Metro Diner, 269 Route 18, Suite 9, East Brunswick, NJ – Last visit January 2, 2020
Editor 1107 and I were running errands this day, the second day of the new decade and decided to hit this place. Editor 1107 had been to Metro Diner previously and has been recommending it for some time. One of the tag lines of the diner is ‘where the locals’ dine and another saying about the diner is ‘As soon as you enter, you feel like a local’. The staff is amazingly friendly. We both placed orders from the menus but made changes to the standard order. No matter what we requested, the waitress was over the top accommodating.
The menu included many southern style dishes like shrimp and grits and southern eggs benedict. The waitress explained that the southern eggs benedict was similar to traditional eggs benedict except that it was made with sausage patties and sausage gravy instead of Canadian bacon and hollandaise sauce. Uh…ultra yum. Another classic southern dish was the chicken and waffles. On the menu as well were classic diner items like meatloaf, chicken fingers and pot roast as well as a whole host of breakfast dishes. One burger, known as the holy divoli burger is a ½ lb. burger between TWO grilled cheese sandwiches each of which has tomatoes and bacon with a layer of cole slaw in the middle. They will also add a fried egg if you think you need it. The burger without the egg is priced at a little over $12. Reasonable, I think considering there are basically three sandwiched in one. The egg addition would push the price up another dollar.
On this particular visit I ordered a bacon cheese burger with mozzarella cheese and a side of fries. The burger was huge! It was juicy and the bacon had a smoky, maple flavor that pushed the burger over the top. Of course, I opted for no sauces and not even tomatoes or lettuce. Editor 1107 insisted that I leave the tomato and lettuce so she could snap a picture. Just the burger, the cheese, the bacon and the bun. One a scale of one to five smiles, I would give the burger 😊😊😊😊😊. To drink, I had a freshly brewed unsweetened mango iced tea.
Editor 1107 chose the fried chicken and waffles. Errah the order included half a chicken and a full Belgian waffle, cut it to quarters and a spicy syrup. The spicy pancake syrup was mixed tableside and included syrup with a few dashes of Louisiana hot sauce. I have ordered chicken and waffles before, always here in New Jersey, and the chicken was always boneless, fried chicken breast. But the chicken and waffles here was bone-in chicken. According to Editor 1107, when chicken and waffles is ordered in the south, it is fried chicken (bone-in) and waffles. As a side note, the syrup also doubled as a good dipping sauce for my fries, salted piping hot fries dipped in the spicy syrup was the greatest of contrasting flavors. Editor 1107 gave her fried chicken and waffles 😊😊😊😊. This is and, at the same time, is not a typical New Jersey style diner. Somehow the food seemed fresh and tasty as well as filling and reasonably priced and the atmosphere didn’t lend itself to shuffling people in and out. After we finished our meal, we did not rush out and we didn’t feel like we were being hurried. One note of interest is that during the week, the diner closes for -a few hours after lunch and then re-opens for dinner and overall, the diner closes at 10:00 every night, even on the weekend. The overall rating for this eatery is 😊😊😊😊 from me and 😊😊😊😊😊 from Editor 1107 – to boil us down to the average rating of 😊😊😊😊 ½ smiles.