Restaurants in Red Bank

Exquisite Lizard keeps motors running until midnight all week with creative burgers, meat-filled sandwiches, and pasta swimming in creamy sauces. Flatware-less fare, ranging from french-bread pizza to boneless buffalo wings, refuels patrons in between rounds of pool and darts, or two-handed diners can heave the Mega burger, with its chapeau of sautéed mushrooms and onions, toward awaiting taste buds. A frothy slate of draft beers, including Blue Moon and Samuel Adams, extinguish mouth fires while patrons root for their favorite baseball player or congressional witness from a quartet of television screens.

Pearl of Lisbon surrounds its guests with glowing lanterns, built-in wine racks, and oil paintings of castles reminiscent of its namesake city while filling plates with traditional Portuguese dishes from a two-part menu. Once seated indoors or outside beneath the grapevine-shaded patio, guests can dine on grilled prawns in a spicy mozambique sauce ($20.95) or flambéed portuguese sausage ($10.95). Daily specials keep things fresh, making use of whatever fresh seafood the chefs could barter that day from entrepreneurial mermen.

The mastermind behind French Tart is Chef Laurent, whose innovation earned him a gold medal for Most Creative Restaurant Dessert at the Eger Foundation’s 2011 Taste of Staten Island and whose flaky croissant recently won the New York Daily News' Best of New York award. His culinary team also whips up authentic French specialties dashed with originality. The eatery’s ever-shifting menu has included such offerings as pan-seared salmon inside puff pastries, zucchini-flower omelets, and chocolate ravioli. Along with breakfasts, brunches, and dinners served six days a week, Chef Laurent and his crew fill gift baskets year-round with baked goods, imported French foods, and slightly smaller gift baskets.

Unified by their love of skillfully spiced Indian cuisine, the chefs at Amiya craft distinctive menus for their two locations. The Jersey City location's menu features traditional elements such as spicy curries, homemade paneer, and tandoor-roasted lamb and lobster, as well as a selection of Indian-Chinese fusion dishes. The classics from the Parsippany location's menu are joined by creative flavors such as pomegranate-tequila shrimp and wasabi-crusted crab cakes.

Though their cuisine differs, the two spots are linked by an ultralong zipline and their upscale contemporary decor. In Jersey City, crisp white tablecloths pop against warm mango and persimmon walls, and a cushy, curvaceous booth spans two walls. Golden statuettes watch over the Parsippany dining room from small nooks in the walls, and an attached bar and lounge glows bright yellow and blue. Patrons sample cocktails and tapas plates, and on Friday nights hop up to the mic for Bollywood karaoke.

Fuji Japanese Steakhouse presents diners with a choice of which dining experience they want to have. The tranquil tatami room reflects the menu's assortment of elegantly presented specialty sushi rolls. Within their spirals of seaweed or soy paper, pieces of fresh fish get a kick from spicy plum sauce, black caviar, and yellow mango. Beyond the tatami room, chefs twirl and dice steak and lobster at sizzling hibachi grills around which friends, birthday parties, and morbid ice cubes can gather. But the steak house offers more than Japanese dishes; tangy Thai noodle and curry dishes convince taste buds of that culinary tradition's merits via coconut milk, tamarind, and chilies.:m]]