The Best NYC Day Trip Is to a Japanese Grocery Store in New Jersey

Rachel Karten

This is Highly Recommend, a column dedicated to our very opinionated editors’ favorite things to eat, drink, and buy.

Day trips make living in New York City, well, livable. In the summer, an afternoon at Rockaway Beach in Queens distracts me from the fact that I spend the majority of the season sweating on the subway platform. And in the fall, going upstate to Storm King in Cornwall, New York, is a necessary reminder of what fresh air is. But my favorite, any-season day trip in NYC is to Mitsuwa, a Japanese grocery store in New Jersey.

Living in NYC isn't so hard when Mitsuwa (and its incredibly crispy tempura) is just a bus ride away.
Living in NYC isn't so hard when Mitsuwa (and its incredibly crispy tempura) is just a bus ride away.

The small chain of supermarkets (there are 11 total across the United States) feature both a food court and a grocery store—a rare but crucial double whammy that makes the hour-long bus ride from Port Authority to Edgewater, NJ, worth it. The move when you get to Mitsuwa is to take a lap around the food court to scope out the 15 or so restaurant stalls, order lots of different bites, and then browse/shop the aisles of the supermarket while you digest. Here’s a list of some of my favorite things to eat and buy there.

  • Shatteringly crispy strips of pork katsu from Wateishoku Kaneda

  • Shrimp tempura with sweet soy dipping sauce from Tendon Hannosuke

  • Onion-y fish cakes from Amo-Chinmi

  • Miso ramen with a handful of scallions from worth-the-wait Santouka Ramen

  • Dried shiitake mushrooms, umeboshi, yuzu gummy candies, onigiri, and all the pickles from the supermarket

  • Literally anything else that looks good to you

So while my trips to the Rockaways or upstate New York serve their purpose certain times of the year, the joy of a huge supermarket in suburbia filled with all my favorite foods is forever.

Go there: Mitsuwa

Originally Appeared on Bon Appétit