Tick Tock Diner

Review by: Michael Stern

Long considered the King of New Jersey Diners – no small status in America’s most diner-rich state – Tick Tock Diner renovated a few decades ago and assumed the familiar stylish silver disco-moderne look. Thankfully, it kept its outdoor clock captioned with the house motto — EAT HEAVY — and the menu still has more listings than the New York Stock Exchange. Here you will find nearly everything you would ever want to eat, from pretty much all over the world.

What to eat at Tick Tock Diner in Clifton, NJ

Breakfast

As at so many diners, breakfast is best. If you’re in the mood for an omelet, you can choose from a few dozen three-eggers, including an Italian (filled with sausage, roasted peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes and plenty of melted mozzarella cheese), a Mexican (loaded with enough jalapenos to make you shout “olé!), and a Greek with tomatoes and feta cheese. In the mood for pancakes? There are regular pancakes, but there are also puffy German ones with apple sauce and chocolate chippers that taste like dessert. And, of course, there are jumbo Belgian waffles and extra-thick French toast and muffins bigger than softballs. We like Tick Tock’s cheese blintzes, which are served around a heap of sour cream. They taste freshly-made, not frozen.

Lunch and Dinner

At lunch, the choice includes triple-decker clubs, grilled Monte Cristos, and a wide range of hamburger variations that are good with “Disco fries,” a local term that means smothered in gravy. Meat loaf is a diner classic: three big slabs of it under a mantle of thick mushroom gravy, served with skin-flecked mashed potatoes and a vegetable du jour in separate dishes. At supper, the number of available broilings of fish, fowl, pork, and beef is nearly incalculable. And there are Italianate parmigianas and fancified fish casseroles, but the supper we like best is simple roasted chicken – a perfect, crisp-skinned bird with falling-off-the-bone tender meat.

It is possible to accompany supper with a well-made New York egg cream, which we find an excellent strategy if you’re craving something sweet; for although cakes and pastries are baked on the premises and are spectacular to look at — all of them at least double-size — they are, for us, too gooey, too sweet, too show-offy.

 

What To Eat

Omelet

DISH
Cheese Blintz

DISH
Meatloaf

DISH
Matzoh Ball Soup

DISH

Tick Tock Diner Recipes

Discuss

What do you think of Tick Tock Diner?

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