Checking In at: Trap Rock Restaurant & Brewery, Berkeley Heights NJ

Early Sunday evening visit. We dined at the bar, as we always do. Trap Rock was in top form. Prof. Bob’s Brown Ale is a delicious malt bomb. Kestrel IPA is a crisp, bitter classic American-style IPA. Now if we could only figure out how to get our beer photos to focus.

The bread basket is free, of course, but they’ll usually ask if you want it before bringing you one. Your answer is yes! The biscuits found within are about the best Northeast biscuits we’ve ever had, and the warm soft pretzels are great dipped in the coarse-grained sweet mustard.

Their soups are constantly changing. Tonight they offered cauliflower soup with an olive oil drizzle. The aroma is distinctly cauliflower but the flavor less so. The soup is thick and super smooth, almost looking like Dijon mustard in the bowl. They may have used chicken stock as a base. Super-satisfying for a cold night; could easily be a meal with the bread.

The TR Grass Fed Burger, with Red Dragon ale-mustard cheddar, caramelized onions, rosemary aioli, and frites. Trap Rock’s burger is one of our favorites in the state.

The short ribs pictured at the top of this writeup were astoundingly good! The two enormous hunks of well-browned, super-soft beef were braised in red wine and removed from the bone. Beautiful rich flavor. They rested upon an enormous mound of horseradish mashed potatoes, which possessed all of the flavor but none of the pungency of the root. The only misstep was their lukewarm temperature. Loved the potatoes eaten together with the beef like a thick sauce. Flaps of well-cooked onion and slices of deep purple, almost black, carrot, with a meaty intensity of flavor, and the dark sauce, rounded out the dish. Perfect winter food.