A short day in Jersey

My friend and I like to explore the neighborhoods around the city.  We decided to head out to Newark and then Jersey City for part of the day.

Newark has a strong Portuguese population.  There are a handful of restaurants but we zeroed in on was Seabra’s market.  I have been spending some time in the grocery world and have a few investments that are helping these stores become better curated which in turn makes them more profitable.  Seabra is a perfect example of a local grocery store carrying many of the items you would see at your store but there is a slew of Portuguese products that you wouldn’t find most places.

Huge hunks of cheese in the cheese section that are used in Brazilian homes.

Loved all the spicy pepper pastes.  Simple ingredients of water, peppers, vinegar and that is about it.

Lots of canned fish.

Particularly loved these beautiful olive oil cans.  They are worth saving after the oil is gone!

Smoked meats.

Dried fish that reminded me of what we saw in Southeast Asia.

We did not go to any of the restaurants on Fleet Street but hit up a bakery instead.  Fleet Street is the main corridor of the area.  Teixeiras Bakery specialty is these egg custard tarts known aspasteis de nata.  Dense flaky crust with a creamy egg filling just browned.  Quite delicious.

We then made our way over to Jersey City.  What a changed landscape from even just five years ago.  They have closed off some streets in the Iron Bound area so no cars.  Lots of new restaurants, wine stores, clothing shops, ice cream shops and more.  If it wasn’t for the fact that I knew I was in NJ, I would have thought we were in Brooklyn.  I wanted to check out Razzos for pizza but unfortunately not open until dinner.  I plan on coming back.  We walked around the corner to Roman Nose that had quite a delicious pizza so we left very happy.  Butternut squash, four kinds of cheese, tiny pieces of spicy ham, caramelized onions and a maple glaze.  Delish!

A really nice farmers market in the square.  I picked up some sausages for later.

It is really the end of the summer vegetables.

Then back to the city.  Newark doesn’t feel as vibrant as Jersey City does but it is always amazing to me how close these completely different neighborhoods are to mine although they seem like I am in a different world.  Here are the goodies I came home with.  I seriously love these adventures.