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A delightful place to enjoy an early breakfast or lunch,...
Whether en route to a choice morning fishing spot or seeking to erase a late night out, there are many offbeat breakfast spots that welcome watery-eyed morning wanderers. With fantastic views or amusing sights, these four restaurants stand out from the normal morning diner crowd.
At Langosta Lounge in Asbury Park, located between the boardwalk and Ocean Avenue, bites of healthy breakfast are enjoyed with seascapes. Customers munch on bowls of healthy granola or exotic pink and yellow pamelos while looking east to an unobstructed view of the ocean.
The food is an eclectic mix of traditional breakfast favorites and foreign flavors. Some of Langosta Lounge's unusual brunch offerings include poached eggs in asparagus and sauteed lobster for $11. The $8 huevos la playa are scrambled eggs with salsa and cheese on blue corn chips. Sides include traditional favorites such as bacon, and the unusual, such as Langosta's sweet fries and curry mayo for $4.
For vegetarians, the morning menu holds a variety of options: vegetarian sausage links, vegetarian chilaquiles and vegetarian breakfast burritos.
Breakfast brunch is served 11 a.m. - 4 p.m. Sundays
To the south, Kaya's Kitchen in Belmar also offers a vegetarian breakfast.
At 10 a.m. on a recent Sunday, the restaurant is playing soft Rasta music. Decorated wool blankets and pictures of free-Tibet protesters adorn the walls. A drum set sits in the back of the restaurant and large, black amplifiers fill much of the hallway.
The menu includes breakfast specials with names such as Rastaman, Drunken Monkey, the Happy Hippie and the Chupacabra, all ranging from about $9 to $13. The description of the Hawaiian French toast stands out. The menu describes it as "a temple of French toast crushed by a mountain of fruit.''
For former meat-eaters, yellow tofu resembles scrambled eggs. Veggie sausage smells and tastes like its meat-filled brethren. Four slices of soy ""ham'' are served on the side for $2.50. Even coffee and tea are served with soy milk.
Breakfast is served 9 a.m. - 1 p.m. Sundays.
Shut Up and Eat
Toms River's Shut Up and Eat staff wears pajamas while serving sides of sausage, eggs and stacks of pancakes. The walls are decorated in various kitsch and country styles.
Nothing on the table matches. Silverware, plates and cups were collected from a variety of sources. Owner Ann Gauthier mines her collection with the help of her customers.
"If you leave your coffee cup, you get coffee,'' she said. "If you bring a dinner plate and leave the plate, you get a free pancake.''
Shut Up and Eat's food is renowned: Gauthier said her restaurant won best breakfast awards for her homemade cooking from the Asbury Park Press in both 2006 and 2007. Adults can eat for under $10 and children have a special $2 menu, she said.
Her specialty is the strawberry chocolate chip cream cheese that is made on-site, she said. She also carries pumpkin pancakes, homemade banana nut bread and yogurt parfaits, she said.
Breakfast is served 7 a.m. - 2 p.m. daily.
Shut Up and Eat is at 213 Route 37 East (K-Mart plaza) in Toms River. For more information, call (732) 349-4544.
For families looking to eat closer to the beach, Sunny Hunny Restaurant by the Sea in the Ortley Beach section of Toms River hosts Sesame Street's Elmo and Winnie the Pooh characters daily. Both Pooh and Elmo inflate balloons for children between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m., said owner Bernie Ferris, who has owned the restaurant for 25 years.
The restaurant caters to its youngest crowd with Mickey Mouse pancakes. For adults, it serves an array of specialty omelets and benedicts, Ferris said. He particularly prizes his lox, potato, egg and chicken Florentine benedicts.
"It's a very busy breakfast and lunch pancake house,'' Ferris said. "People wait in line to get in.''
Sunny Hunny is open seven days a week during the summer to accommodate tourist crowds.
Breakfast is served 6 a.m. - 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday; 7 a.m. - 3 p.m. Monday through Friday
