This May Be The Best Portuguese Restaurant in Monmouth County
We love to support locally owned restaurants here in Monmouth and Ocean Counties. When we find a place that knocks our socks off, we tell everyone we know.
We particularly love Portuguese food and when we discovered there are some great restaurants serving Portuguese cuisine outside of Newark, we had to try them.
Will there be anything as good as the food in Newark’s Ironbound neighborhood? The answer is yes, and we found such place in Long Branch, New Jersey.
The restaurant is called “Mar Belo.” You’ll find it them at 611 Broadway, Long Branch, NJ 07740.
We have been to this place nearly a dozen times, and they have been consistently great with both the food and the service. Even in October of 2021 with Covid restrictions, they did a fantastic job. We were careful to grab an outdoor table away from tables with larger parties.
This past Saturday night, we met another couple for dinner who had similar experiences at this incredible restaurant.
I started off with an Absolut dirty martini with 3 olives, and our friend Tom grabbed a mini pitcher of Mar Belo’s famous house made Sangria. Bruce & Tom’s wife Toni enjoyed a bottle of sparkling water.
For our appetizer, Bruce and I always order Polvo à Espanhola which is grilled baby octopus, olive oil, garlic, & lemon. A simple preparation with just a few ingredients makes the octopus the star of the show. It’s perfectly tender and jam packed with flavor. Our dining companions also chose the octopus along with an order of Camarão à Guilho, which is shrimp, sauteed in garlic sauce, and yes, our friends were kind enough to share.
For dinner, my husband and our dining companions ordered the skirt steak with chimichurri sauce, Spanish potatoes, and a vegetable. I always order a seafood dish, and this time it was Paelha Valenciana, a dish filled with lobster, shrimp, scallops, mussels, calamari, clams, pork, chicken and sausage cooked in saffron rice. The incredible aroma of the fresh seafood and that beautifully fragrant saffron rice, it’s a miracle I was able to engage in conversation while enjoying my meal, I was so focused on this magnificent dish.
If you’re from Monmouth or Ocean County and you’ve never had Portuguese cuisine but you’re interested in trying it, let me save you a trip Newark by suggesting Mar Belo in Long Branch.
