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The interesting thing is Marty's
is so simple. You could pass them out as you're driving along Old
Newport Street. Big mistake. Don't ever pass these guys out. If you
do, you miss an incredible meal. First of all, Marty's starts each
and every day with fresh food. Nothing complicated, just basic, consistent,
good quality food - something you can count on. They pride themselves
in offering the freshest food available, and they've earned a reputation
they look forward to keeping for years to come.
So, yes, you have to make reservations. But, once you get there, you
can sit back and enjoy your dining experience. If we had to describe
the atmosphere to you, it would be nothing special. It's clean, neat
and cozy. There are hundreds of pictures covering the walls. All pictures
the owners feel important in their line of work. They've served so
many - including the famous and elite. It's simply a place you have
to drive to and experience and , you'll never be sorry you did.
We started with an appetizer. We decided to share an evening appetizer
special. The crab dip done in cream cheese and spices was incredible
and served with a selection of crackers. Every one of us had an extraordinary
experience ($6.95). Really, it was so wonderful, we could have eaten
this dip forever. And, we mean that, sincerely. It was warm and spicy
and a perfect start to any meal. They were thrilled we were so enthusiastic
about their dip.
As part of our dinner, we received a house salad. We chose both the
house salad dressings. One was a creamy Italian and the other a lighter
Italian version. Both were outstanding. The salads contained only
the freshest ingredients and the best dressings possible. We only
could wonder about our other side dishes.
Our dinners arrived promptly
after our salads. With our dinners we received an Italian garlic and
cheese bread that could knock out some Old Forge pizza restaurants.
Yes, it was that good. We also went with the twice baked potato. Again,
there was nothing phony about this potato. It was stuffed with cheese
and incredibly delicious. Once again, we were impressed.
Our dinner included the fresh
jumbo lump crab cakes ($19.95). It was worth every penny. Every bite
was just another example of how wonderful seafood dishes can be. Another
dish we sampled was the New Orleans bourbon trio ($16.95). If you
can't decide, then try this dish complete with shrimp, scallops and
chicken. We ordered it exactly as we liked, with linguini and all,
and we weren't disappointed. Our dinner was served perfectly. And,
we also tried the blackened haddock with their own Cajun spices ($14.95).
Anyone who appreciates blackened food will truly appreciate this dish.
They do it perfectly. We were amazed that a restaurant so far away
from the Scranton area could produce dishes so worthy of travel through
Wilkes-Barre and beyond.
Dessert? After all this food?
Of course, because we planned on taking food home with us. Yes, they
laughed at the fact we couldn't finish our meal, but saved room for
dessert. Dessert consisted of a pastry puff with vanilla ice cream
smothered in chocolate sauce. It was surrounded by fresh whipping
cream. We just had to laugh because you couldn't take this home. You
sure had to finish it and appreciate what dessert is all about.
Our final, final to the evening
was a cup of coffee ($1.75) and a cup of house coffee ($4.95). House
coffee came complete with a dash of this and a dash of that along
with a topping of Crème de Menthe. We could only wonder at
the calories we ingested in one night. But, it was worth every last
one of them.
If you need a place to go where
the food is fantastic, Marty's won't let you down. We never expected
a restaurant so off the beaten track to be so wonderful. Really. Truly.
Travel there for a great fine dining experience in the back of a bar.
MasterCard/Visa/Not Handicapped
Accessible/Full Bar/Casual Attire/Expensive
Hoops, barbecue benefit
Newport Twp. police
By Robert Kalinowski , Citizens'
Voice Staff Writer 06/28/2004
Members of the Newport Township Police Department were winners and
losers on Sunday.At a basketball tournament/chicken dinner fund-raiser
held at the Wanamie Recreation Park, they were defeated on the court,
but won where it counted, as they were the beneficiaries of the day's
proceeds.
Approximately 400 barbecue chicken dinners were prepared and served
from the Marty's Blue Room mobile cooking station by a hoard of volunteers.The
police department will use the money raised to replace an outdated
computer system at the police station in Wanamie.
"New computers weren't in the budget, so they asked us if we
could do something," said Jim Schonfeld, owner of Marty's Blue
Room, Newport Township, who catered and hosted Sunday's event.
While Schonfeld and staff were busy cooking the chicken, there was
some basketball to be played. Being the host team of a three-team
tourney, Newport Township police secured a bye into the 'championship
game'.
The first game featured a team from Fox 56, which films a cooking
show for Marty's Blue Room, versus a team assembled by Larry's Pizza,
Nanticoke. In that contest, Larry's Pizza rallied to win in the fourth
quarter and went on to face the rested Newport Township police team.Though
the police officers held their own throughout the game, in the end,
it was the Larry's Pizza team that was crowned champion.
.Newport Township Police Chief Carl Smith said the fund-raiser was
a necessity because the department simply cannot function effectively
with the computer system it currently uses."We needed the equipment
and the township can't afford it," he said. "It was a tremendous
turnout. It went better than anyone would have thought."
Some of the sponsors for the event were Quality Gas, Eastern Fuel
Oil, Lee's Oil, Hazle Associates Custom Builders, RK Furs, Attorney
Patrick Aregood and Marty's Blue Room, and State Rep. John Yudichak
(D-119) donated a bike that was raffled off
Catfish with a real
bite to it
By MARY THERESE BIEBEL-marytb@leader.net
2/18/04
To see Jim and Ben Schonfeld
cooking on television, tune in to "Pennsylvania Outdoors" at 6:30
p.m. Saturdays on WSWB, Channel 38. Father and son often demonstrate
how to cook some Pennsylvania fish or game on that show.
The chef grinned, relishing the compliment from a guy on the phone.
"He wanted reservations," Jim Schonfeld said. "He said, 'I heard you
make the meanest catfish in town.' "
Now, how do you make the meanest catfish? Why, Cajun style, of course.
With spices and flair straight from the bayou.
Schonfeld, who owns Marty's Blue Room on Old Newport Street in Sheatown,
cooks the Louisiana way all year round.
But, in Mardi Gras season, or, as he calls it, "Marty Gras," he suspects
amateur cooks might want to try to blacken their own fish at home.
So, on a recent Thursday afternoon, he agreed to a demonstration,
complete with a pep talk.
"Some people become intimidated by a stove," he said. "Don't be. It's
your friend. Cooking is nothing but your imagination running wild.
You see a recipe that calls for rosemary and you don't like rosemary?
So substitute basil."
Even if you absolutely hate a dish, he said, "You have nothing to
lose but a few dollars."
| While Schonfeld dredged catfish filets in a dish of Cajun spices
and put them on a grill to sizzle, his 24-year-old son, Ben, made
a roux of equal parts flour and clarified butter, then whisked in
cream and chicken broth.
A roux can include any kind of fat from butter to oil to lard, Jim
Schonfeld said. His son likes to use butter, because he prefers the
taste.
No matter what kind of fat you use, father and son warned, try not
to let the roux splash onto your skin.
"They call it Cajun napalm," Jim Schonfeld said. "It can heat up to
hundreds of degrees."
And, if you don't want to smoke up your house, Ben Schonfeld said,
consider doing your Cajun cooking "in a cast-iron frying pan on a
grill outside."
If you stay inside, his father added, "It can set your smoke alarms
off, for sure."
While Jim cooked the catfish until it approached "the fine line between
blackened and burned," his son reduced (heated until it partially
evaporated) the roux until it was "thick enough to coat a spoon" and
added crawfish.
Soon the crawfish-studded sauce topped the catfish, and Jim Schonfeld
completed the picture by adding a side plate of raw oysters.
"This is the best time of year to get them from Louisiana," he said
as he pried open the stubborn shells. "For about the next month, the
water is the coldest it's going to be."
For those who never tried a raw oyster before, Jim Schonfeld offered
this advice:
"First, I like to put some lemon juice on them. Then some Tabasco
or cocktail sauce. Women can use these little forks. Men usually take
them right off the shell."
"They're so sweet," Schonfeld said. "They're incredible."
While he's not Cajun himself, Schonfeld admires the lifestyle that
developed when French, Spanish, black and American Indian cultures
intermingled in Louisiana. "They fished and farmed and hunted ducks
and geese in the wilderness."
On various trips to Cajun country, Schonfeld has learned tips on "downhome
goodness" from generous Louisiana chefs who share his passion for
cooking, eating and experimenting with recipes.
"Nothing is more intimate than a person cooking for other people,"
Schonfeld said, insisting that visitors try a spoonful of his latest
version of spicy, homemade barbecue sauce.
"I like to put the food in your mouth," he said with a chuckle. "And
I like the food to bite you back."
You'll most likely need reservations to get a table at Marty's Blue
Room. (The number is 735-7028.) If they run out of room next Tuesday,
the official Mardi Gras, you might want to try this recipe at home
while you wait to eat out another night.
Marty's Catfish Orleans
3 7-to-9-ounce catfish filets
salt and pepper, to taste
Cajun seasoning, to taste
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon flour
3 ounces chicken stock
3 ounces cream
4 ounces crawfish tails
Salt and pepper the catfish filets.
Dredge them in Cajun seasoning on both sides. Blacken on both sides
in hot cast-iron frying pan. Remove and place on pan in oven at 300
degrees while making roux.
For roux, mix together the flour
and the butter. Add three ounces chicken stock and three ounces heavy
cream. When thickened, add the crawfish tails and Cajun seasoning
to taste. Simmer for 3 to 5 minutes. Pour sauce and crawfish over
blackened catfish.
Ben Schonfeld ladles Cajun sauce with crawfish over blackened
catfish |
Jim Schonfeld dredges a catfish filet in Cajun spices |
Times Leader - Posted on Wed,
Aug. 06, 2003
Blue Room a cheerful
place to be
By S.J. MUNCH - Times Leader
Food Critic
Call me easy to please. Call me
easily sold. Call me what you wish, but I call Marty's Blue Room,
circa 1984, darn nearly perfect.
OK, maybe I was just a mite disappointed the place wasn't blue. (It
was woody and wainscoted and quite comfy, though.) Perhaps the "blue
room" bit derives from the fact that any meal served here is sure
to chase the blues away. OK, I'm hokey. What of it?
About the food: Marty's bills itself the "home of the cattleman's
steak," which weighs 2-plus pounds, but lovers of all things Cajun
will find themselves happily transported to southern Louisiana, albeit
just outside Nanticoke. Creole's a house specialty here, and dishes
come in mild, wild and anything in between.
Fare runs the gamut, with the commendably creative menu offering everything
from fried chicken wings and artistic sandwiches, wraps and burgers
to gussied-up seafood, poultry and almost a dozen varieties of steak.
And, so you know, the house specialty is the prime-rib sandwich. Trust
me, this is one of those places you can take absolutely everyone in
your motley crew and endure no protests.
My companions for a recent Thursday-evening foray were my parents,
an adventurous mother who'll try just about anything and a more particular
(read fussy) father. I'm somewhere in between, so we covered the spectrum.
The house starter special was a double order of steamers for $8.95,
a fresh and savory mountain of extra-large clams my parents chose
to share. The accompanying butter was appropriately warm and plenty
enough to cover the whole big batch, which contained but a single
unopened dud.
I'm a clam fan myself but passed this time to sample one of Marty's
more imaginative "app" offerings. How do crawfish ciabatta bread or
catfish fingers grab you? The latter sounded especially intriguing,
until I noticed the evening's special: eggplant rolls, fresh eggplant
stuffed with ricotta cheese and fried, then tucked into a succulent
bath of marinara for $6.25. Precision eggplant, without question,
and a delight from first bite to last. The dish looked a tad heavy
but somehow tasted amazingly light, with the breading just right and
the sauce as zippy as zippy gets.
With so many enticing descriptions, dinner was a tough call. Mom chose
a special, Orleans-style ahi tuna for $27.40. A fresh, firm yellowfin
steak situated in a basin of rich brown sauce supported about a skiff's
worth of sweet crawfish atop, which could easily have been mistaken
for lobster. Sides were two substantial slices of crunchy yet airy
garlic bread topped generously with melted cheese and a humongous
dish of Cajun pasta, all in all much more meal than one person could
polish off. (But a fine next day's lunch.)
Dad chose Italian wedding soup for $3.95 (which our otherwise impeccable
server initially forgot) and a $20.45 combination called The Broadway,
a crab cake and a 5-ounce filet mignon. The menu noted the dish as
a favorite of one Mr. Joe Waiter, owner of The Broadway Garage. I
believe we have a second, Mr. Waiter.
Dad called the crab cake just super - reminiscent of one fresh out
of the Baltimore Harbor - and the steak so tender and tasty he had
no need for his old-standby, A-1. Diners can dress up their steaks
with sauteed onions or mushrooms or oven-roasted garlic, but Dad went
the plain route and was no less satisfied.
His only complaint - a minor one - was that his entree cooled off
while he sampled his late-arriving soup, which, incidentally, was
well-seasoned and served at a perfect temperature.
The number of dishes containing scallops, my favorite offering from
the ocean, pleased me like a spiked punch. I opted for a "Chef's Favorite":
Cajun scallops and pasta for $15.95. The enormous dish made me briefly
consider requesting a shovel, but, again, plenty for lunch. Like buried
treasures, the plump and prolific scallops rested under an avalanche
of angel hair coated in a just-hot-enough wash of orange-brown spices
and spiffed up by a dotting of colorful pepper strips.
On the side, I chose Marty's Cajun Tater and fresh vegetables, two
A-plus accompaniments. The Cajun potato was mashed but arrived baked
into a ramekin, with the top spilling over to resemble something not
unlike an oversize pumpkin muffin. One dip of the fork and ... oh
joy! Crispy on the outside with a delectable menagerie of Cajun influence
on the hot, velvety inside ... More, Marty, more!
The fresh vegetables - zucchini, squash, broccoli and cauliflower
- thrilled more than expected as well. Not parcooked but not mushy.
A perfect compromise seasoned perfectly as well.
We'd have passed on the dessert tray, but ... the readers, the readers.
(Would we cheat you?) My father managed a $3.95 sundae glass of apple-pie
ice cream, vanilla festooned with apples, cinnamon and bits of pie
crust that could have masqueraded as pie a la mode. A playful palate
cleanser to be sure.
My mother and I shared a "Peanut Butter Explosion" for $5.95 and were
astounded at the gargantuan slice, which could have served three or
four. Layers of whipped yet firm peanut butter and rich, fudgy chocolate
made the delightfully cold treat a true deal-sealer. Even the coffee
was art, and refills were quick and fresh.
So there you have it. Very nearly a perfect 10 for the Blue Room.
Had we any grievances at all? Yes, my father did let me in on one:
I'll have to bring your mother back.
Right you will, funny guy.
EDITOR'S NOTE: In the interest of integrity, Times Leader restaurant
critics remain anonymous to the establishments they review, and their
bylines are pen names.
IF YOU GO
What: Marty's Blue Room
Where: 100 Old Newport St., Sheatown
Call: 735-7028
Credit cards? Yes, major
Handicapped accessible? There are two steps at the bar entrance and
three at the dining-room entrance.
Smoking/nonsmoking? Yes, sectioned
Reservations necessary? Recommended, especially on weekends
