A food website has some good (and bad) things to say about Jersey City

The website Wallethub ranked Jersey City number #39 in a look at food, restaurants, cost, accessibility and quality of the 150 top populated cities in America. Jersey City did poorly if you're out looking for a dinner deal, ranking it #129 on the list meaning eating out is expensive. Big surprise. Look east, see those really tall buildings, it's been expensive to eat there forever. In some ways that stat truly proves Jersey City's claim as sixth borough. That can further be proved by the fact Jersey City placed a very impressive #6 when it comes to diversity, accessibility and quality. It came in even better at #4 for number of coffee shops per capita and also for gourmet specialty food stores per capita. Sound like anyplace nearby?

While some may look at the #39 overall rating and be disappointed, Johnny thinks something else it at work here. With all the new high end as well as other very good new places to eat people do now have expectations of good food in Cool City. They may initially grumble at the cost thinking they are paying a lot and not being actually physically in NYC, but the food world is getting smaller. Anymore there are a lot of cross-river eaters. Jersey City's Taqueria is opening in the East Village this year for a reason. NYC chefs are opening in Jersey City for a reason. Johnny knows a couple in NYC that won't eat Indian food anywhere but Newark Avenue in Jersey City.

In Johnny's mind these numbers are better rather than worse. He'll take a top ten ranking in diversity, accessibility and quality any day.

So, the question has been asked who has the better downtown; Jersey City or Hoboken

Pull up a chair and pour some Bailey's or Kahlua into that coffee boys and girls and listen to Jersey City's favorite Nere-Do-Well do what he does best, promote Jersey City and have some fun with our friends up north in FuHo.

Has Hoboken got the last of the water from Sandy out of downtown yet? They have? OK, then let's commence to the rules before this verbal knife fight begins.

 Somebody say 1-2-3 Go!

Hoboken has a delightful waterfront (and for the sake of talking about "downtowns" waterfronts count) and a great pier you can watch movies on and grass filled parks. They have events to fill the parks well too. It's a very nice, calm and family friendly waterfront when water isn't pouring over its banks into the main downtown. Jersey City too has a lovely park, J. Owen Grundy Park which, while less grassy than Hoboken parks also offers up the premiere view of New York City. Grab that camera and in Jersey City you get uptown, the WTC, the Statue of Liberty and the Verazano-Narrows bridge. Jersey City does have two things that Hoboken can't match. The Colgate Clock so New York can tell what time it is and The Katyn Monument, yes the one with the Polish soldier getting stabbed right through the back. Seriously, a giant clock and a grand violent statue? Advantage Jersey City. We will take away ONE point from Jersey City because the Great Vampire Squid of Goldman Sachs is located on the JC waterfront.

Downtowns have to be ruled over by someone or other or nothing gets built, cleaned up, or done. Hoboken recently had a mayor go to jail. Jersey City's last guy most likely at some point thought he was going to jail. We love Dawn Zimmer here. She stood up when nobody else would and called Chris Christie a big fat liarhead. The guy here now in Jersey City despite promises of grand design for the middle class and low-income residents has returned to his roots of the Great Vampire Squid to peddle giant casinos and race tracks. We'd almost give this advantage to Hoboken right now but for one thing; Beth Mason. You can't have someone like that in your city governance and not get points taken away. Right now we're going to call this a tie though Hoboken does seem to want to get to the bottom of their real problems faster than JC does who like to gloss things over far too often.

Architecture is a tricky call isn't it? You have so many classic Americana buildings in downtown Hoboken, the Castle Gatehouse brings European flair whereas Jersey City's downtown is quickly being remade and the old warehouses are either being torn town or updated into unrecognizable mush. In fact the only castle in Jersey City is the White Castle on Kennedy Blvd. in India Square. Jersey City does have some new exciting buildings going up like the three offset book looking buildings at Greene and Bay St., and the new buildings going up at the Grove St. PATH station. JC must lose points for the horrid looking "POS" building at 111 First St., the Lloyd Goldman wonderment to below-average and the new Toll Brothers "thing" going up along Marin Blvd. Skyline? Please. Jersey City has one. We also know both cities have some gorgeous churches and great looking buildings here and there but Hoboken wants to hold onto their history far more than Jersey City and when it comes to architecture that counts. Advantage: Hoboken

Food and Drink means different things to different towns. Hoboken is filled with bars and small restaurants that with the exception of a couple have all the ambience of an Applebees or TGI Friday's. That's because Hoboken skews younger. Show Johnny a 20-something "foodie"and he will show you the horrors of Brooklyn. There are good restaurants in Hoboken but when compared to the new food destinations of Jersey City, this is a clear cut victory to JC for the food part of this debate. Thirty Acres, Left Bank Burger, Razza, Taqueria, Satis, Orale, and Talde is on the way. Now comes the drink part of the discussion. Hoboken loves to drink and serve drinks and make money on drinks and loves making money on tickets for open-carry and public drunkenness. They have a very well known Day of Drinking which became so famous they had to change it because it became too dangerous. Jersey City takes a decidedly lower profile when it comes to imbibing. Maybe again because Jersey City takes on the role of adult when it comes to Hoboken's tween persona because again, Jersey City skews older. No puke in our shrubs. You can get the same beer and liquor in Hoboken you can get here with one new coming exception, Departed Soles gluten free craft brewpub coming to 150 Bay St. this fall. Advantage: Jersey City.

As this debate slips away from our bathtub shaped friends, Johnny can hear the cries of CRIME IN JERSEY CITY coming from the Mile Square City. Truth be told in the proper part of downtown there isn't much crime. Go ahead and complain Johnny is somehow skewing the maps or stats or however you want to cut it. Sure, Jersey City in places has a big problem with crime. Nobody will deny that but in a comparison of "downtown areas" JC doesn't knuckle under here. If we're choosing city vs. city yes, Hoboken wins this test, but it's not. Johnny could easily pivot here and talk about downtown artists and art spaces and the murals going up all over in Jersey City but that may seem like piling on.

So what have we learned? Jersey City is a true up and coming small city powerhouse with a great waterfront, a clean downtown with new construction, the best food outside of Manhattan with an ok in a "we're trying" kind of way city government. What have we learned about Hoboken? While it has some beautiful buildings and a pleasant downtown, it's flood prone and Buddy Valastro and Beth Mason both work there. Residents and visitors drink like vikings and then the town floods some more. They keep moving their big parade earlier and earlier every year so that this year's St. Patrick's Day parade in January 16th at 7:30am. If we have to hear that Eli Manning lives in the Hudson Tea Building one more time we're gonna yack. Yes, even more than the bushes and shrubberies in Hoboken are used to come springtime.

Advantage downtown Jersey City it is!

Johnny's been saying this forever, if you're missing out on the Jersey City food scene...

...You're simply missing out. Zagat's food Guide recently listed seven reasons to take the PATH train from NYC to Cool City and get some grub. Zagat's being Zagat's mentioned the better known restaurants; Taqueria, Razza pizza, Thirty Acres etc. We'd sure have liked Zagat's to head to India Square and get some of the best Indian food anywhere. Marco and Pepe, check. Skinner's Loft, check. Satis, Light Horse Tavern, More, Sky Thai, all checks.

So get out there and eat eat eat and share your faves with us.

Word on the street says BNY Mellon is looking for new home, quite possibly Jersey City

Word around the financial houses has made it's way to Bloomberg News who are reporting the former Bank of New York, founded by Alexander Hamilton, is looking to sell their Manhattan HQ and are looking for around 400K sq. ft. of office space in Manhattan or Jersey City to relocate.

Why won't this happen?

"Any attempt to move probably will spark competition among New York landlords, and test New York Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio’s pledge to cut tax breaks and subsidies to big companies, the news service notes."

Why might this happen?

"...A move to Jersey City not only would put it in the company of other financial firms that have relocated major parts of their operations to the so-called Wall Street West, but it also would put it closer to its corporate family. Pershing, a unit of BNY Mellon, has its headquarters right in the heart of downtown Jersey City, at 1 Pershing Plaza.

We here in Jersey City aren't that worried about any deal the incoming NY Mayor may offer, after all this is Jersey City and it's hot hot hot for real estate right now. Jersey City is the logical choice as Wall St. West grows and grows. Bill deBlasio is a poor man's Steve Fulop. There, we said it.

If it helps the Jersey City Desk would like to welcome BNY Mellon to our fair city. You're just in time, Taqueria is going to start delivery.

You want to be part of the new hot foodie scene? Brothers and sisters you're standing in it

Mayor Fulop tweeted out this story from the New York Daily News this morning where they say about Cool City and we quote:

'Jersey City is emerging as the hot new foodie destination in the NYC area'

Damn straight. We don't have much use for the Daily News but they are spot on (if not a few months late) with this story. They concentrate on a new restaurant in a very familiar place. The restaurant will be called Talde, the vision of Dale Talde, best known from Bravo’s “Top Chef” and his well-reviewed eponymous Park Slope eatery, with Anthony Carrino and John Colaneri, the stars of HGTV’s “Kitchen Cousins. The site? It's the old JCPD headquarters at 8 Erie (and a sidenote, 8 Erie is being transformed by Jersey City construction magicians Brunelleschi). Gina Pace's fine article also talks up Satis, Marco and Pepe, Barcade, Razza, Taqueria, and Thirty Acres. One thing Gina, you said "Apparently all those years of “sixth borough” jokes have finally rubbed off on Jersey City," in the story. See, we never took/take that Sixth Borough thing as a joke, so the joke's on you. Jersey City, let's also not forget the gems not spoken of in the article, especially India Square where quite a few New Yorkers go to eat on a Saturday night.

So Johnny gets here and almost immediately this city sets about creating the gilded age in Jersey City food. You can't beat that with a stick. So Johnny's culinarilly (it is now) inclined readers, what say you? Have you been to any of the aforementioned restaurants? Care to share a review or two in comments? We'd love to hear your thoughts.

Yes Jersey City, Taqueria is open again!

And the fish tacos have never been better! Yes, a couple people emailed Johnny and he overheard a discussion on the street concerning taqueria. Yes, they ARE open again!