Blaze Bistro

Good food and extremely friendly service. Nick, the main waiter is very friendly, courteous and experienced.

Have to give blaze only 2 stars for our second and last visit. They ran out of roasted garlic for the bread and no longer serve complimentary olives… at a Mediterranean restaurant. The entertainment which we were looking forward to didn’t show. The waiter was inexperienced but friendly. Our appetizer of stuffed mushrooms was bland and my rack of lamb was too rare so I sent it back. Came back cooked just right. It was good but not great. Sorry blaze but no mas

Truly DELICIOUS!!! Staff was wonderfully friendly and helpful. very professional!!! Great choices on menu!!! Can’t wait to go back and try something new! Highly recommend!

Amazing Food, Friendly quaint atmosphere all at very reasonable prices. Definitely a real quality place with a great staff. This place is definitely what going out to dinner is supposed to be! Don’t think about going there, go there, you wont be disappointed.

Gourmet food! What a great hidden gem. I can’t wait to go back. Staff treats you like family. They usually have entertainment on the weekends. Love it.

This place has potential… but not on a Wednesday Night.
Pros:
+ GREAT Variety of menu options.
+ Pork Chop Perfectly Cooked.
+ Presentation of meals is above average.
+ BYOB
+ Intimate dinner setting.
+ Sometimes has music on Friday and Saturday Night.
Cons:
— Too many disappointments in one dinner sitting.
— Fish was SEVERELY undercooked. Sent it back for further cooking.
— Crème Brulee was still frozen inside [knife stood up in center]. Gave up at this point.
— Cappuccino was 20% full [not an exaggeration]. Decided I won’t be back.
— Disappointing Value. Cost was $ 200 for 1 Appetizers, 4 meals, 1 Desserts, 2 Coffees.
Final Thoughts:
With some better oversee of details, this place can be a top tier restaurant.
Something as simple as salmon, should not have been a flop. It seems management during the week may be different than on the weekend. I’ve seen this place pretty full on a Friday night. Which tells me customers appreciate this niche restaurant… but unfortunately not this customer.
In my opinion, for a better dining experience with a similar meal selection, try Citricos Mediterranean Italian Grille in Bradley Beach. If you don’t want to go far, try Giardinello next door. It’s one of my favorites in the area.
Unilocal Links Below:

Hidden Gem! Great Food and fun environment! We just booked our Christmas party there and they are super accommodating with planning the dinner and dessert details!

Great food and an atmosphere that’s unlike anything around. Nick is a top notch server and we had a blast!

Truly fantastic. We visited based on the Unilocal review and our fondness for Mediterranean food. The menu was largely eclectic and the specials were seasonal.
I had the New Zealand lamb and my companion had the stuffed salmon. Both were superb, as were our appetizers, the escargot and the stuffed clams. The evening entertainment was a comedian slash singer who was funny and jovial. The hostess was fun and enthusiastic, our waiter Nick was on another level from your average server, and the owner was on hand to check that everything was running smoothly.
It had the rare but wonderful vibe of being at a family gathering, if that family was an awful lot of fun and got up to dance a lot. The other diners were jocular and very happy, and they added a lot of fun to our experience.

I was in the mood for steak and my husband wanted something different then our usual… Italian mexican or chinese… that’s all you can seem to find here in ocean county. We headed towards our old stand by IL giardinello and saw this place… what a surprise! This was by far the best meal we’ve had in a long while. Filor the first time in a very long while we walked out of a place satisfied. Will be back again… soon!

Great little place, very tasty food! Delish bread served with roasted garlic, yummy mestball appetizer and we had chicken & salmon — cooked perfectly! A nice, quiet atmosphere — will be coming back!

I was here the other day to celebrate a birthday for my uncle. It was the day before Mothers Day and they had walks in until 6pm which was great because I didn’t call for a reservation.
The interior is plain but nice and comfy once your inside. You can tell that it’s somewhat a new restaurant.
Although it was just the two of us I wanted to sit at a table that was not located so close to the door because of all the people walking in and out. When I had asked, they declined to seat us somewhere else which made me question the management and system because a couple minutes later. A couple had walked in and were able to sit in the tables that where not located near the door and sat at a table that seated four people and not two people. That was the start of dinner, but I saw past that and didn’t want to make scene.
We were given a loaf of bread that contained, butter, olives, and what seemed to be an entire roasted garlic. I liked how they gave that as a started because the bread was good, but that roasted garlic was amazing. Delicious and simple.
I started off ordering some garlic shrimp as an appetizer, which wasn’t amazing, but good. I didn’t like the fact that it was drenched and swimming in oil, but it was tolerable because of the garlic pieces. As for the main entrée, I ordered the «shrimp and scallop scampi over pasta,» and my uncle had the «Char-​grilled rack of lamb.» The pasta I order was delicious and the scallops were cooked to perfection, they were soft and succulent and not chewy when they are over cooked. So the pasta was great! As for the lamb, I can’t say because I didn’t have that, but from what I saw and how fast he ate, it definitely was good.
The entrées come with either a soup or salad and a desert once finished. I had the soup, nothing amazing, just a creamy tomato soup. Once our meal was finished I had an ice cream with peach, which literally was just vanilla ice cream and two slices of peaches, it was nice though. Light and delicious tasting. I also order a cappuccino, which the waitress said was part of the meal, but once I got the bill, I was charged 5 dollars for it. At this point I didn’t care because I just wanted to get out.
All in all the food was good, not amazing, but not terrible either. Customer service was great, but it was just the seating that ticked me off, I mean comon’, just seat us where we want to sit especially if there’s another party of two sitting in a table that clearly seated 4 people… I don’t see the big deal, I didn’t want to sit near the door…
Once everything was said in done, the bill for three entrées (because I ordered one to go), an appetizer, and a cappucino was 80 dollars before tip. Not bad for an up scale dining experience, but I don’t know if I would say this was up scale.
Would I come here again, I have mixed feelings, but maybe sometime down the line.
Forgot to mention, it’s BYOB, so that’s a plus!

I went here today with one of my ladies groups. It’s a small storefront Mediterranean Restaurant and a BYOB. One of the ladies had been here before on a night that they feature belly dancing. She said the rack of lamb was really good, so quite a few if us ordered it.
On the Sunset Dinners, it is only $ 21.00 including soup or salad, coffee and dessert. Well we all couldn’t stop raving about the lamb and it was served with spinach risotto and a vegetable. We had a few choices for dessert and coffee. Some in the group even ordered chicken parm or shrimp scampi and they said it was very good.
Groups of ladies like ours can be pain in the neck but they were very accommodating and service was excellent!
There are quite a few dinners on the Sunset menu, most in the $ 20 range, but this is good meat, not your typical early bird dinner!
I would definitely recommend and I will be bringing my husband and some friends!
Also, if you pay with cash, you receive a 10% discount!