Long Beach Island, NJ

Long, leisurely Labor Day weekend mostly spent in North Beach and Surf City with field trips to Harvey Cedars, Loveladies, and Barnegat Light, time spent at a friend's parents rental property, easy access to the bay and the beach. Lunch from http://mariositalianmarket.net when we got there, Italian hoagies so good I hankered for one after T brought back a half months ago from his first visit. Dinner one night at the parent's home included phenomenal pit beef and rolls from a partygoer's deli in Philadelphia alongside the hostess's own pasta salads and ephemeral meatballs and sauce. This accompanied by 70 yr olds with hatchets hacking plywood in the dark as fire pit fuel and a knife somehow dropped on a toe. And, the deli owner's mix of classic hip hop and rat pack standards. On a subsequent night P, the fantastic bartender of April Bloomfield's restaurants, cooked up a storm of clams steamed in IPA, a gigantic prime T-bone from http://okiesbutchershop.com, succotash served steaming in the skillet, tiny new potatoes and thyme, and, a gorgeous thick-fleshed fish from http://www.blueclawlbi.com, a special fish we'd never heard of, wish I could remember the name. All this and wines galore, a Chateau Musar, a standout, and aperol spritzes, and, etc. When we weren't lavished with home cooked meals, we breakfasted at 2009 James Beard Award winner, https://www.facebook.com/pages/Mustache ... 1953267225, and Bill was in house with purely perfect simple American breakfast fare. I had a short stack of blueberry french toast, just toast lacy with crispy batter and bursting with whole blueberries, and breakfast sausage split and grilled, offering a spirited tanginess. Breakfast another day at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jaysons- ... 0057949726, satisfied after it's own, more homespun fashion, I loved the small traditional sage sausage links and the deceptively potato chip-esque home fries, my eggs scrambled were just on the verge of too hard. Good fresh grapefruit juice and honest scrapple. We enjoyed one last lounge on the beach, where, despite my armor-like sunscreen I managed to get deliriously burnt and giddy. Working up a good swimmer's hunger in deep water, I joined the others as we packed up our things and went our separate ways. Leaving LBI we stopped at http://www.woodiesburgersnj.com/contact.html. Lots of choices, I went with the simplest, hamburger, lettuce, tomato, onion, they even threw in a fresh cucumber pickle. Satisfying char on the beef cooked just this side of medium, still a little pink, buns deliquescing in the juicy aftermath. Heartbreakingly good french fries, sad because we were leaving town and, as K opined, the ocean already looks like Fall.