Cheap Eats: Cafe jonpaul

Almost anywhere down the Shore it's easy to drop $20 on a cheesesteak, fries, soda, and a sundae. But just three blocks from the roar of the roller coaster, there's a great alternative: Café jonpaul.



For that same $20, you can get an arugula salad with goat cheese, pears, and artichokes; pulled pork with fresh mango over puff pastry; and a slice of moist, raspberry-orange Bundt cake.



This cool oasis opened last October offering meal-sized salads, paninis, wraps, and small entrees, all made fresh for under $13. The pistachio-crusted snapper in my sandwich was paired with mango, spinach, and vanilla Brie. Tortellini salad with smoked bacon, turkey, and sun-dried tomatoes on baby spinach, was perfectly dressed in a pesto vinaigrette.



On Tuesdays, the 43-seat cafe (named for its owner, JonPaul Paxton, who owns two other places in town) adds sushi, prepared in house by chef James Wasilewski. We liked the tuna "3-way" platter: seven pieces of spicy tuna roll, three pieces of crunchy crab roll wrapped in tuna, and a sizable mound of tuna sashimi for $15.



Chef "Wazz," 36, says he is "trying to put a healthier spin on modern American food. Everyone's going that route these days."



Not that Café jonpaul is prim. The biggest bargain is desserts-slices of Bundt cake or rich German chocolate cake are only $2.25. The café offers something for everyone, as shown by the mother and two sons who sat at a table near ours. While she ate a Greek salad topped with two large falafels, her older son worked his way through a sushi platter and her younger son devoured his peanut butter and jelly pizza. All healthy...and all delicious.

Click here to read the rest of Cheap Eats: Cafe jonpaul (North Wildwood). If you enjoyed this article, you also might like our other stories that talk about NJ Restaurants.