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All three (India on the Hudson, Saffron, and Karma Cafe) are all owned by the same people, which would likely account for the signage (and my dislike for all three). A newcomer has arrived Bombay West which i have reviewed in this forum just a week or so ago.

Second Street Bakery & Italian Food Center 402 Second St. Jersey City, NJ (201) 420-1793 When i stayed at the Hyatt in THIS THREAD i mentioned the following: I forget how i found out about the bakery, but the Second Street bakery is about 2 blocks from Lombardi's. I'm no Magaellan but i would guess it's just south of Lombardi's. The bakery is small, the hours are limited, there is no place to eat, the counter service is slow... but boy is the food good! Last time i stopped by i had some 'chicken stuffed bread' (similar to a pizzeria's chicken roll, but smaller) which was a bargain at $1.50 (you'll need a couple for a lunch... they also come in other varities such as peperoni, sausage, meatball, etc). They heat these up for you but not long enough, and since there is no place to eat there anyway, best bet is to just take them home and heat up in your own oven. Today they were sold-out of the stuffed breads so i took home a large chicken parm hero ($5) and a small meatball hero ($3)... the wife and I split them both. Both were excellent, with the chicken being superior to the meatball, but i would be content eating either if they were in front of me now

You couldn't find a listing as the correct name/spelling is: Teixeira Bakery There are a few locations listed in Newark, i'm not sure which is there actual bakery (which i've seen, near close to Rte 1&9, it's a true factory). Here is a link to Verizon listing all of the locations: VERIZON LINK. Today i went to the 2nd Street Bakery in Jersey City and thought of you as i waited to be served. Brought home chcken parm hero and meatball parm heros... good stuff!

Marie's Bakery (Policastro) 261 2nd St Hoboken, New Jersey ( NJ ) 07030 (201) 963-4281 It's b/w Park and Willow.

The '3 Big Players' in Hoboke with the best bread... Dom's, Marie's, and the Antique Bakery. From what i can tell of the three, Marie's does the biggest wholesale business (under a different name... Policastro, or something like that) and might be your best chance. BTW, what about 2nd Street Bakery in JC? I had some chicken stuffed bread there the other day and it was pretty good (although they didn't heat it up long enough).

After getting 'locked-out' of a reservation about 3 months ago we finally had the chance to try Chucharamama tonite and i'm glad i did. It's a bit upscale for the neighborhood and the food is a bit pricier (especially beer/liquor/wine) than most of Hoboken, but the food is quite good as is the service. The one sentence version: The food here has tremendous flavor. Bit longer: i started with the black bean soup and it was very good. Lots of beans and thicker than your usual black bean soup. Others at the table had gezpacho which they thought was good and a cod appetizer (fritters?... they were served fried, similar to crab cakes, but they were round balls) which i didn't taste but was told they were excellent. Others ordered entrees off the menu which all seemed to be served as a 'stew'... meat mixed in with a dark sauce and LOTS of potatoes (although they ordered different items, they all had the same stew appearance). As most of the menu (2 pages) are appetizers and only the back page listing entrees (about 7 selections) I elected to order two add'l appetizers for my main course: a pizza and an order of empanadas. The empanadas were three (too) small pockets filled with blue cheese and onion, they weren't bad but i wouldn't recommend them nor order them again. The pizza (also small) was delicious. Most notable about everything i ate was that it was full of flavor. A very good meal, although a bit more expensive than typical hoboken. We'll return again i'm sure, but only when we're looking for a 'nicer' meal in town.

Glenn, Have you tried this place yet (i forget if we spoke about it or not): La Rustique 84 Morris St Jersey City, New Jersey For the area their pizza is very good. Problem is there is very limited seating but i hear they have a few tables out front when the weather is nice. If you're in the area it's worth a stop.

Must have really been back in the day as i looked at the menu and Happy Hour margaritas were listed at $5.00 (can only guess as to price at other times). As a side note, the bartender at Brasa really put a lot of effort into her margarita (i didn't have one, but saw a few being made)... first wtih limes and ice in the glass, then a long fork in order to hand puree them, followed by the liquor. They sure do... as an appetizer. I almost ordered two servings as my main dish (as i had done at Salty's my last trip to Seattle... another tourist trap!) Can you tell i had nothing to do with that selection either Also on the last trip we went to to a thai place that i may have mentioned in a previous post here. I asked our host the name of it this time around and it was Racha Noodle... very good.

Here are excepts from my food adventures in Seattle. I was there on a family trip so i didn't have much of a say in most of the restaurant selections. As well, the extended family aren't planners or foodies, so restaurants were often picked at the last minute. Only restaurant i chose was Brasa as it was on the last day and everyone else had already left; we could have left the city early that day but i insisted on staying so i could try their happy hour dinner (thanks to the recommendations on this board): Wild Ginger, which I was very pleased and impressed with. Service was excellent and the food was great. Started with chicken satay and some spring rolls (which weren’t fried) and the satay was a winner! Main dishes were duck and seven flavor beef which were both recommended by our server, as well as a shrimp dish (the second one listed on the menu) and a chicken dish. I didn’t try the duck but it got very good reviews from others at the table… the chicken dish was ‘ok’ but the shrimp and beef dishes were superb. Upon seeing what we were ordering our server also recommended the smaller serving size for two of the dishes (always appreciated and noticed when a server has your best interest in mind ahead of their own) and the amount of food was perfect. Prices for food were as expected for a ‘nicer’ restaurant although beer/wine prices a bit higher than the rest of the city (which I found to have VERY low beer prices). For dinner we couldn’t get a reservation for our large party at Flying Fish so we ended up at Anthony’s Pier 66 which was able to accommodate us. Service was good and the setting was great, but I wasn’t thrilled with my meal and the limited menu; and view this type of place as a tourist trap that is typically available in every major city. Better choices can be had, but given the lack of advanced planning this was what was available (and given that i didn't have a say in the planning i had to go with the flow). Finally worked out way over to Brasa and let me say that if their happy hour isn’t one of the best deals in town I’m not sure what would be. This is an excellent restaurant with a Middle Eastern slant; from 5pm-7pm their bar menu is half price with a drink purchase. I had the steak sandwich ($16 reduced to $8), which was truly great. Surprisingly it wasn’t served in a bun but rather some sort of Middle Eastern pita-type bread. It was done extremely well and had tremendous flavor... outstanding! My wife had an order of hummus ($10 reduced to $5), which was also very good, but the steak sandwich was the clear winner. As with the rest of the city, beer prices were extremely reasonable as a pint of the local brew I had was only $4! ($7+ at an equivalent NY high-end restaurant). Happy hour dinner at this restaurant will once again be on my must-do list when I return to the city. While walking around the block waiting for Brasa to open we also stumbled upon a Mexican restaurant called Mama’s, which we said we would also try next time around… just looked like the type of local/homestyle place we would enjoy. Anybody know anything about it? Thanks for the tip on Brasa as i really enjoyed my steak sandwich there! I think we'll be in Seattle about once a year so am already thinking about a repeat visit to Brasa along with some other places (like Mama's if i hear good things about it from the board).

Economy Candy is the place for this type of stuff... great prices and good people.

I'm not much of a sushi eater so i've never been, but i have heard good things about Robongi in Hoboken which is BYOB. Here's their info if you'd like to confirm: 520 Washington St (201) 222-8388

A few random comments regarding the above: Malaysian - my wife recently returned from a business trip to Malaysia and said i would have LOVED the food. I suggested we try Satay and we did shortly thereafter. She said the food was nothing like what she had in Malaysia and we both agree it was 'ok'... we'd sooner go for chinese food. I will say though that the staff was very nice and tried hard. Bombay East - my mistake... i think it's Bombay West (which makes more sense too) Madison - not really sure if they know what they want to be... a nice restaurant or a bar. I did like the 'feel' of the main dining room, but they're trying too hard to be trendy. I thought my meal (filet mignon) was better than average but not great, my wife had some seafood dish (maybe a paella-like dish?.. i don't recall) and she didn't like it all... and she's not hard to please (as her marriage to me is proof of ). Sri Thai - very good food and very reasonable prices. Place isn't much to look at (nor are their hand-written specials permanently tacked on the wall) but the service is good and we find ourselves there frequently. Best bet is to stick with the more 'thai oriented' dishes and less with some of the 'chines-type' dishes on the menu. Uptown Pizza - this is the pizza place refered to above as 'by the shipyard' and they're certainly making a name for themself in town... one of the new(er) pizza places that i'm glad has come onto the scene. Thier pizza is very good and we've ordered heros from them too... their chicken parm is very good as well. If you want a meatball hero, stick with Leo's as nobody does it better. Ali Baba - best hummus i've ever had (apparently they put a lot of tahini in it). I wouldn't order a dinner plate here, but we go frequently and get their sandwiches and they're well worth the $5 or so they charge. La Isla - still great... although not the incredible deal it was before they just raised prices. Lately i've been walking to Jersey City and try La Conguita (recommended elsewhere on e-gullet). Food isn't as good as La Isla but at half the price it's more than half as good BTW, La Isla has the BEST chicken empanadas i've ever eat... amazing! Margherita's - i still like and enjoy this place, although it's not as sophisticated as many e-gullet user's tastes. My friend and i were just commenting how they may be one of the most successful restaurants in town... always some sort of a wait, even during the week. On the weekend a wait of 'only 45 minutes' is welcomed (i don't wait that long anymore and we try to go early on the weekends or only during the week). M&P Biancomano - one of the best sandwich places in town but never seemed to develop the following of many of the others (it's certainly better than Lisa's which has sadly gone down hill over the last 5 years or so). Their sandwiches are loaded with fresh homemade mozarella and a bargain at just over $5 for most sandwiches. The only downside is that they only make sandwiches until they run out of bread, which is usually just after 2pm or so. They make sandwiches on soft or crispy bread... stick with the crispy which comes from Marie's bakery.

Don't bother... i was the original poster of this place and they have since sold (see note later in this same post) and it is now TERRIBLE! It was such a nice place with great food and the staff was so friendly... now the food is bad and the service is non-existent. Since they sold (a little more than a year ago) i gave them 3 chances and that was it. My wife and i were there about twice a week before they changed hands and now i will never go again. My recant of my recommendation is somehwhere in the archives here but it involves: wrong dish being served and when i told him this wasn't chicken tikka masala he tried to tell me that is what it was (it wasn't), 2 out of the 3 visits we had customers sit down a good 15 minutes after us and get served their food well before us (and it wasn't that they were served fast... we were served excessively slow), another visit we asked if we could sit at an empty table (we were 3 and it was a table for 4) while the restaurant was about 20% full... was told the table was reserved but in the 90 minutes it took us to eat (note above about not getting served our food) nobody came in to sit at the table we had requested. OK, i'm done as it upsets me that this once sanctuary for us is now gone You've hit the nail on the head... all 3 Indian restaurants in town (Saffron, Karma Kafe, and India on the Hudson) are all controlled by the same owner. Both Karma and India on the Hudson were started by the same owner, but he bought Saffron about a 18 months after Saffron opened. I joke that the food at Saffron was so good that the owner of the other restaurants was afraid that people would learn what 'good' indian food tasted like that he had to buy out the new restaurant and make it bad to conform to his existing restaurants. With that said, India on the Hudson is a slightly different style of indian food than the other two. Karma is the busiest of the three and i don't understand but some people swear by the place. BTW, i hardly ever see anyone in Saffron ever since they changed hands. There is a new Indian restaurant, Bombay East, coming at the corner of 9th and Washington, where the now closed restaurant Vale used to be. They're not open yet but are getting close as i saw them putting the sign up earlier today.

.... but it's also important to know who does slices right! I always use my Benny Tudino's example where Benny prides himself on having the freshest pizza in town and doesn't let pizza sit around for too long. The problem though is that they don't like to reheat their slices as their pizza is VERY think and often falls apart when placed in the oven for the second time. I like my pizza hot, and i'd rather have a slice properly heated that is 2 hours old than a lukewarm (and now soggy) slice that has been out of the oven for 15 minutes and not re-heated. BTW, i haven't sorted thru this whole thread in awhile, but is pizza going up everywhere? Slices in Hoboken are now generally $2/slice. I attribute this to the higher cost of cheese as a result of the Atkins diet becoming so prevalent. We had one place in town (with a decent slice if you ask tell them you want it 'hot') that had increased their prices to $2/slice but also had a lunch special... 2 slices and a can of soda for $3.50. It was a great deal and a quick and easy lunch, but they have since taken the sign in their window down... don't know if the deal is permanently gone or simply suspended because they were heading for vacation and they had minimal inventory that they need to use up before closing up shop for a week.

Are those gas prices from the pic current?!?!

This may be one of the biggest understatements on this board. Gave it a try tonite and was quite pleased. Every town has a place like this and it's just a matter of trying enough of the 'hole in the walls' until you find the gem.. and this is it. Although service was lackluster to say the least, i will return here (often) as i thoroughly enjoyed my chicken sandwich and it was a great bang for the buck ($1 for those empanadas... i'll make a meal of them next time!). La Isla's food has a bit more flavor to it, but La Conguita doesn't have the salt content leaving me thirsty for the rest of the nite. I look forward to enjoy a more complete meal here next time.

Augustino's is very good... i wouldn't go so far as to call it great, but it's definately a quality place. Bring cash as they don't accept any credit cards. Yes, Zafra opened a new place and although i'm not sure of the exact name, your mention above is close enough to know that we're talking about the same place. I know some really like Zafra, but i'm not a fan... service is notoriously bad and i got sick from the food last time there (my experience is somewhere in the archives here). Why waste my time (or money) there when i can just as easily go to La Isla. Their new retaurant looks nice from the outside, albeit a bit out of place... it's a bit too nice for being off the beaten path. They advertise a brick oven so i thought that they also served pizzas, but given that they don't have a menu in the window by the door (bad move guys!) i can't say for sure. I did walk inside to try to see the menu but they were busy and nobody by the door to speak to... i'll give it a shot if i hear good things even though it looks very trendy.

I believe the menus are identical, but it doesn't matter as there is really only one item on the menu to order... The Baja Special (and ask for all the shrimp to be grilled). I have met many in town here that said that the Baja is 'ok' but then i tell them to order this platter and sure enough they're hooked. Unfortunately, this was before the downslide of the Hoboken location, which i assume has started to cut some corners and pay less attention now that the uptown area is thriving with the new condos. I was actually upset enough after my last meal there to send them an email but haven't heard back from them at all. If you're not hungry enough for the above 'special' (it's a LOT of food) then at the very least order steak fajitas... there are 2 types on the menu, order the one that comes on the above mentioned platter, as it's very tender and whatever ti's marinated in gives it some great flavor. Hopefully you'll try the above platter (ordered by the person for two or more... but if there are 4 in your party then you can easily order it for 3 and still have food left over). I had thought that perhpas the new businesses (Wall St. West) were what was drawing the new restaurants, but it seemed just a little far for employees to go to during lunch (or for lunch meetings to be held).

OK, i'll being giving it a shot in the next few weeks... sounds like it's worth the PATH ride (or if the weather is nice i'll go for a looong walk). BTW, i recently had a disappointing meal at the Baja in Hoboken. I have long been an advocate of this restaurant but things have been getting so spotty that i've had more overall 'marginal' meals there than 'good' ones. We're going to try to 'write off' the Hoboken location for some time to come and stick with the JC location... more trouble for us to get to, but hoping things more consistent there as well as not likely a long wait. QUESTION: why is the area by the Baja and Oddfellows suddenly 'booming'? Obviously something is going on or coming to this area, but i couldn't see what it was or where it would be?!?! The area seemed very quiet when we were there (on a Saturday nite) but i'm sure something is happening that i'm not seeing since both the Baja and Oddfellows recently opened (i'm sure with considerable investments needed). Are there plans to turn some of the lots in the area into mid/hi-rise condos?

I have only been to a Cold Stone in Seattle and will add three points (one positive and two negative): Pro: one nite while a long line was forming the manager/owner came out and addressed the line saying how he appreciated them coming out that nite and that the staff would be 'right with them'. I think this shows appreciation for the customer's business. Cons: 1) The sell-up was VERY obvious. Would you like that in a waffle cone or a waffle cup (and the tone wasn't "would you like either of these options" more "as if those are your only two options") 2) The singing (at least is Seattle) isn't random... it's done whenever the statt receives a tip.

To follow-up on my visit: Had lunch at Lombardi's, a meatball parm hero and a chicken parm hero. Chicken was much better than the meatball, although the cheese (homemade mozzarella) on each was very good. Owners and staff very friendly, although i wouldn't leave Hoboken for either of these sandwiches (as i enjoy my local sub places here better)... but if you're in the area it's a solid place to stop at. Before ending up at Lombardi's had tried to get to the 2nd Street Bakery but they were closed. For dinner ended up at the Baja. Due to the late lunch (and me eating half of my wife's sandwich in addition to my own ) we weren't hungry enough to order the "Baja Special Platter" so i ordered the steak fajitas while my wife had a salad with grilled chicken. The steak on my fajitas were just as good as what is served on the platter and it was just the right size for how hungry i was, which was nice that i didn't overstuff myself as i usually do with the platter at the Hoboken location. Service was standard of what should be expected and although the place isn't as 'hip' as the Hoboken location (and perhaps a bit 'kitchy') it was better lit and more relaxing. More importantly, there was no wait at 9pm on a Saturday nite... a time where the Hoboken location would have you waitng in a over-crowded bar for 90+ minutes! On future weekend nites when we are craving Baja food we may even take the ride to JC instead of dealing with the crowd and wait in Hoboken. Restaurant validates parking for up to 3 hours, but is also easily accessible from the Light Rail or Exchange Place PATH train.

I was thinking of Anthony's, which used to be located at 5th and Madison, and supposedly is (and has been for some time) turning into some type of 'upscale lounge/restaurant'. Wonderful , sounds exactly like what we need in town... some new joint with a martini menu!

I'll take recos on anything in the area... if we don't try them this time than perhaps the next go-round. It's not too far away so if i find something great i don't mind 'traveling' for it.

Is this where the old Michael's (or was it Anthony's) restaurant was located? I'll look up some places where i may have read about it and will post back if i find anything.

Any thoughts on the JC Baja and how it compares to the Hoboken location? We spoke the onwer of the restaurant in Hoboken a few months ago and he was describing the atmosphere as being very cool. (which contradicts Glenn's comments above) The JC Hyatt is often (not always) available via Priceline for $32-$37/nite. There was $10 Bonus Money available that somebody posted at the site linked aboved. I used that and bid $27 (+$10) and it was accepted... figured for that price i couldn't resist sleeping someplace else for the nite and exploring a new area that is actually very nearby. Probably won't try the Hyatt's restaurant (the Vue) as i tend to avoid hotel restaurants and i'd rather try to support an owner operated restaurant in the local community.