Food & Drink in Red Bank

Every month, members of The Cheese Cave's club unwrap a bundle of more than one pound of hand-selected cheeses. Like every order at the old-fashioned shop, these curds—from cheeses made with sheep's, goat's, cow's, or mixed milk and sourced from around the globe—are meticulously hand-cut by a team of cheese mongers. The same care goes into custom displays of cheeses, dried fruits, and nuts artfully arranged on bamboo boards in order to enliven fancy soirees or a pet panda's birthday party.

Each of those edible wares is among the groceries available in The Cheese Cave's store, which also stocks brick-oven breads, imported and domestic cured meats, and assorted olives. Live cooking demos highlight palate-pleasing recipes that use the artisanal ingredients, whereas other events dispense tips for tasty cheese pairings and creating your own cheese board.

Muscle Maker Grill grew out of a small smoothie shop, where owner Rod Silva prepared health-conscious alternatives to fast food. The restaurant has since expanded with a menu tailored to accommodate diners with vegetarian, carb-free, and gluten-free diets. The crew prides themselves in creating healthy versions of popular foods, and continues to serve the shop’s original protein shakes with favorites such as chocolate peanut butter and strawberry banana. Additionally, Muscle Maker Grill displays the calorie count for each dish on the menu.

Motivated by a passion for the culinary arts and a healthy reverence for nature’s abundance, Good Karma Café’s eco-conscious chefs create delectable vegan dishes that will appease cultivated palates and replenish crown chakras. A leafy assortment of salubrious salads features such chlorophyll-rich concoctions as the Live green salad, whose dark greens are adorned with crunchy vegetables and a mixture of sunflower and hemp seeds and tossed in a sweet apple-cider-vinegar dressing ($10). Crispy blue nacho chips topped with creamy cheese-less queso perform a spicy salsa two-step on tongues ($8), and steamed edamame sprinkled with celtic sea salt perform kabuki dances set to bagpipes for an audience of delighted taste buds ($5). The TLT offers a vegan twist on a classic with tempeh strips, crisp lettuce, and garden tomatoes ($10), and the Chickpea of the Sea gives fish-friendly sailors a cause to rejoice with its variation on tuna salad ($10).

Sandwiches, wraps, and salads emerge from Jr's two locations, landing on tables or at patrons' doorsteps. The fresh menu includes grilled salmon, grilled yellowfin tuna steaks, and ground sirloin burger patties, which may be topped with items such as portobello mushrooms, bacon, and fresh-from-the-vine cheeses. Before they're seared on the grill, wraps enfold salsa-topped chicken or mozzarella paired with roasted red peppers, and custom salads top forks with personalized tastes.

Eight Yelpers give Pazzo an average of four stars, and 70% of Urbanspooners recommend it.

The owners of Pop’s Garage know how to run a restaurant. In fact, they have run five of them along the Jersey Shore, as the New York Times points out. At Pop’s Garage, they pour more than 85 years of restaurant experience into their kid-friendly, BYOB Mexican taqueria. While evoking the festive, summer atmosphere of Sayulita, Mexico, the restaurant's ambiance exudes an upscale dining atmosphere.

Pop’s menu consists of made-to-order dishes, each handcrafted from locally sourced, natural, and organic ingredients, including fresh lettuce and vegetables. Taco shells are packed with chicken and chorizo, quesadillas ooze with cheese, and burritos are stuffed with ruby rice. Just as genuine as the ingredients are the recipes they are made from. Explaining to the New York Times, “Our intent is to be authentic. . . . One of [the chefs] makes his mother’s mole, a red mole,” which is just one of the menu’s several mole sauces.