Lucindas is Back

Say what you will about downtown Jersey City, but you can't deny it's vibrant mobile food scene, nor the rabid fans of those establishments. Take Lucindas Burritos, a yellow truck stationed on Hudson Street at Exchange Place. Once conceived as a small business Master's Thesis, the original owner Joanna has since sold the business to a young couple so she can focus on the pleasures of motherhood. Lucindas has been out of commission for the better part of the year so it was with great joy I spotted the truck back in my 'hood. Natasha and Chris, pictured above carry on Lucinda's menu with a few touches of their own. My chorizo, egg and blackbean breakfast burrito not only is drizzled with crema and hot sauce, but also pico de gallo and a spritz of lime. Mmmmmm, lime. Also new to the menu are seafood and vegetarian empanadas. Check Lucindas out some time.

Boasting an equally fanatic following is John's Soup Kitchen on the corner of Montgomery & Hudson. Distinctive not for a moniker truck but for the gigantor line queued up for soup or rice dishes. BTW, many of whom are of East Asian descent. Jersey City is after all the operations base for many of New York's large companies - Barclays (formerly Lehman Brothers), AIG (formerly AIG...) The soups are a hot commodity, you must try the white chicken chili which is really a Middle Eastern stew of chicken thighs, white beans, onions and chilies with spices redolent of the East - cumin, coriander.

And although I've just swooned over the chicken chili, the Chicken over Rice is John's signature dish. Let me tell you it's far more than just chicken over rice. It's chicken marinated thighs (I just LOVE thighs instead of white meat. As any Indian will tell you, white meat ain't got no flavor, it's the dark meat baby, the dark!), grilled so the exterior is crusty while the insides are still moist, chopped with a sharp-edged spatula and server over basmati rice. Oh, and there's a salad of iceberg lettuce and grape tomatoes. Drizzled over the whole shebang is a raita-like, tzaziki-ish white sauce of probably yogurt, herbs and salt.

Finally there's Nick and Peri's, a Greek diner on wheels. While their sandwiches are fine - gyros, chicken kebabs, hamburgers and the like mostly consumed by construction workers - their call to fame has got to be the sausage, egg and cheese on a roll. Hands down the best breakfast sandwich in all of New Jersey. Why? because Nick grills the bread with the cheese under the broiler, giving a melty, saucy, cheesy topping to the hearty but simple sandwich. Go ahead and prove me wrong.

Next time you're in Jersey City give these hard-working small businesses a try.