Kara VanDooijeweert

Kara VanDooijeweert is a food writer who turns hundreds of restaurant visits each year into dish‑focused, highly practical coverage of North Jersey and wider New Jersey dining for NorthJersey.com, The Record and syndication on AOL. Her work is distinguished by a consistent focus on specific plates and everyday eating experiences, from school lunches to food trucks to fast‑food chains, rather than abstract trends. Across columns, guides and the Jersey Eats podcast, she surfaces the best things she ate and the best new places to try, giving readers concrete options instead of general commentary.

Dish‑first coverage of North Jersey dining

Much of VanDooijeweert’s reporting is built around recurring “best thing we ate this week” features that spotlight a single standout dish and the story behind it. She has devoted these columns to a triple‑decker club sandwich, describing it as the best thing she ate that week and tying it to the broader search for quality sandwiches in North Jersey. In another installment, she singled out a cannoli doughnut as the week’s best bite, emphasizing its mash‑up of pastry traditions and its place in the local dessert scene. She has also highlighted a saucy shrimp alfredo square, treating it as comfort food and detailing why its texture and richness set it apart.

Her dish‑level focus often comes from unexpected settings, which distinguishes her from more conventional restaurant reviewers. She has written about a North Jersey school lunch as one of the best things she ate, elevating cafeteria food into her regular coverage and examining why that particular meal exceeded expectations. In another piece, she framed a dessert‑focused food truck run by a local mother as serving the best thing she ate that week, noting that the truck’s unusual appearance contrasted with the quality of the sweets. Across these stories, she uses vivid but straightforward descriptions to explain why a specific plate deserves attention, then situates it within the local dining landscape so readers know where to find it.

Guides to new, festive and standout restaurants

Beyond single‑dish columns, VanDooijeweert produces structured guides to new and notable restaurants, which serve as entry points to the region’s dining scene. She has compiled lists of new openings such as “Taco joints and ‘eclectic’ fine dining: 7 new restaurants to try in North Jersey,” balancing casual spots with more ambitious restaurants and clearly segmenting recommendations by style. In a broader piece, “Try stuffed pastries, modern Indian food and more at Jersey’s 10 new restaurants,” she mapped out diverse cuisines—from modern Indian to pastry‑driven concepts—giving readers a cross‑section of what is newly available.

Her “NorthJerseyEats ultimate highlights guide to first half of 2024” functions as a mid‑year summary of standout dishes and restaurants, distilling months of reporting into a single, navigable highlights list. She also produces seasonal service pieces, including “5 festive North Jersey restaurants will get you in the Christmas spirit,” which groups restaurants by their holiday atmosphere and decor as much as by their menus. In another feature, she examined “North Jersey’s hottest new restaurant” and asked whether it was worth the hype, offering readers a critical look at buzzy openings rather than only celebratory coverage. Taken together, these guides show her emphasis on practical information—names, dishes, and reasons to go—over lifestyle framing, making her coverage especially useful for planning meals out.

‘Jersey Eats’ podcast and cross‑platform storytelling

VanDooijeweert extends her food reporting into audio and video as one of the food reporters behind the weekly Jersey Eats podcast, which takes a recurring look at New Jersey food. Episodes and companion stories have tackled focused topics such as the best bagels in North Jersey, where she and her co‑host compare favorites and translate those discussions into concrete recommendations. In “What’s the scoop? Jersey Eats podcast takes on best ice cream,” she moved the conversation to ice cream shops, highlighting specific parlors and flavors while keeping the format conversational and accessible.

Her Jersey Eats work also includes coverage of best new restaurants, connecting podcast discussions to written guides that identify openings worth a visit. Social video further amplifies these themes: she appears in short clips introducing episodes and reels where she counts down her top mac and cheeses in North Jersey, underscoring her preference for ranking concrete dishes over speaking in generalities. Across platforms, the through‑line is consistent—she uses her extensive restaurant visits to anchor podcast conversations, then reinforces them with written lists and highlight features that readers on AOL and NorthJersey.com can act on.

Fast food, comfort food and everyday eating

Another distinctive strand of VanDooijeweert’s beat is her focus on fast food and accessible comfort food, treating them with the same seriousness as fine‑dining openings. In “We ate seven days of fast food. Here’s what we loved,” she documented a week of eating at chain restaurants and extracted clear takeaways about which items stood out, showing an interest in the way people actually eat day‑to‑day. Her cheese‑centric piece, “We respect the cheese pull. You should, too. Here are go‑to spots in …,” celebrates dishes defined by gooey, stretchy cheese and points readers to specific places to experience that kind of indulgent comfort food.

Comfort dishes feature heavily in her social and written work, from mac and cheese rankings in North Jersey to square‑cut pasta bakes and other rich, crowd‑pleasing plates. A TikTok profile notes that she eats at over 400 restaurants a year, underscoring the depth of her firsthand tasting across both everyday and special‑occasion venues. That volume of on‑the‑ground research feeds directly into her reporting on AOL and NorthJersey.com, where she covers everything from school cafeteria standouts and food trucks to bagel shops, ice cream parlors, burger joints and festive holiday restaurants. For story ideas, she is a fit when there is a concrete dish, a clear sense of place in the New Jersey dining scene, and an angle rooted in how people actually eat rather than in abstract culinary trends.