Baby, I’m Born to Run (Mamma Rosa's Restaurant)
Sometimes you want a basic Italian meal: tasty, not too expensive, not too fancy. Mamma Rosa’s, only a few minutes out of town on Klockner Road in Hamilton fills the need.
[Full Review] Ratings:
Kitchen is open late, at least until 9 PM during the week, and typically 10 PM or later on weekends. Check hours for specifics.
Sometimes you want a basic Italian meal: tasty, not too expensive, not too fancy. Mamma Rosa’s, only a few minutes out of town on Klockner Road in Hamilton fills the need.
There aren’t many places in Trenton where you can get good food late. The Buzz is basically a bar, and stays open until 2 AM. It’s owned by a middle aged Polish couple, who are at the bar every night. She keeps the kitchen open for the “full menu” at least until 10 just about every night. If the joint is hopping, it might be a lot later. And then they have a “late night menu” that’s good at least until 1 AM.
Gennaro’s is a nicely turned out pizzeria and Italian restaurant in a newish strip mall where Nottingham Way and Rt. 33 converge in Hamilton Square (about 7.5 miles from Trenton). If for some reason you find yourself there, seeking sustenance amidst the soul-numbing suburban sprawl, by all means stop in for a pie. It’s really quite good. Nice, thin, crisp crust. Tomato “sauce”. Good quality cheese and toppings.
Trenton Social is the sort of hip, slightly upscale bar and restaurant that attracts a diverse crowd of Trenton’s movers and shakers. White, black, straight, gay, artists, artisans, performers, brokers and bankers… you’ll find them all hanging out at Trenton Social having a good time.
La Villa is a nondescript pizza restaurant in Morrisville, just over the bridge from Trenton. In addition to conventional pizza and a host of Italian cooking, La Villa features a “Chambersburg Style Tomato Pie”. And darned if it isn’t.
Mariachi Grill (not to be confused with El Mariachi) serves Tres Leches, a fabulous dessert made from sponge cake and traditionally three different kinds of milk: whole, condensed, and evaporated (plus a whipped cream topping). It’s the best I’ve ever had. And I love Tres Leches. For me, there’s no more to be said.
I suppose most people who live here, and many who are just exploring for the first time, know Trenton is located between New York and Philly. If, like me, you were NY focused before you moved here, you may not know that Philly is a) unbelievably close (34 miles, city center to city center), and b) a really, really cool place to visit.
This is the kind of restaurant you can take your mother to, and still get outstanding, home cooked Guatemalan food at unbelievably low prices.
El Chapin is a new Guatemalan restaurant at the corner of Cass and Lamberton Streets, within spitting distance of Waterfront Park. The specialty of the house is charcoal grilled rotisserie chicken, and it’s really, really, really good.
Most Indian restaurants have good food and indifferent decor. Few, today, are particularly expensive. But the Palace – despite being located in a strip mall off of Quakerbridge Rd – is absolutely gorgeous inside, reasonable for lunch, and a small fortune for dinner. Palace does a very nice buffet every afternoon. That’s probably the best way to get exposed to the restaurant and to decide if you’re ready to spring for the full dinner menu.
Five Guys serves an outstanding burger and fries. The fact that it’s a chain, and in Ewing, made me hesitate to add it to “Hidden Trenton”. Then, I ate my first sample. The burgers and fries are that good. I consider Five Guys a non-chain, chain (harkening to Watergate’s non-denial, denial): it’s thriving because the food is really good (if in this case, not good for you), not just fast or convenient.
Sneak away to the Blooming Grove Inn, especially on a summer’s evening sitting on the terrace, and you can feel for a moment like you’ve borrowed your friend’s country house, and are enjoying a weekend away from it all. With new management and an upscale, farm to table concept, we’ve yet to try the new menu. Will let you know.
With so much great tomato pie in Trenton, why does Dominick’s deserve a place on Hidden Trenton? A few reasons. First, the pies are genuinely good, made with fresh ingredients. While the tomato pie doesn’t quite match the sublime heights of Papa’s or DeLorenzo’s, it’s darn good. Second, it’s open when those other places aren’t. Want a pie for a Tuesday lunch? You’re out of luck with either of the classic Trenton establishments, which are basically open only for dinner.
Mastoris is one of those places that doesn’t seem possible when you first go there. First of all, it’s impossibly huge… the website claims they serve up to 2,800 people per day, and certainly the facility is large enough. Second, when you sit down, your waitress will bring you a plate piled high with two loaves of sweet bread, one each of cinnamon and cheese. Don’t eat too much bread, though, since the portions on your order, when it arrives, will be huge.
Let’s see….suprisingly good and varied Italian food. BYOB. Reasonably priced. It seems in our household, we end up going out to Villa Rosa as often as anyplace in the area.
Hong Kong Restaurant, located where Hamilton and S. Clinton intersect is probably the best, true Chinese take-out in town. This is a family-run restaurant, with an extensive menu cooked in front of you while you wait.
Everyone has a yearning for simple, cheap Chinese food from time to time, and you don’t want to have to drive to get it. In a town where there are some truly dreadful take out Chinese joints….listing a few that are pretty good is a useful service. Kam Buffet is a post millenium buffet joint, with a large dining room and a huge array of steam tables. The food is good, and management takes better care to keep it fresh and turning over quickly than many establishments of this type.
A decent Pan-Asian restaurant across from the Dairy Queen in Morrisville? Believe it or not… And the food’s the thing. With an extensive menu serving up Chinese, Japanese, and Thai dishes, no one should go hungry or want for choice. There’s plenty of seafood and vegetarian dishes (which you’d expect), one of the best sushi bars in the area, and even several dishes that will satisfy the unrepentant carnivores in your party.
“It’s Nutts” is immediately adjacent to Washington Crossing State Park, and on the way to Baldpate Mountain. If you’re headed there, it’s a great place to pick up a well prepared, moderately priced meal (in an area that’s not known for bargains).
Frankye’s is a bar on the edge of Chambersburg , with a clean, nearly-charming dining room serving first rate Guatemalan food. The dining room tables are covered by white table cloths, and the floor sparkles. They can char-broil a decent steak, and serve the best Carne Adobada in town.
From the outside, Szechuan House looks like a pretty standard suburban Chinese restauarant, and at first glance, so does the menu. All of the standard Americanized items can be found. But look a little closer, and you’ll see a number of items that you never see on a “standard ” menu. Some frankly, sound pretty disgusting…but my rule is that if you don’t find at least a half dozen things that sound disgusting on a Chinese menu, you’re going to the wrong restaurant. As it turns out, there’s plenty on the menu that’s both authentic and delicious.
Mi Tierra is another of the many outstanding Guatemalan restaurants in the City of Trenton, serving its burgeoning Latino population. Mi Tierra stands apart because: 1) the food is well prepared, a notch better than typical and 2) the decor is better than most. While not fancy by any means, it’s a pleasant place to eat, and the service is friendly.
Malaga serves authentic (European) Spanish food, not to be confused with the many “Latino” (Mexican, Guatemalan, Puerto Rican) restaurants that have opened in Trenton in recent years. The menu emphasizes seafood, though there are plenty of meat and chicken dishes as well.
It’s rare in the US to find a bar that delivers this combination of casual comfort and community connectedness. But the Mill Hill Saloon is one of the rare exceptions. Especially if you live in Mill Hill or Trenton Ferry, or work on South Broad, you can enter almost any night of the week and recognize a friend or neighbor. They’ll introduce you to their drinking buddies, and pretty soon there’s a bunch of you jabbering away about the news, the neighborhood, or whatever.
OK, so your teenage son arrives home on Sunday around 11:30 PM. He’s been out all day, never ate dinner, and is starving. Where do you go with him? Easy, Pat’s.
A very good Guatemalan joint on Olden, and one of the oldest. Always inexpensive, it’s now one of the cheapest. The archetypal Trenton dive is worth visiting if you’re nearby.