Saturday, August 3, 2013

Porta's, Asbury Park


We are loyal customers. If we find a great wine shop, coffee shop or restaurant we become over frequenters. While at the beach, our loyalty card was punched  three times at Porta. It opened a few weeks after our first trip to Asbury Park in 2011 and is located across from the Stone Pony. Porta means door in Italian. The up-cycled doors in the restaurant, and in the powder room stalls, were ingenious for this large space. During the day you can come straight from the beach and sit your sandy bottom down on the indoor picnic tables. At night they flip it into a nightclub. For hilarious laughs, read or follow the parody account on Twitter, @Porta_problems. For the official, way more tame account, follow @pizzaporta


The pizza is so good. My first bite tasted like a speed train transported my mouth to back to Italy. The brick oven char, chewy crust, simple sauce and bubbly mozzarella combined for the total pizza package. 


We also had the Octopus salad, where our bartender got snippy when I called it calamari. Rightly so. This octopus was nothing like his cuttlefish cousin of deep fried, too chewy past. 


While sitting at the massive hollow square bar for lunch one day, we looked up and counted tons of security cameras. Jersey Shore folks don't play when it comes to security I guess. We didn't go to the boom boom room, but next time I'm going to spike Charlie's coffee so we can dance the night away. My man hates crowds.


The lighting and the brick ovens were the star of the space in my humble opinion.






This sausage and jalapeno pie was our final meal before heading to Philly. If you ever find yourself in this neck of the woods, run, don't walk to this amazing pizzeria. E got a Porta National Park tee shirt as a reminder and it makes my mouth water every time I see the name!

2 comments:

WorthyStyle said...

That is certainly a gorgeous tiled oven!

melissa said...

What a cool place! That pizza looks divine.