A city that’s on a ‘roll’ with popular pork comfort food

In Hawaii, we have the Spam Jam, in New Jersey, they have the Pork Roll Festival. Given this food source has its own festival in honor of it, it’s only obvious that the pork roll — aka Taylor ham — is a quintessential staple to The Garden State. It is commonly a popular comfort food that fills New Jerseyans with warm nostalgia.

The sought-after, pork-based processed meat is usually thinly sliced and stacked into and egg and cheese sandwich — and here are a few places in the capital city of Trenton.

PHOTO COURTESY VICTORIA’S BAGEL BISTRO

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1. Victoria’s Bagel Bistro
Bank of America Plaza
3131 Route 38, Larchmont
Mount Laurel
(856) 222-1200
victoriasbagelbistro.com

Victoria’s Bagel Bistro’s pork roll sandwich is stuffed between two warm and soft — you guessed it — bagel buns. The hole-in-the-wall shop is small, but mighty when it comes to filling up with yummy selections. Located just off a major New Jersey highway, Victoria’s gets a lot of foot traffic when one is looking for a warm and gooey pork roll, egg and cheese sandwich for the road. Victoria’s has been serving the community for nearly 15 years and makes more than 1,000 sandwiches a week.

2. Summit Diner
1 Union Place, Summit
(908) 277-3256

As the oldest diner in New Jersey, built in 1929, it’s no doubt that this is a neighborbood-backed place to eat. Its charming and simple old-school diner-look is something out of a picture book when it comes to appreciating Summit Diner as a community staple. When folks go to Summit to enjoy a pork roll, they look for the “slider.” However, it is not named after the mini-burger sliders are known to be, it is because of all the juicy pork-goodness diners will consume that slide down into them.

3. Jersey Pork Roll
112 Wood Ave., Middlesex
1-866-4NJ-PORK (465-7675)

If you’re not planning to swing into New Jersey just yet, you can get a sample of the finger-lickin’-good food from Jersey Pork Roll, whose website serves all kinds of pork roll goods. This is also where you can try the Original Taylor Pork Roll. Some claim that there are a lot of “knock off” pork rolls, so this is where people can order them in their full authenticity — think Spam to luncheon meat, where Original Taylor Pork Roll is the Spam. The company ships anywhere in the U.S., with its website stating it’s a few extra bucks to ship to Hawaii, but hey, great things are worth the try.