Tom Perrotta's haunting novel about one strange summer in the suburbs of New Jersey, Ghost Town, is set in 1974—before the entirety of New Jersey was home to an incredibly diverse population and an incredibly vibrant, inexpensive, and unparalleled selection of ethnic food from around the globe; there are hints of this future gustatory paradise in the novel: Jimmy, Wayne, Nilda, Hector, and Yvette visit a fictional Chinese restaurant called the Jade Palace, and Jimmy has wontons, hot mustard, egg rolls, and Asian noodles for the first time . . . this reminds me of our go-to Asian spot in the early 1980s, A-Kitchen, an authentic Hunan and Cantonese place that started in a gas station in Monmouth Junction and then moved to a traditional, rather rambling building on Route 27 in Franklin—we learned about the restaurant from the Asian kid on my travel soccer team, Kenny Cho, whose family either owned or managed the place—and we went all the time when I was young, and I would try to order "shrimp ding" as spicy as they could make it, and my father would wink at the waitress, th wink telling her NOT to make it that spicy-- as I was just a child, and a Caucasian hild at that-- and I would see him wink and tell the waitress to ignore his wink and make it spicy . . . typical family dinner drama-- but this place A-Kitchen was the real deal, the New York Times even wrote an article about it . . . and now some slightly more practical food nostalgia, if you live in Central Jersey-- becasue A-Kitchen is long gone, but Gambino's, the classic Italian place in New Brunswick, on Remsen Avenue, where my dad and his buddies would hang out is now a fantastic new restaurant-- with a liquor license-- called Tequila House . . . the mixed drinks are amazing, the decor is festive, the bottled beer is cheap, and the birria tacos contain ACTUAL steak-- when I ordered them the Hispanic server (we were the only gringos in the place) gave me a subtle nod, like Oh yeah amigo, you know what to order and my wife got the enchilads verde and they were also top notch-- so while the neighborhood has changed and La Cort Bakery and Gambino's are no more, there's some great Hispanic food replacing the Italian spots, which is exactly how Jersey operates.
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