Road Food

December 28, 2008 at 8:23 am (Consume It)
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I  love that Jane and Michael Stern write a monthly column called “Two For The Road” for Gourmet magazine. Gourmet!  It’s a cross-country guide to finding roadfood. What’s roadfood?

Meals along highways, small towns and neighborhoods, food by cooks, bakers, pitmasters, and sandwich-makers. Informal, inexpensive, colorful, loved by locals, off the beaten path.

They have 20+ books -  Roadfood, Two for the Road, and Chili Nation: The Ultimate Chili Cookbook with Recipes from Every State in the Nation. Their own website is roadfood.com.

I listen to them on the radio show/podcast The Splendid Table. On that website, they only list one Jersey place they have covered on air – Bloomfield, NJ: Short Stop Diner

There are more on their site from the neighborhood. Notice a pattern?

Rutt’s Hut – Clifton, NJ for chili, The Cremator hot dog

The Hot Grill – Clifton, NJ Texas hot weiner

Jimmy Buff’s – West Orange, NJ Italian Hot Dog – single, Newark-style double hot dog

Maria’s Homemade Ravioli – Wayne, NJ gnocchi, ravioli

Dickie Dee’s – Newark, NJ Italian-style hot dogs

There is probably a place in your U.S. or international neighborhood.

Jeresy gulls who dont even know about the Jersey Shore looking for scraps at Rutts

Jersey gulls (who don't even know about the Jersey Shore) looking for scraps at Rutt's

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Greasy Tony’s Reborn In The Desert

December 6, 2008 at 11:22 pm (About Paradelle, Consume It)
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Tony's in ArizonaSteve Smith checking in with Tony

Greasy Tony’s was a food joint that used to be on Easton Ave. and Somerset Street in New Brunswick, NJ.

During my mid-70’s days at Rutgers College, it was a fixture.

In 1992, Tony got evicted (“eminent domain”) so the college could put up a new building.  Tony moved out to Tempe, Arizona and is still greasing up the insides of all comers.  [Note: Since this was posted, word has reached me that unbeknownst to me, Tony Giorgianni died in June 2008.]  My buddy Steve Smith (who grew up in New Brunswick and attended Rutgers with me) consumed a good number of Tony creations. Guess where Steve spends the months when the Jersey beach town of Seaside Park is a bit too cold for his wife? Uh huh – he has a place in Arizona.

Tony's AZAfter Rutgers played in the Insight Bowl in 2005 (Arizona State beat them 45-40), some Rutgers fans in the know headed from the stadium past the ASU campus and to Greasy Tony’s.

It looks like a Greasy Tony’s establishment should look.

Depending on when you got there, you might have seen a limo parked on the side of the building. And there in the outside seating area was James Gandolfini (Rutgers grad) eating a cheesesteak.

A cheesesteak and  Tony Soprano out in the desert.

Jersey people are survivors.

Greasy Tony's, NJ

Tony's original menu

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