goal, however, is a very reasonably priced lunch or dinner and pizza is what you are craving, you shouldn’t pass up Cici's Pizza Buffet.

3 ½ stars out of 5