The Tavern

Yesterday, my wife's dad and step-mom offered to watch our son for us so we could go out to dinner. Not wanting to waste a chance to have a nice night out, we decided to go into the city instead of heading to one of the many mediocre places here in Jersey (sure, I'll admit there have to be some good places out here - we just haven't found them yet). We didn't have any time to get a reservation at one of the places we wanted to go to (although we did scour the list on opentable.com) so we decided to try our luck at the front room in the Gramercy Tavern.
This is one of the paces I always wanted to go to, but never did get the chance. The place is split up into two parts - the front "tavern" room, and the back restaurant space. To sit in the back, reservations are required (unless you get lucky) and the dress code is a lot nicer. The front, has a cheaper, scaled-down version of the menu, with no reservations required and a more laid-back attitude. Although it appeared crowded when we got there, it only took about 15 minutes of waiting at the bar for us to get our table. Everyone was very friendly and we had really good service.
We started off with some appetizers. My wife got the carrot soup with spiced cashews, and I got the plate of restaurant-made cured meats. Both were fantastic. For our main courses, my wife got the smoked kielbasa with spaetzle and butternut squash, and I had the stuffed meatball with fontina cheese over a potato puree with onion marmalade. Of note - I decided on my dish based on the fact that our waitress said it was "pretty freakin' good." All of my dishes were paired with many glasses of the Dolcetta d'Alba Ascheri 2005, Piedmont Italy. I had initially intended to change up my wine selection as I went on with the meal. I like to do this when I'm out to try as much as possible. However, I was enjoying this so much, I just kept going with it. It was a light wine, red in color, and it went down very easily. It's a wine I could buy a case or two of and keep drinking it with all my meals.
We finished up with the apple crisp for two with vanilla and cinnamon sour cream ice creams as well as excellent cappuccinos.
Great meal, and a great atmosphere. Would definitely go back again.

NP: The Pretender, Foo Fighters.