Marco & Pepe

Once upon a time, I could not fathom the idea of good eats outside of Manhattan. When I moved to Astoria, I realized that there certainly is some amazing and authentic ethnic food in Queens (Note: I<3flushing). What was even more beyond comprehension was the fact that there is good food in Jersey City as well. Yeah, I said it. Jersey City. One of my girl friends wanted to do a girls brunch plus shopping in Jersey City. I was curious. We ended up going to Marco &Pepe, which is in the Grove St area. Just from stepping out of the PATH station, the neighborhood seemed pretty nice and even heading towards yuppie. I was really impressed with the brunch menu here. There were certainly some interesting items, such as rabbit sausage, Fish&Chips (the fish being monkfish), and what seems to be their famous macaroni&cheese.


I opted with the macaroni&cheese, and I'm pretty sure I never want to eat Kraft again. Their Mac&Cheese was made with aged gruyere, bacon, mushroom, marscapone, and aged goat cheese. I got their smaller portion for $10, but I was definitely pushing to finish it. This was definitely a mature take on mac&cheese, and I was seriously wowed by it. Every ingredient went so well together. It actually inspired me to make some fancy mac&cheese of my own, but I still have yet to do that. What I liked about it is that it wasn't so heavy. The cheese wasn't as thick as I thought it would be, so to me, it was almost more just like eating pasta for brunch.

I also got the Chicken&Truffle sausages as a side for $4. It came with 2 almost bratwurst sized sausages. Considering these aren't your average breakfast sausages, $4 is a pretty good deal. While it certainly smelled like truffles, I honestly couldn't taste it which was a bit of a disappointment. The sausage had too much spice that it covered the taste of the black truffles. I'm pretty sure the black specks I saw in there were black truffles, but I could be wrong. If I come back here (which I'd love to do for brunch), maybe I'll try the duck&pork sausage instead.

Not on the topic of food, but Jersey City also has a bunch of really cool boutiques, though some of them are pretty expensive. I think I have to do more shopping in Jersey City too. :)

Marco & Pepe
289 Grove St
Jersey City, NJ 07302