Food Envy- East Coast Edition

One of the great parts of traveling is embracing and experiencing culture, and for me, that includes their food!  So, this is a post called Food Envy to share some of the things I ate on my 21-day road trip through the East Coast and into Quebec, Canada!

NUTLEY, NEW JERSEY:

This was the stop that we spent the most amount of time in, so we sampled a lot of really good things.  One thing you HAVE  to try is pizza!  It’s thin crust, fresh tasting, there isn’t too much cheese and the slices are so big you have to fold them in half!

Another necessity is Italian Ice.  Our first night we went to Ralph’s, which was pretty good, but the one I returned to over and over was Rita’s!  Rita’s has a ton of really fun flavors like black cherry, lemon, cotton candy, swedish fish or strawberry starburst!  I think Olivia and I sampled just about every flavor, and we ate tons of cups of this!

Also, Jan highly recommended that I go to Zinacola’s for a buttered roll in the morning.  So, Olivia and I walked down my first morning there to get some amazingly fresh Italian bread!  It was so delicious!

Also, every city in New Jersey (at least in the Nutley-area) has it’s own diner.  I can attest to the fact that the Nutley Diner is delicious, but I think it’s fun to just go to whatever city you’re in’s diner!  It’s a really fun, local experience!

Read More about New Jersey here.

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NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK:

We ate New York style pizza everyday we were in NYC!  The slices were, again, so large you had to fold them in half.  There are a lot of places where you can get two slices and a soda for 5 dollars; you just have to look for them.  We had cheese every time and it seemed like no matter where we went, it was delicious.

Another must-eat in NYC is the street food!  I had a NYC hotdog for an afternoon snack one day, and it was really tasty!  For breakfast our last day in NYC we got a soft pretzel and ate it on the go.  I wish we had had more time there to try even more food!

Read more about New York City here, here, here and here.

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MONTREAL, CANADA:

In Montreal they’re famous dish is Poutine.  They even have a Poutine festival once a year.  We asked our Couchsurfing host about Poutine and he said, “It’s garbage, but hey, it’s our garbage, so try it.”  Essentially, it’s fries with cheddar cheese curds and brown gravy.  There are many that come with very different toppings, but we got the traditional kind.  It wasn’t our favorite thing… It’s really rich and set really hard on my stomach.  Definitely get one to split for your first dish, is what I would recommend.

Read more about Montreal here.

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BAR HARBOR, MAINE:

When you hear Maine, you think seafood.  Our first night in Bar Harbor we went to a small cafe and I HAD to have clam chowder.  It was really good!

My dad gave us some money to try a fresh Maine Lobster, so the second night in Bar Harbor, we used it and went to Stewman’s Downtown Lobster Pound.  I don’t know why, but what I was expecting was a lobster tail, but when I looked in the menu and saw the instruction manual of how to dismember your lobster, I wasn’t very enthused about ordering lobster.  (Also, just so you know, new studies show that lobsters do feel pain.)  However, my dad was really excited about us trying this, so I paid 5 dollars extra to have the lobster pre-dismembered and the shell removed.  I still had a hard time eating it, though.

Read more about Maine here and here.

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PORTLAND MAINE:

We didn’t stay long in Portland, but we were sure to get a Whoopie Pie, which is a traditional New England cake-snack.  It’s essentially a cupcake sandwich.  It’s like having two thin cupcakes with homemade icing filling!  So good!

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BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS:

While touring the Northend (which is like Boston’s Little Italy) we stopped and had some delicious Italian food!  We ate at Artu, and I would highly recommend it.  It wasn’t exactly cheap, but it was still affordable.

Also, on the Northend was a a whole row of pastry shops and Izzy said that there’s one that the tourists really love, but she said that Modern Pastry is the local favorite.  Izzy so sweetly bought Zach and me an entire box filled with different kinds of pastries!  Every single one was absolutely amazing!

Read more about Boston here and here.

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THE JERSEY SHORE:

There are a few things that the shore is known for, one is salt water taffy, which is made in just about every flavor you can think of.  It isn’t like regular taffy because it actually does have a salty taste to it.

The other big thing is, once again, the pizza!  This pizza is unbelievably HUGE- it took two paper plates to hold one slice of pizza!  It was crazy, but also crazy-good!

To read more about the Jersey Shore click here.

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What are your favorite things that you’ve had to eat on a trip?  What about in New England, specifically?

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