BUD

DAN

Main Dish

Braised Beef Short Rib Sliders

It’s hard not to notice that Tenafly Diner belongs to that exclusive—and, arguably, misguided—club of diners that have taken a turn for the trendy and artisanal. What I mean is, the menu is one page, front and back, with novel typography and hip, colorful descriptive language. The burgers are “grass-fed and organic” and are available with the staples like mushrooms, onions, and bacon, but the highfalutin “specialty burgers” get their very own menu, with daring options like pineapple, guacamole, and yellowfin tuna. (For the record, Northvale Diner did something similar, and we had no qualms rating it very highly.)

There was enough of a traditional selection that I didn’t feel starved for choice if I wanted something simple like, say, a buffalo chicken wrap (not that I’d ever eat such a thing). Still, I went with something a little untraditional: short rib sliders. The only topping was cheddar cheese, and though I appreciate the simplicity and I very much enjoy cheddar, I wouldn’t have objected if they added one more ingredient, preferably for a texture contrast—something like a slaw, which I thought Candlewyck Diner executed nicely. It was still very tasty as-is. The short rib had the presentation and texture of pulled pork, though with the nice savory meatiness of beef. (Pulled pork is great but, in my opinion, often overshadowed by sweet barbecue sauce.) The plate included just three, and I think a fourth would’ve been ideal, but overall I wasn’t disappointed.

Main Dish

Big Kahuna Burger

Best burger I’ve ever had? Possibly. Top three? Definitely. This burger was the most unique combination of toppings and flavors that I was too intrigued to NOT get it. This monster of a half-pounder had tomato and lettuce, of course, but also General Tso sauce and pineapple chunks. It. Was. Awesome. The burger was a beautiful amalgamation of salty and sweet and greasy (in a good way) and kinda fruity?? I couldn’t eat this burger fast enough, but at the same time, I wanted the experience to last forever. The pineapple gave it a wonderfully fresh fruity taste to cut the typical burger grease and it complemented it beautifully. The General Tso sauce was the ideal condiment for this particular combination of flavors.

I inhaled this monster. I’m happy Buddy doesn’t believe in fruit on meats because I didn’t want to share even a crumb of this beautiful masterpiece.

Fries

I was surprised that given Tenafly Diner’s clear intention to frame itself as a modern sort of place, the fries were decidedly traditional. I guess they were “rustic,” with the potato skin still visible on some pieces, but I had hoped for maybe some shoestrings (wow very daring and trendy). They weren’t even served in one of those trendy stainless-steel cups that you see a lot of nowadays. But hey, they were pretty crunchy and Dan even got an onion ring with hers. Nothing wrong with that.

Fries

When I was cruising this diner’s Yelp page, I said to myself, “these fries look positively yummy.” They were the thin-cut type with the rustic potato skins on the ends. Those are probably my ideal fries…even moreso than the waffle type.

I did in fact get an onion ring with my dish but I was like, get outta here with this, I don’t like onion rings. So I gave it to Bud. Now, when i excitedly got down to the fries, I realized—not that yummy. Matter of fact, kinda very bland and flavorless. There’s an expression in my family’s particular Italian dialect that roughly translates to something being so boring “it’s like a plain baked potato with no toppings or garnish.” These fries were literally boring, plain baked potatoes, but fried.

Dessert

Apple Caramel Crumble

Our choice here was born more of necessity than a burning desire for an apple-caramel dessert, especially because Dan is notoriously caramel-averse. The dessert menu had plenty of pies and cakes but just one non-plain cheesecake variety. “We’ll have the cannoli cheesecake,” Dan said. “We don’t have any,” the waitress said. It was over that quickly.

Our backup plan was the apple caramel crumble, which we had a good (great, really) experience with back at the Northvale Diner some months ago. They called it a “spiced apple tart,” but it’s similar in principle. Now, Northvale’s was one of our top-three desserts to this day, and it’s a tough act to follow, but I liked Tenafly’s crumble a lot. The cake itself was excellent but a little dry. I wasn’t looking for the moistness of straight-up cake but here they may have taken “crumble” a bit literally because the topping especially was rather profuse with sandy crumbs, but I still loved it—in particular when combined with the generous scoop of ice cream and more-than-generous dollops of whipped cream, all of which were a flavor and temperature contrast and a nice remedy to the dryness of the cake.

The main place this loses points for me is the streaks of raspberry sauce on the corners of the plate. I can tolerate raspberry in some dessert contexts but never love it, and here it was nearly unavoidable that some would be mixed up in the ice cream or whipped cream, especially after Dan attacked the dish and tore it apart like a rabid squirrel. Raspberry is an especially inapt complement to apple and caramel, so I dunno why they did it.

Dessert

Apple Caramel Crumble

I was a little nervous ordering this apple dessert because the bar was set so high with the last one we had. Fortunately, though, my nervousness was for naught because this dessert was just lovely. Bud nailed the one problem I had with this dish, which was the too-crumbly crumble on top. The dish itself (other than the crumbly crumbles) was fantastic. There were warm apples aplenty, a ton of whipped cream, and the delicious vanilla ice cream to top it all off.

Weird note about this, the menu lists this dish as $6.00, with an additional charge of $2.00 for a scoop of ice cream. I couldn’t believe they would serve this dish WITHOUT ice cream and have the gall to charge extra for what should be included in the first place. Fortunately, our waitress was a total bro and gave us the whole shebang for $6.00. I have no idea how or why she did, but I’m glad.

Service

It’s become a popular refrain on Burger Deluxe that our waiter wasn’t bad—not rude or curt—just uninspired. The waitress here was pleasant, but we could never quite get on the same page. Obviously, Dan and I are world-class banterers, but she just wasn’t picking up what we were putting down. The service was a bit slow, too, and I found her somewhat inattentive. My overall impression is that the service at Tenafly was merely adequate.

Service

I liked our waitress as a person. She was cute and sweet. But as a waitress…eh. We didn’t get napkins on our table until we asked for them (after our food arrived). She was a bit slow at coming around to take orders and refill drinks. I felt like our table was a bit of an afterthought.

Value

I’m a bit surprised now to look back at the bill, because the above-described fancy, trendy menu led me to expect fancy, trendy prices. In reality, my sliders were just $9.00—and that’s a beef dish, plus fries, cole slaw, and pickle. I’m totally fine with that price. The dessert was just $6.00, which also is a perfectly fine price. (The menu warned us that it would cost $2 extra to add a scoop of ice cream, which I think would not be fine, but when we asked the waitress she said that they never charge for it. I don’t really get the strategy there, but I’m not complaining.)

Value

I am PLEASANTLY surprised at how reasonably priced this diner was. I went in expecting premium prices on everything, I don’t know why. But I got a crazy huge burger with the works and it was only $13, which is very reasonable in my opinion. Even the desserts were priced fairly. I suppose the prices may look a bit more than the average diner, but the portions are monstrous. Definitely fairly priced.

Ambience

For me, Tenafly Diner gets lucky in the ambience category because we visited in the middle of a cold November rainstorm. The bright, warm interior always seems brighter and warmer when you look out the window at some really ugly weather. So, maybe my rating is inflated, but that’s ok. The exterior gets the same bump because I found the neon trim and big, glowing windows awfully lovely from outside.

Ambience

I don’t remember much that stood out good or bad about the ambiance. I suppose that means it was wholly unremarkable. It obviously had the ubiquitous neon lighting inside and out, but besides that, nothing spectacular. Not like last week’s.

OVERALL

Tenafly Classic Diner has the audacity to call itself “classic” when the menu is anything but. Still, the food is executed nicely and the ambience is pleasant. In the category of diners with a bit of a modern touch, you can do a lot worse.

OVERALL

I drove FORTY minutes in the rain to get to this diner, so I would have had a lot of things to say if it wasn’t as awesome as it ended up being. It was one of the most unique menus I’ve seen in a while at a diner. The food was amazing, the prices were fair, and I thoroughly enjoyed this dinner more than I have in a while. If you’re looking for a unique burger experience (who isn’t?!) then make the forty-minute drive (in the rain) and prepare for a true experience.