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Cynthetiq · 03-29-2008, 09:56 AM

Exit 10 At Harold’s New York Deli, in a Holiday Inn just a kreplach’s toss from Exit 10, the owner, Harold Jaffee, right, serves a 26-ounce pastrami sandwich. You can feed a carload on it, supplemented by slices of rye and half sours from the “world’s largest pickle bar.” 3050 Woodbridge Avenue, Edison; (732) 661-9100.

EXIT 4 You can fill it up by the gallon at Weber’s Famous Root Beer in Pennsauken. It’s brewed fresh every morning. 6019 Lexington Avenue at Route 38; (856) 662-6632.

NJ Turnpike Food Attractions click to show

Quote:

View: The United Plates of New Jersey
Source: NYTimes
posted with the TFP thread generator

The United Plates of New Jersey
By BETSY ANDREWS

SIMON and Garfunkel were right. When the cars go to look for America, they often wind up on the New Jersey Turnpike. Just count them: More than 250 million motorists traveled along the turnpike in 2006. Though many of them were daily commuters, plenty of drivers were traveling farther, since the turnpike is also a well-worn vacation route, part of Interstate 95, the highway from Maine to Florida.

It’s not an easy drive. If you’re touring New Jersey or passing through it on the turnpike, you’ll be forced to pay a toll, be afforded zero scenic overlooks and probably be subjected to the type of traffic that can turn your stomach or bring on hunger during interminable waits as you inch forward.

For relief, the Turnpike Authority has provided a dozen service areas, named for New Jersey residents the likes of Walt Whitman, Woodrow Wilson and James Fenimore Cooper, and offering fare from the likes of Roy Rogers, Arthur Treacher and Tom Carvel. For drivers who have come not just to look for America, but to dine on its diverse road foods, the fast-food monopoly of the turnpike rest stops is a depressing situation.

But, courage, turnpike travelers. The Turnpike Authority might have constructed an experience that offers the very absence of the America that you have gone to look for, but just off the turnpike, at or near many of its 29 exits, America — and, more specifically, New Jersey — lives and eats. What follows, from north to south, is a taste of the homegrown New Jersey flavors you can find along the turnpike, if you just hop off.

Exits 14B, 18W: Burgers

The 1939 World’s Fair introduced America to “the diner of the future,” an innovation in grillside efficiency that, today, sits in the shadow of the Pulaski Skyway in Jersey City. White Mana is a 24-hour burger joint housed in a round, chrome-and-enamel looker with a vintage sign, “Curb Service, Drink Coca-Cola.” (In the old days, said Mario Costa, the owner, “we had two or three girls going out to the cars — on roller skates.”) The burger is O.K., but the building — with its circular grillside seating designed so the cook won’t take more that three steps to fulfill any order — is a can’t-miss.

For a better burger, of a similar name, take the turnpike north and head for Hackensack to the diminutive shrine of the slider, White Manna. Originally part of a chain that included White Mana, this 21-seat vintage spot dressed in beveled porcelain panels turns out patties that leave burger lovers speechless. On Super Bowl Sunday, it was quiet as a church and packed with disciples who had called ahead for sliders by the hundreds. The burger chef mashed balls of fresh meat on a minuscule grill, loaded them with thin-sliced onion and slapped them on potato rolls, with pickles on the side. The burgers were soft, pungent and satisfying eaten in large quantities — meat, onion and roll melted together into an adult version of baby food.

White Mana, 470 Tonnele Avenue, Jersey City; (201) 963-1441. White Manna, 358 River Street, Hackensack; (201) 342-0914.

Exit 15W: Scottish in Kearny

In the 1800s, Clark Thread recruited flax spinners from the British Isles to its stateside mills, and the Scottish flavor of Kearny took hold. Joan Nisbet, owner of the Argyle Restaurant, recalled one dozen Scottish food shops once lining Kearny Avenue. Today, a handful remain. The Argyle is wedged between three separate stores, all called the Piper’s Cove, where Mrs. Nisbet and her partners do a brisk business in rental kilts, bagpipe repairs and Highland trinkets. Order your fish and chips at the Argyle, and you can shop for Cadbury, HP Sauce and other British edibles next door while the house-filleted cod is frying up nice and crispy.

If you come on a weekend night in January, the month of Robert Burns’s birthday, burly men in kilts, brandishing swords and bowls of Scotch, will recite “Address to a Haggis” over a steaming specimen of the Scottish national dish.

Argyle Restaurant, 212 Kearny Avenue, Kearny; (201) 991-3900.

Exit 13: Jersey Dogs

Tommy’s Italian Sausages and Hot Dogs is hard to find, tucked away off Elizabeth Avenue, but it is worth the effort. Since 1969, the cute street stand has been the pride of three generations of Tommy Parrinellos, the latest one an enthusiastic maker of coarse pork-and-anise sausage; sweet, spicy stewed-onion chili that dresses a superlative chili dog; and a mind-boggling Jersey creation called the Italian hot dog. Deep-fried franks, onions, peppers and potatoes are stuffed into an enormous roll made from pizza dough.

“The old Italian people, when they used to play cards, they made a vegetable-and-potato sandwich because it was cheap — they were growing the vegetables in their backyard,” Mr. Parrinello explained. “Years later, someone put a hot dog on it.”

Tommy’s Italian Sausage and Hot Dogs, 900 Second Avenue, Elizabeth; (908) 351-9831.

Exit 11: Little India

For carbs-only motorists, Tommy’s sells an all-potato sandwich. But the true vegetarian stop is Oak Tree Road in Iselin’s Little India. In springtime, people come from afar to shop for wedding supplies in Little India’s many stores, said Andrip Patel, whose family owns the restaurant and sweet shop called Chowpatty.

When shoppers are hungry, Chowpatty, in the midst of the action, is a good choice for thalis from the owners’ native Gujarat, Southern Indian dosa and Punjabi paneers and kormas.

Little India’s real road food, however, is the junglee jumbo sandwich at Dimple’s Bombay Talk. Junglee in Hindi means wild, and this is as wild as a meatless sandwich can be. Shredded lettuce, onion, red cabbage, carrot and cucumber are loaded on a 10-inch-round Italian loaf and dressed in coriander-and-peanut chutney. If you like, add toasted cheese. Served with a cumin-spiked tomato soup, it’s a he-man lunch for a non-meat-eater.

Chowpatty, 1349 Oak Tree Road, Iselin; (732) 283-9020. Dimple’s Bombay Talk, 1358 Oak Tree Road, Iselin; (732) 283-0066.

Exit 10: Maximum Load

Harold Jaffee cut his teeth as general manager at the Carnegie Deli in Manhattan, where the sandwiches are big enough. But there’s something about New Jersey that made him want to do things bigger.

At Harold’s New York Deli, in a Holiday Inn just a kreplach’s toss from Exit 10, Mr. Jaffee serves a 26-ounce pastrami sandwich, two little triangles of bread teetering like a farce atop twin peaks of meat. The house-cured pastrami is soft, warm and mildly spiced. You can feed a carload on it, supplemented by slices of rye and half sours from the “world’s largest pickle bar.”

Titanic-size matzo balls, foot-tall layer cakes and knishes as big as a raccoon’s head: fuel up there, and you’ll make it all the way to Deepwater without putting a dent in your tank.

Harold’s New York Deli, 3050 Woodbridge Avenue, Edison; (732) 661-9100.

Exits 10, 9: Asian in Edison

If you are in the mood for Chinese (or Vietnamese or Korean), roll off at Exit 10 and travel between turnpike tolls along Route 1 and 9 in Edison, where a host of pan-Asian road-food stops has sprung up.

Start at Grand Shanghai, where families eat soup dumplings by the hundreds. Save room for the main course, which you’ll have at the Edison Noodle House. The popular brunch dish at this Korean restaurant is an omelet over vegetable fried rice topped with ketchup, but it also serves a noteworthy ja jang myun, noodles in black bean sauce with pork. Finish with a strangely addictive durian shake from the Vietnamese restaurant, Pho Anh Dao. Then hop back on the Turnpike at Exit 9.

Grand Shanghai, 700 Route 1 north, Edison; (732) 819-8830. Edison Noodle House, 775-2, Route 1 south, Edison; (732) 572-0600. Pho Anh Dao, 691 Route 1 south, Edison; (732) 985-7977.

Exit 7: Central Jersey Diner

In Bordentown, the Mastoris diner sits fronted by a bakeshop in a parking lot filled with cars. Everyone in Central Jersey seems to eat there — some every day.

“I’ll see ya tomorrow, I’m sure,” said the waitress to the old guy beside me as I sat down at a counter full of old guys. Given a voluminous menu of massive, Mastoris-only creations, it’s no wonder Central Jersey’s retirees retire there for lunch. As they dig into their Let’s Talk Turkey sandwiches (roast breast, bacon, slaw, Russian dressing, melted Swiss), they take notes on what to order tomorrow.

“What are you having, hon?” one of the old guys asked me. I was having Mastoris’s crab bread: a crabmeat, vegetable and cream cheese concoction piled on a house-baked hero roll and slathered with melted mozzarella.

“They won’t tell you exactly what’s in it,” said a waitress, “but it’s worth every calorie and every fat gram. That’s the God’s honest truth.”

Mastoris, 144 Route 130, Bordentown; (609) 298-4650.

Exits 7, 4: Pizza Innovations

Also in Bordentown, not far from Mastoris, is Palermo’s, an unassuming pizzeria that serves an exemplary rendition of a New Jersey specialty: tomato pie. Unlike pizza, the Jersey tomato pie is “cheese first, sauce on top,” explained the owner, Marco Graziano.

The sauce, ladled on in dollops, is chunky, fruity and finished with a little olive oil. It’s delicious, and it makes the pie. Just be prepared to eat the whole thing. “The crust is so thin that we can’t serve tomato pie by the slice,” Mr. Graziano said. “Once you cut it, you want to eat it.”

If you’re a fan of the square slice from Mr. Graziano’s native Palermo, he also offers a Sicilian version of the tomato pie.

South Jersey is home to another pizza variation, the panzarotti, a pizza turnover of sorts. It’s worth the seven-mile detour from Exit 4 to Haddonfield to visit Franco’s Place, the remaining shop of the Tarantini family, the originators and suppliers of the panzarotti found at pizzerias throughout the area. The turnover, made with dough that withstands boiling oil, is filled with cheese, sauce and pizza toppings, then sealed and deep-fried. For New Yorkers, coming from the city of baked calzones, it’s an oddball only-in-Jersey treat.

Palermo’s, Glen Brook Shopping Center, 674 Route 206 south, Bordentown; (609) 298-6771. Franco’s Place, 67 Ellis Street, Haddonfield; (856) 857-9889.

Exit 4: Drive-In

If you have taken Exit 4 toward Philadelphia, you will pass right by Weber’s Famous Root Beer in Pennsauken, where you can gobble up an authentic New Jersey experience without even leaving your car.

Park in the lot by the sign with the bouncing orange balls and turn on your headlights for service. The gals will bring you Taylor Pork Roll sandwiches and root beer, brewed fresh every morning and available, if you like, by the gallon jugful. The drive-in’s season “runs the same as baseball,” said the owner, Michael Mascarelli, roughly March to October.

If you are there on a Sunday, you will be serenaded by a curbside Elvis impersonator. “He just shows up,” Mr. Mascarelli said. “We feed him, but he’s not on the payroll. He does it for the love of Elvis. Then again, he eats 15 hot dogs.”

Weber’s Famous Root Beer, 6019 Lexington Avenue at Route 38; (856) 662-6632.

Exits 3, 2, 1: Journey’s End

On its southern leg, the turnpike lapses from Philadelphia-adjacent urbanism to agriculture to riverfront. The road food reflects the shift. At Exit 3, on the Black Horse Pike, is New Jersey’s choice for Italian bread, onion bagels and raisin rolls. Del Buono’s Bakery announces itself from the road with giant fiberglass figurines — Humpty Dumpty, a rooster, a water buffalo, gorillas — lining its roof and parking lot. On the cavernous inside, customers grab piping hot rolls from a conveyor belt. Order enormous sticky buns — sold in a “loaf” of six for $2 — the way I heard a local order them: “real sticky.”

In Mullica Hill, Exit 2, there’s an Amish Market, and if you’re lucky to be traveling through on Thursday, Friday or Saturday when it’s open, you can fill up on pies of the chicken pot and shoofly varieties, plus barbecue, smoked sausages and homemade soups from a number of rural vendors.

Dropping off the turnpike’s southern spur at Exit 1 near Deepwater, follow Route 49 east two miles to the blinking light and turn right to J. G. Cook’s Riverview Inn. Partly housed in what was once the carousel pavilion of a 19th-century waterfront amusement park, the seafood restaurant now sits in a quiet park with sweeping vistas of the Delaware River. Get a table on the covered deck or — if it’s winter — fireside by the windows and order a bowl of garlic clams, gaze out at the Delaware Memorial Bridge and know that just across the water in Wilmington, Del., there’s a place that charcoal-broils a terrific burger that’s waiting for you to try.

Del Buono’s Bakery, 317-19 Black Horse Pike, Haddon Heights; (856) 546-9585. The Amish Market, 108 Swedesboro Road, Mullica Hill; (856) 478-4300. J. G. Cook’s Riverview Inn, 60 Main Street, Pennsville; (856) 678-3700.

Roadside foods have always been an attraction to me. As I drove up and down I-5 travelling between LA and SF I learned where the best roadside foods were. While I'm not a true blue foodie (WTF is truffle infused mean anyways?) I'm definitely a food lover.

Roadfood.com is a good resource to find some of those hard to find places, this article was a boon to me since I don't know any of the places that they mentioned. On the way out of NYC in any direction I don't have any roadside stops that I can plan on like I did on I-5. Then again, I don't drive that often any longer, sadly the only one that comes to mind is Denny's on I-95 north in CT on the way to Boston.

Anyone have any roadside food stops that they must stop for? Please share!