Venti Food Truck Now Serving

New food truck Venti Italian Specialties has come to town!

Little Grain Opening at Harborside

Little Grain, an offshoot of popular downtown cafe Short Grain, will soon be opening at Harborside.

The OAK on Pine Launches Lunch Service

The OAK on Pine continues to expand!

The East Flour Now Open

The East Flour, 103 Columbus Drive, is celebrating their Grand Opening this week.

The Guac Spot Joins the Harborside Pop-Ups

The Guac Spot will soon be permanently available in Jersey City as they open their own stand at Harborside near Exchange Place as one of the pop-up vendors.

Chubby's Sandwiches Food Truck Coming Soon

Photo from Chubby's Sandwiches

New food truck Chubby's Sandwiches will be launching at Exchange Place this August.

Cava and Choc O Pain Opening This Week

This week brings the opening of two new spots to Jersey City - both Cava and Choc-O-Pain will open their doors this Wednesday.

Photo by Choc-O-Pain

Harborside Expands Pop-Ups

After doing some renovations and recently installing several food pop-ups, Harborside has now expanded their selection with another five vendors. 

Harborside Offers New Pop-Up Restaurants

After recently closing their main cafeteria and Henry's on the Hudson, Mack-Cali's Harborside Plaza has been hard at work bringing in several new pop-up restaurants.They're trying to offer a variety of options as they do renovations to bring in more permanent vendors and have managed to create one of the most interesting lunchtime scenes around.

Square 1 Jersey City Opening Soon

Photo submitted by reader

New restaurant Square 1 Jersey City is coming to Journal Square.

Tidal Pokē Co. and Lizzmonade Open at Harborside

Yesterday marked the opening of two pop-ups at Harborside Plaza: Tidal Pokē  Co. and Lizzmonade, both familiar names from events around Jersey City.

Martha's Restaurant Opens Saturday

New restaurant Martha's is scheduled to open this Saturday!

(photo from Joel Maffei)

Dolma Opens!

Dolma, a new Mediterranean restaurant at 270 Grand Street (sort of in between Grand and Bright), opened for business recently.

Nine Bar Cafe

After several months undergoing renovations and setting up, Nine Bar Cafe opened up quietly at 18 Erie Street, not long before their neighbor Carrino Provisions, and quickly became one of the more popular coffee destinations in town.

The proprietor, Stefania Cocozza, hails from Rome and her passion for quality Italian coffee is well-translated here. It's quickly become part of my weekend routine over the past few months and I highly recommend you make it part of yours.

The espresso based drinks are really what you're after here. The regular coffee is good, but the espresso is the star of the show, ideally to be drunk in-store. However, as it's almost always crowded, taking it to go is fairly unavoidable. Preferably with a pastry or two.

Pasta Dal Cuore Adds Take Out Lunch Specials

Pasta Dal Cuore is expanding their pasta options! They've been busy doing recipe testing and the store will now carry fresh take-out pasta lunches, available every Tuesday through Friday.

Winter 2015 Hudson Restaurant Week is Here!

Next Monday, January 26th, marks the start of the biggest Hudson Restaurant Week yet!

Approximately 50 restaurants throughout Hudson County are participating in the 10 day event of discounted prix-fixe menus and close to half of those are in Jersey City.

Amelia's Bistro Has a New Lunch Special

Amelia's Bistro is offering a new weekday lunch special: 2 for 1 lunches from 11am-3pm.

Second Street: Not Just for Sandwiches

Bread + tomato sauce + mozzarella = happiness

This is an equation that has been proven over and over again. Second Street Bakery, already well-established as a wonderful Italian deli, is one more example proving this theory true.

The pizzas available at Second Street aren't what we typically think of when conjuring up the image of a pizza; they're a bit more rustic, more free-form and only come in the most classic variety: bread + tomato sauce + mozzarella. But this is all you need to enjoy a delicious treat.

Brunch At Thirty Acres

One of the nice things about Thirty Acres is that they frequently update their menu, so while this can be difficult if you form a strong attachment to something, it also means they are constantly creating new and delicious dishes. When I saw the changes to their most recent brunch menu, I knew immediately that I needed to make it a priority to go.

We started with drinks: the Michelada and the Stiff Java. Both were excellent and surprisingly large. The Michelada was spicier than I expected, but definitely not unbearable especially with the tang of the pickle to distract your taste buds. It was served with the rest of the beer so that you could keep refilling and the heat and vinegar flavors stayed strong until the end. The Stiff Java was like drinking the best coffee dessert you could ever have - dark and rich, but still sweetly refreshing. The intensity of both drinks was a nice change for a daytime brunch cocktail - instead of feeling light and dainty, these were bold wake-up calls and helped break through the richness of the meals.

The dish that first caught my attention and that I was most excited to try was the steak tartare club. For some reason, I'd actually been craving streak tartare for a few weeks and then the thought of it in sandwich form with bacon? There was no way I was missing out.

Barcade - Beyond a Liquid Lunch!

I really like beer. I also really like sandwiches. So not too long ago, when Barcade made some changes to their menu and began running a lunch special of any sandwich, $6 beer, and pretzels for $10, I was pretty excited.

The options include both hot and cold sandwiches including a veggie burger and a couple of grilled cheeses that are vegetarian-friendly (nothing specifically vegan) and there are about ten options in all. One of the most extreme of these options is the waffle sandwich - your choice of either maple-mustard chicken or all-natural pork sausage (or both for a $2 supplement) with american cheese between two waffles which sounds intense but delicious. While I definitely considered getting it, I decided to keep things a little simpler and go for the Fancy Lad grilled cheese - and yes, I chose it because of the name. Also ordered were the regular grilled cheese and the Mac and Cheese with pulled pork (another intense but delicious one).