Turning Point of Brick — Restaurant in Brick Township

I’m shocked to read all these praises of the food and service at a very mediocre restaurant.

The first time I heard of Turning Point, I met my wife on our very first date at the location in Pier Village for lunch at noon. We both had the lobster poached egg breakfast with actual hollandaise sauce and it was memorable and delicious. Our marathon date ended at 10pm that night at other locations along the way, never parting since 2012.

A lot has changed since then. We both decided to have breakfast as a treat for my wife fasting and getting her blood work done this am.

She suggested Turning Point and against my better judgement with numerous mishaps of prior visits, I went along. Bad idea.

We waited about 25 min for our entrees. I had the basic cheese omelet that came with English muffins and diced fried potatoes with a side of cheddar grits and bacon.

I’m not a fan of having multiple ingredients in an omelette. You lose the essence of the star, perfectly cooked eggs. In France, they respect the egg and their omelettes only have one, maybe two complimentary ingredients that doesn’t overpower the egg flavor., not a smorgasbord of added nonsense like bacon.

My wife had poached eggs with hollandaise sauce with wheat bread and potatoes as well.

Waiting for so long we expected freshly cooked food. We were wrong. The potatoes were lukewarm. Tasted like it was fried an hour ago. The English muffin tasted like it was toasted an hour ago and left to sit. The poached egg came in a separate bowl in water. Which means this was precooked and left to sit in a container. The bacon was not crispy and very chewy. It’s not that hard to cook bacon folks. The omelette was over cooked with crispy edges.

Eggs should only turn brown when you fry them sunny side up to provide texture around the edges. Scrambled and omelettes that are not classic yellow color all throughout is overcooked and gummy. Not good.

If you ever watched Julia and Me, you are evaluated on how you cook eggs in culinary school. Why? It’s the most simplistic ingredient but yet requires a level of knowledge of how to use heat and technique.

My kids want to learn how to cook. I tell them, first learn how to use a chef’s knife cutting an onion and a carrot for slicing and dicing and julienne style, instead of depending on a device you see on QVC. LOL. 90% of “cooking” is meal prep.

Then learn how to cook eggs all ways correctly and you have mastered the essentials of cooking. It’s not that hard to panfry a protein like chicken breasts or pork chops. Let it sit for a few minutes and flip.

The only best part of the meal was the cheddar grits which were light and fluffy.

The “hollandaise sauce” is not authentic because it still had a mayonnaise like texture after sitting on her plate for 30 min. Real hollandaise sauce if you ever make it at home thickens to a formed glop when it becomes room temp, due to the massive amount of butter congealing

Remember folks, hollandaise sauce is nothing more than egg yolks and a lot of softened butter and a bit of lemon juice and maybe a scant water depending on how you make it, that’s been emulsified to form a sauce. That’s why it must be kept warm and lasts for only a few hours. This pseudo hollandaise mayonnaise tasted like it came from a jar. :/

My wife went into the bathroom and discovered a mess. Looks like they forgot that you have to clean this every hour for sanitation purposes. See pictures. The stall door can’t be locked so there’s no privacy. And the floor was sticky. Eeeww. 😳

Such a disappointment and now even though Turning Point will be forever ingrained in my memory where I met the love of my life, my “turning point” is that I will never come back.

Btw, beware of their blends of Kona Coffee and Jamaican Blue Mountain. The question that should be asked is: what’s the ratio of your blend and why would anyone want to ruin the two best coffees available? It’s like adding ice cubes to wine. You have just diluted a perfect...

Turning Point- A staple of Brick NJ Upon walking in all seemed fine. We were led by the hostess to a table of four bearing to the left when you pass the main dining room corridor. I noticed that there were 2 flies dancing on the tall ceiling above our heads. I decided to look past that and enjoy my stay along with my 2 friends that accompanied me. We started off with 3 waters with lemon, coffee for the table and some signature custom lattes. We asked for a straw as NJ has a weird ruling that the customer has to ask, or the waiter has to offer- they no longer just give straws. Knowing this of course I asked. When the drinks came the signature lattes looked beautiful, chefs kiss, however I gave a friendly reminder for those straws. No harm no foul. We then process to order three entrees. The food came with great timing. Kitchen staff seem to really be on point. It’s the front of the house that is an issue. When the food came the ketchup bottle at our table was empty. I asked the waiter if we can have another one. She passed our table a couple of times so I got up and grabbed a ketchup from an empty table. Empty. I then looked for another and known behold empty. Wow I guess these are just for display. She then intercepts me and offers me a new bottle. Sure after all that’s what I’m on the hunt for. We begin enjoying our meal. I then ask a food runner who just dropped off his plates at an adjacent table if we can have some hot sauce. Of course he says yes, I never saw him again. The waiter swings by and checks if everything is okay. I ask for some hot sauce and time went on. After 5 minutes I stopped by the little kiosk they have that is in between the two dining rooms. Shockingly that hot sauce of Tabasco is about 1/6 full. I’ll take what I can get by that time my eggs were getting cold but I’m not one to send back food. It seems like if you aren’t ordering it and it cost money it has magically became a secondary issue. Collectively a bunch of little things add up. The straws, the flies, the ketchup the hot sauce, the false promise of a food running trying to help remedy a situation. This is definitely the Achilles heel of this establishment. I really do commend the hard work of the kitchen staff to make a pretty plate come true however it is quickly whitewashed through the inconsistency of decent not stellar service. Good service shouldn’t come a the chance of a coin toss. I won’t be coming back to this Brick Location. Perhaps a different chain with better management may have more to offer. The tailcoats of the kitchen staff are what saves this restaurant. You’ll fall in love with the picture but soon fall into the paradime of wanting the simple things more and more. It...

It goes like this: My wife & I always come here for brunch. However, today was an eye opener to the fact that they are going down the tube here. Ordered a cup of coffee with milk. The milk was put into a porcelain cup to pour into the coffee. Besides the fact that the coffee cup had small black specks crusted to the inside of the cup, the porcelain milk container had old molded and crusted milk all over the inside top of it. I brought it to the servers attention and she supposedly told her manager. Unfortunately, no manager ever came to our table to apologize for the disgusting presentation of their food. The server took the order of the table next to us first even though they sat down 10 minutes after we did, but whatever. I ordered the breakfast sampler with the waffle, poached eggs & bacon. The poached eggs were dry over the outside and slightly over cooked on the inside like they had been sitting it under the burner dying. But the real fun was the waffle. It was cold and soggy af. I couldn’t even eat it. Literally left like 90% of it on my plate. The server came over and collected the dishes after asking if we wanted boxes for our disappointing uneaten food. She didn’t even ask how everything was so I could be honest with her. She just dropped the check and said thank you. Unfortunately, we will not be returning to this restaurant ever again in any location. As a former server for years and an active store manager as of present, I can attest that the manager of this establishment needs a class on how to manage and take care of costumers and cleanliness of house. The server was terrible and should be re-trained. She took forever to greet us, took over 15 minutes to bring me my messed up cup of coffee, took the other table’s order first, didn’t do a 2 bite check back or even ask if we needed anything when the food runner dropped the food off (even though she watched her drop it), and at the end of it all didn’t even ask how the food was in spite of the fact that I didn’t even eat my waffle. My wife and I are so disappointed. Money these days is hard to afford. We don’t get to go out together a lot lately. The wife and I looked forward to our brunch date today. But now we are leaving with disappointment and stomach aches from the food we did actually eat. FIND ANOTHER...