Since Stevens is located in the cuisine-oriented city of Hoboken, there are tons of restaurants to dine at and experience. Every student has their own favorites and least favorites, and a variety of food bloggers review Hoboken restaurants. When a restaurant is frequently talked about, it’s very tempting to give it a try. However, sometimes, the raving reviews raise expectations and lead you to disappointment. There have been many instances where I dined at a highly-reviewed restaurant and was disappointed in the experience. So, how can we detect restaurant red flags? How should we pick where we go out to eat in Hoboken since there are so many options?
I’ll say it again and again: beware of the waterfront. This does not mean that any restaurant on the bank of the Hudson is automatically bad by any means. I am referring to the fact that middle-aged moms fiend for a view and, as a result, drive up the reviews of any restaurant that has a river view. You’ll see this in the infamous parent Facebook group for Stevens. The food recommendations are terrible, but they all have the Hudson view in common. People tend to lower their standard for food when the restaurant is in a great location or has a nice environment.
Appearances can be deceiving. It can be tempting to judge a restaurant by their trendy interior or the prices on its menus, but this can be incredibly misleading. I’ve been to plenty of “fancy” looking restaurants only to be presented with boxed pasta or something that looks like it was heated up in a microwave. I would look at Yelp reviews because if someone is going out of their way to leave a review on Yelp, usually they have a negative experience. If there aren’t many positive reviews, don’t worry; people are less likely to leave positive reviews, so if there aren’t any overly negative ones, then the restaurant is probably not terrible.
Beware of GrubHub ghost kitchens. These ghost kitchens are restaurants that only exist on delivery apps, and they do not have a storefront. Oftentimes, these “restaurants” are operating out of shared commercial kitchens, and they only really care about turning a quick profit. I would avoid these restaurants at all costs when ordering food online because it is likely that the food will be really bad since they are just trying to rush out food as fast as possible. I also think that, generally speaking, it is better to go dine in person anywhere when possible, simply because food tastes the best as soon as it comes out of the kitchen as opposed to spending an hour in the delivery system. However, I definitely order in sometimes when I am busy.
Listen, we all love Italian food, who doesn’t love a good dish from Napolis? I love a good slice of pizza as much as the next person. However, I am begging every Stevens student to branch off from the mediocre Italian restaurants. Hoboken is oversaturated with random Italian restaurants, which are, let’s be honest, very mid. Wake up your taste buds and try something new, I promise you that there is at least one type of food you will enjoy besides Italian. Hoboken has many culturally diverse restaurants serving Chinese, Indian, Thai, French, and almost any other type of food you can imagine. Some of my favorites are Empyrean Cafe, which is near the PATH station and serves Indian food, and La Boheme, which is a French restaurant on Clinton and 3rd Street.
I also would recommend searching up some local Hoboken food bloggers because they will usually be pretty honest about quality. Overall, keep these tips in mind next time you are ordering in or eating out in Hoboken. Happy eating!
