Enough already.
New Jersey has taken shots for years on every imaginable subject, including recently being named the most hated state in America. It’s time to strike back. Food is the obvious comeback (we’re certainly not going to brag about our traffic, or taxes). New Yorkers claim to have the best pizza, bagels, hot dogs, pastrami, etc., without offering one shred of evidence to their superiority in any food category. It’s always, “Because we are!”
New Jersey may be a small state, but it’s a food titan. It may even be the center of the food universe.
Here are 25 foods/dishes New Jersey does better than any other state, and we’re going to provide solid evidence for each. None of that ‘'Because we are!" nonsense.
Oh, and the real reason New Jersey is the most hated state? I’m thinking it’s because our food is better, and everyone else is just so damn jealous!
The tomato pie from De Lorenzo's Tomato Pies in Robbinsville.
First of all, don’t mention Trenton tomato pie and Philly tomato pie in the same pizza breath. The former is round and topped with tomatoes and cheese. The latter is a rectangular focaccia with crushed tomatoes and no cheese. The Trenton tomato pie likely started at Joe’s Tomato Pies in 1910.
A Joe’s employee started Papa’s Tomato Pies in 1912. Papa’s, now in Robbinsville, is the oldest continuously operated pizzeria in the country. Call Robbinsville the tomato pie capital of the world — De Lorenzo’s Tomato Pies is within walking distance of Papa’s. And good luck getting genuine tomato pie anywhere but New Jersey.
A selection of Jersey-made Indian food.SL
Little India in Iselin (Woodbridge), along Oak Tree Road, is chock-full of restaurants, markets, sweet shops, jewelry stores and hair salons. It’s a colorful, vibrant stretch just minutes off the Garden State Parkway. There are more Indian restaurants and markets on Oak Tree Road in neighboring Edison, and another Little India in Jersey City, but Iselin’s is the best-known. And the food? New Jersey boasts the best Indian food in the country, according to CNN. So there, New York. Or anywhere else, for that matter.
An Italian hot dog from Tommy's Italian Sausage & Hot Dogs in Elizabeth.
The Italian hot dog was born in New Jersey — in 1932 at Jimmy Buff’s on 9th Street and 14th Avenue in Newark. Peppers. Onions. A hot dog or two. A fistful of potatoes. And the pizza bread is a must.
Jimmy Buff’s West Orange location is a hot dog diner where you can see and hear dogs, onions and peppers popping in the hot oil. Ask for an Italian hot dog in say, Ohio or Iowa, and you’ll get a glassy-eyed look. Oh, and New Jersey is the center of the hot dog universe (but you already knew that).
The famous grill at White Manna in Hackensack.SL
A slider is simply a small burger, one that needs just one hand to hold (you can use the other to collect the dripping grease). In Jersey, onions and pickles are essential slider ingredients — the smell and crunch of those onions is enough to make you swoon.
The two best-known slider joints in the state are White Mana in Jersey City and White Manna in Hackensack. The former is a flying saucer-shaped diner; the latter is a tiny glass-blocked jewel. Both are essential Jersey food experiences. The term “slider” apparently originated with White Castle back in the 1920s. The Original Slider is a company registered trademark.
DiCosmo's in Elizabeth, a little green shack full of flavor.
There will be no mention of chain Italian ice stores in this space. Nothing against them, but if you want the real frozen deal, head to DiCosmo’s in Elizabeth. It’s the little green shack at the corner of Fourth and High. It’s Italian ice legend. Started as a grocery store in 1915, it began selling Italian ice in 1918. The current owners are John and Nancy DiCosmo; they live next door. There are usually four flavors at a time. The lemon ice is flat out super.
In South Jersey, Italian ice is called water (pronounced "wooder’') ice. Recommended: Stio’s in Williamstown.
Chicken savoy at the Belmont Tavern in Belleville.
Stretch’s Chicken Savoy! Shrimp Beeps! If you’ve never heard of these dishes, you clearly have not visited the Belmont Tavern, located on the little slice of Belleville along Bloomfield Avenue. Wood paneling, American-flag-decorated bar, fluorescent lighting, cash-only — it was high on my list of the state’s greatest old-school restaurants.
The best description of chicken savoy comes from seriouseats.com: "Cut-up chicken rubbed down with a fat handful of garlic, hard cheese, and herbs, then roasted in a screaming-hot oven and splashed with vinegar, which sends aromas of schmaltz and spice right up to your nose.''
Scrapple fries are on the menu at Waller's Deli in Tabernacle.
“Everything in the pig except the oink” isn’t exactly an enticing description, but scrapple lovers don’t care what goes in their favorite breakfast meat. And scrapple fries? Be still my heart. You can get them in Pennsylvania, but I can’t imagine anyone doing them better than Waller’s Deli in the Pine Barrens. Scrapple can be traced to blood pudding in Dutch and German cuisine. When settlers arrived in this country, they left out the blood part. That was probably a good thing.
The legendary Ripper from Rutt's Hut in Clifton.
One of the state’s — no, the nation’s — legendary hot dog stands. An essential Jersey food experience. And home of the Ripper, that deep-fried dog so named because the dog rips open during its hot oil bath. That’s Rutt’s Hut in Clifton. Abe Rutt opened the brick-walled roadhouse in 1928; bacon and eggs back then cost 80 cents. The current owners bought the business in 1975.
Get one dog with the distinctive relish, another with mustard, and you’ll be in hot dog heaven. The Ripper is the OG of dogs. It was named the best hot dog in the U.S. by the Daily Meal.
Boost! has been around since 1913, but only for South Jerseyans.
Most of New Jersey has never heard of Boost! and that’s OK. Popular in Burlington and Camden counties, practically unknown everywhere else, the drink has been described by some as a lemony cola. Others call it “liquid crack.”
It was the work of Benjamin Rice Faunce, who introduced it at his Riverside pharmacy in 1913. It’s a strange brew in more ways than one — you mix it with water (four parts water, one part Boost!, or 3/1 if you want a thicker, stronger drink). You can also find it as already-mixed soda or in slushie form at delis and convenience stores. But don’t go looking for it in Central or North Jersey — you won’t find it. Not to be confused with Boost nutritional drinks, or Boost Mobile, for that matter.
The fat sandwich from Jersey Pizza Co. in Wood-RIdge.
New Jersey may have contributed more than any other state to the nation’s ever-increasing collective waistline. I submit to evidence Exhibit No. 1: the fat sandwich, hatched at the infamous grease trucks on College Avenue in New Brunswick in the 1980s. They are not for the weak-hearted, or the calorie conscious. They feature cheesesteak, hamburgers, chicken tenders, chicken cutlets, gyro, French fries, eggs, mozzarella sticks, meatballs, onion rings, cheese, marinara sauce, BBQ sauce, lettuce, ketchup, mayo — sometimes all in the same sandwich.
Maxim magazine named the Fat Darrell at one of the grease trucks the nation’s best sandwich in 2004. Not best fat sandwich, the best sandwich. The grease trucks are long gone from Rutgers, but you can find fat sandwiches at delis around the state. I once spent a week eating fat sandwiches and lived to tell the tale.
Delis from here to Havana claim to have invented the Sloppy Joe, but Town Hall Deli in South Orange says it was absolutely the first to introduce it in this country. It appeared on the menu in the 1930s. It’s not the beef-filled Sloppy Joe familiar to the rest of the nation, but the Jersey version, usually with turkey, roast beef, Swiss and Russian dressing.
Get stuck with some sticky buns from Aversa's Bakery in Brigantine.
Sticky buns are often called cinnamon buns or cinnamon rolls, but they’re not the same thing. Gooey gobs of sweet, sticky caramel, raisins or pecans and soft, chewy cake make up the classic sticky bun. My favorite ones in Jersey can be found at Aversa’s Bakery in Brigantine.
I’ve lost count of the number of times over the years that breakfast has consisted of a half dozen with raisins and a cup of coffee from Wawa, just down the road. I’ve eaten sticky buns up and down the East Coast. None have come close to Aversa’s, or Jersey’s in general. There are other Aversa’s locations in Turnersville and Margate.
Panzarotti is definitely a South Jersey thing. Some have likened them to calzones, but they look more like turnovers: deep-fried pizza dough stuffed with cheese and sauce. Apparently the Tarantini family was the originator. It started selling them on the streets of Camden in 1963. Today the fourth generation of Tarantinis turns out thousands of panzarotti a week in its Cherry Hill factory.
Incomparable Jersey tomatoes, from Stony Hill Farmers Market in Chester.EJA
The iconic Jersey tomato is not just any old tomato grown in New Jersey. It goes back to two leading varieties grown at the Rutgers Agricultural Experiment Station — the Rutgers tomato in 1934 and the Ramapo tomato in 1968.
In 2016, Rutgers University released a reinvented Rutgers tomato in commemoration of the university’s 250th anniversary. No tomato anywhere on earth tastes better than a fresh-sliced Jersey tomato on a sandwich.
The Arlington Diner, a beacon on the banks of the Passaic, in North Arlington.
New Jersey is the diner capital of the world, with about 600 diners, so it goes without saying that the best diner food can be found here. Eggs, pancakes, omelets, club sandwiches, burgers, steaks, seafood, salads, chops, the cakes in the revolving display case — you name it, the Jersey diner has it, and at all hours of the day and night.
New Yorkers should have absolutely no say on this subject. Most don’t know the difference between a diner, coffee shop and luncheonette. Crain’s New York Business and The New York Times are among those that lump all three together. Repeat after me, New Yorkers: Coffee shops are not diners. Luncheonettes are not diners. Ask any New Jerseyan; they’ll set you straight. What does a diner look like? See the photo.
Salt water taffy at James Candy Co. in Atlantic City.SL
Slippery, sticky, chewy, gooey, rock-hard at one point, pillowy-soft at another. For more than 100 years, people have gone daffy over taffy. Shriver’s, the oldest business on the Ocean City boardwalk — it opened in 1898 — offers a staggering 70 flavors of taffy, with chocolate the overwhelming bestseller. One cloud on the taffy horizon: the James Candy Co., makers of Fralinger’s and James taffy, filed for bankruptcy in 2018.
Thin-crust perfection: Thin-crust pizza at Kinchley's Tavern in Ramsey.
New York City is the center of the pizza universe (that’s what they keep telling us, anyway), but when it comes to true thin-crust, New Jersey has NYC beat — and it’s not even close (good luck finding Star Tavern-like thin-crust anywhere in NYC).
The crisp. The crunch. The slight char around the edges. Thin-crust delivers a different sensory and textural experience than normal “NYC-style” pizza. Star Tavern in Orange is often considered NJ’s thin-crust gold standard. I like De Lorenzo’s in Robbinsville and Vic’s in Bradley Beach, among other places.
A nonstop meat orgy. That’s the best way to describe rodizio, an endless procession of chicken, steak, ribs and more that is a Spanish/Portuguese restaurant fixture. I did five straight days of rodizio for a story years back, and I’m still not sure how I survived. Your waiter will keep bringing meat to your table until you tell him to stop, or until you keel over. Brasilia, in the Ironbound, claims to have introduced rodizio to Newark in 1987, when it opened. Oh, and don’t even think of asking for doggie bags. That’s a big rodizio no-no.
A beacon of light on the boardwalk: Kohr's custard and ice cream stand in Seaside Heights.SL
Nothing says Jersey Shore summer like soft-serve from Kohr’s or Kohr Bros., both descendants of the five Kohr brothers who opened an ice cream stand on the Coney Island boardwalk in 1919. I’ve had soft serve at both Kohr’s and Kohr Bros., and honestly can’t tell the difference. There are four Kohr Bros. locations in Virginia Beach, three in Ocean City, Maryland and three in Rehobeth Beach, Delaware. But Kohr’s and Kohr Bros. will always be a Jersey thing.
Chili dogs bathed in onions and sauerkraut at HIram's in Fort Lee.
The chili dog may or may not have originated in Paterson or Plainfield — both cities claim the honor — but there’s no doubt this dog, also known as a Texas weiner, is close to Jersey’s heart, and stomach. Hiram’s, in Fort Lee, makes one of the state’s best (see photo), but you can find chili dogs all over the state. No other state can make that claim.
Sausage on the grill at Dentato's in Seaside Heights.
Amid the onslaught of pizza, lemonade, tacos, cheesesteaks. ice cream, fries and funnel cake, sausage sandwiches get overlooked when it comes to boardwalk food. But sweet or spicy sausage (I’m a spicy guy) with onions and peppers, stuffed in a good sturdy roll is my idea of a boardwalk good time. Dentato’s Clam Bar in Seaside Heights (photo) makes the state’s best. Which raises this question: Does any state do Italian food better than New Jersey?
Don’t let your Canadian friends try to tell you otherwise: Disco fries are not poutine, that north-of-the-border dish of fries, gravy and cheese. Different kinds of cheeses are used — white cheese curds in poutine, mozzarella in disco fries.
Disco fries apparently first appeared in the 1940s, but gained their name, and popularity, in the disco-loving ’70s, when mirror-ball-weary food fiends ordered them at late-night Jersey diners. Slop some brown gravy over those mozzarella cheese-topped fries, and you’ve got disco fries. Provide your own Donna Summer or "Saturday Night Fever'' soundtrack.
Behold, the pork roll, egg and cheese sandwich at Gronsky's Milk House in High Bridge.
Nothing stirs internet debate in this state quite like the “Is it Taylor ham or pork roll?” question. Let me repeat for the gazillionth time: All Taylor ham is pork roll. Not all pork roll is Taylor ham. Nothing more needs to be said, but people will keep saying it anyway.
The state’s most iconic sandwich, when done right, is a greasy, gooey, glorious wonder. Trenton is the Taylor ham/pork roll capital of the universe. Both Taylor Provisions and Case, the two biggest makers, are headquartered there. Here’s my list of N.J.'s 25 best TH/PREC sandwiches, ranked. If you can get a real Taylor ham/pork roll sandwich outside New Jersey, and not some crummy imitation, let us know.
Funnel cake is a boardwalk staple, including in Atlantic City.
I don’t quite get funnel cake — something about all that greasy fried dough and gobs of powdered sugar — but what do I know? Funnel cake is as much a Jersey boardwalk staple as pizza, lemonade and ice cream. Most credit the Pennsylvania Dutch for their invention, but it’s doubtful any state boasts more funnel cake per capita than New Jersey. The term “funnel cake” comes from the method of squeezing batter through a funnel in a circular pattern into hot oil to achieve a dizzying pattern of crispy-fried dough. It’s hard to imagine a county fair without funnel cake.
If I had to take one sandwich to my desert island, or the pearly gates, it might well be the roast beef and homemade mozzarella sandwich — available Thursdays and Saturdays only — at Fiore’s. The store looks like some old-school deli movie set — brick storefront, tin ceiling, fluorescent lighting, a display case filled with olives, roasted red peppers, mushrooms and other specialties.
The shelves are packed with pastas, sauce, tomatoes and cookies. A photo of Mother Teresa is wedged between sardine tins. There’s no website or official Facebook page — no surprise there. The shop opened more than 100 years ago as a “milk and cheese store.” It seems destined to last another 100 years.
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Peter Genovese may be reached at pgenovese@njadvancemedia.com.
The Link LonkOctober 31, 2020 at 09:30PM
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