PEC Challenge: Jersey Roll

Hand up.  I ate this PEC in August while at the Ocean Township Italian Festival and was saving it for a summer release since Jersey Roll is based out of the Seaside boardwalk.  And before you get on me with the "buuut pork roll isn't Italian" bit, it wasn't the only thing I ate at that festival. I also ate some excellent penne vodka from Piccola in Ocean and a year's worth of zeppoles.  But that's neither here nor there.  The real reason I chose today to post about NJ's beloved breakfast meat from a place fittingly named Jersey Roll is that tonight is Mischief Night.  Unfamiliar? You probably didn't grow up in Jersey. According to the NY Times' American dialect test, NJ is the only place where it's universally celebrated and known.  Mischief Night is celebrated the day before Halloween when local teens harass the living shit out of their neighborhoods with pranks such as littering front lawns with toilet paper and silly string, egging cars, smashing pumpkins, and my personal favorite, the ding-dong ditch (sometimes accompanied by a bag of dog shit which has been set ablaze on their front porch).   Now, I get it, you're thinking "what a bunch of absolute scumlords" and you're only 50% right.  But for the most part, people who give out shit Halloween candy the year before or are generally unfriendly neighbors get it the worst because vigilante street justice and pettiness are what's hot in these neighborhoods.  Also hot?  This pork roll.  Here are my notes from when I ate it.

Bread Rating: 7.4/10 (Pretty good roll, nicely toasted but unfortunately just a bit flat.  I'm not sure if this was a transport thing since they operate out of a truck but still my only bad mark.)

Pork Roll Rating: 8.9/10 (Four slice, two on the bottom with egg and cheese in the middle two more on top.  Absolutely academic. I think food truck griddles just have a little extra flavor and grease to them and its evident here.  Awesome.)

Egg Rating: 8.4/10 (Fried egg, you know what it is.  Some of that food truck grease gives it a nice boost.)

Cheese Rating: 8.2/10 (White American cheese, the real deal.  Didn't put a lot on there because we all know pork roll is the main event.)

Sandwich Composition: 9.2/10 (I mean this was about as perfect a PEC composition as you're going to get, minus the bread issue which I already addressed.  SPK ratio, spot on.  Sandwiching the egg and cheese with pork roll is upper-echelon shit only.  They know what they're doing.

Overall Rating: 8.4/10 (I'm willing to bet that if I go to Seaside Heights boardwalk that this overall score will only go up.  Jersey Roll is an elite PEC and if you see their truck at a festival you'd be messing up by not getting one.)

Price: $9, card accepted

Jersey Roll can be found at 1205 Boardwalk, Seaside Heights, NJ 08751 or you can usually find them at Laurita Winery 85 Archertown Rd, New Egypt, NJ 08533.