The Ironbound district of Newark is a pancake-flat trapezoid hemmed in between the city's downtown, the Passaic River, and the highway. For almost a century, it's been home to a thriving Portuguese community, rivaled in size only by Massachusetts communities like Fall River and New Bedford. The Ironbound's main drag, Ferry Street, is lined with Portuguese, Spanish, and Brazilian restaurants selling platters of paella, barbecue, and the like. If you want a bite of something just as Iberian but not so gut-busting, head to Teixeira's Bakery, with two stores in the Ironbound. The line to the counter is often forty deep, but it's worth the wait. More

At the Fugetsudo Confectionery stand inside New Jersey Japanese grocery Mitsuwa, the Kobe-based company offers their legendary gaufres. $9 for six crisp discs. More

A visit out to Mitsuwa Marketplace in Edgewater is heaven for those with an affection for Japanese sweets (or savories!). However you decide to map our your day at this Japanese supermarket and food court, you'll need to finish with soft-serve. More

I go back and forth on whether hot dogs are, in any way, sandwiches. (My instinct says no, but I consider a lobster roll a sandwich, and that's stuff-on-a-long-bun too, right?) But if any hot dog is a sandwich, it'd be the "Italian Hot Dog," as done at New Jersey institution Jimmy Buff's. More

A mainstay of the Korean table, jjigae literally translates as stew, and there are hundreds of common varieties. Soondubu jjigae is my favorite. Flavored with pork, beef, or seafood in a broth similar to a Japanese dashi flavored with sea kelp and dried anchovies, it's laced with fiery red pepper powder or fermented gochujang pepper paste and often a handful of chopped, garlicky kimchi. The bulk of the dish is made up of tofu of the soft, silken variety, which develops an ultra-creamy, smooth texture as it heats in the boiling hot broth. Sinus-clearing, nutritious, and easy to down by the dolsot-ful, it's perfect restorative fare. More

The rest of the country knows Hoboken for the sculpted sheet cakes that come from its most famous bakery. They're swathed in sheets of Satin Ice brand fondant tinted a rainbow of hues not found in nature. Even on the coldest days, the line for Carlo's Bakery, of reality show fame, stretches for blocks down toward the train tracks. Hobokenites know their city for the good bread produced by the bakeries that aren't featured on TV. More

The texture and flavor of these noodles, supported by the soup, is nothing short of remarkable. More

About ten minutes into my tour of Iceberg Farms in Howell I had the feeling that something was missing. All the components of a small farm were in place—the beehives, wandering chickens, plastic sheathed greenhouse with produce plants ready... More

People don't go into Deli King for four pounds of meat, they go to get what their parents got fifty years ago. More

"...a Peyton Place-like tell-all memoir would give a better picture of what's going on. " More