I've been to a couple of places like that in NJ that I really liked. One was the Assembly steak house in Ft. Lee; another was a place I forget the name way out west, but Cornelius Bumpus had a regular gig there.

New Jersey has some seriously wonderful food, for two reasons:

1) It's the first state in which new immigrant populations settle. From the Irish/Polish/German/Italian contingent in the late 1800s to the Asian populations of the mid-1900s to the South Asian/Indian and SOuth American population today, it's a haven of the US's best ethnic foods. No question. The pizza alone is worth the trip.

2) It's called "The Garden State" for a reason. Despite the urban toxicity of the "Yellow Zone" around NYC and the ports, the state's acreage is mostly dairyland in the Northwest and rich, dark-soil lowland in the South. The tomatoes, peaches, herbs, eggplant, cranberries, and corn are among the nation's best. In late summer and early fall, there's hardly a better place to be in the US for fresh field produce of the highest quality.

Love that freaking show. I'm upset that I missed the show where he toured NYC with that guy from the Bizarre Foods show right before his. My most recent ex hates that Andrew guy because he thinks that the guy is making fun of the food/culture of the people by pointing out how freaking weird their food is. After seeing the episode on the Philippines, I kinda agreed with him.

Bourdain is not a sensitive guy, it's true.

Not a big fan of the show, but caught a little snippet that made me like the guy more than I did. He was tasting something in Peru and it was very acidic. He said something like "this isn't the sort of thing you'd want to eat in the morning if you are hung over. It would be hell on your stomach..." then he looked into the camera and said "you better smoke a joint first."

I watched the Jersey show a while back, but I don't recall if he did anything on heroes. Jersey Subs are a uniuque experience.

I'm more of a fan of Bourdain's writing than his TV presentation. I've been really enjoying his Top Chef blog at the Bravo web site. His recent withering rants about "shill-for-hire" Rocco DiSpirito were great bitchy fun.

Atom Eyes, one of the most hilarious bits in the "Paris" episode came at the tail end of a segment on wild game and butchering. Bourdain is walking past a storefront which, for an unexplained reason, was festooned with dozenss of skinned, dead rats, hanging by their tails. He stopped, turned around, and posed in front of the storefront, put on a cheesy smile, and said "Hi, I'm Rocco DiSpirito, and I'm excited to welcome you to my new concept restaurant...."

He did, jonmc - he actually got a sub at the Bada Bing club, or whatever its real name is, I forget.