I've never been to morgan seafood, I'll have to check it out. Cyclotronic & Grovepath, thanks for the useful contributions to the thread.

The Voice wrote a review of Morgan's too:

Freshest fish in the City
Morgan Seafood Restaurant
2801 Kennedy Boulevard
Jersey City NJ, 201-792-2400

It used to be that "Go to the Greeks" was the best advice for someone seeking the freshest, unfussiest seafood, and we can remember many splendid Astorian meals of grilled whole fish with a just a squeeze of lemon, a handful of fries, and a feta-planked salad. But let us turn now to the Egyptians of Alexandria, who have an even sparer fish cuisine, based on grilled whole fish and fried fillets, served elegantly with a sauce of herbed tahini. Morgan Seafood (named after the pirate Henry Morgan?) is the top spot, where your fish choice is often limited to porgy, sea bass, mullet, and whiting.

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Morgan Fish Restaurant at 2801 John F. Kennedy Blvd is very similar and very good and no cleanliness problems that I've seen the various times I've been there.

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You would, how could ja ?? I got some swamp land in Florida to sell ya.

I love this place-feels like you are in Cairo. I've never actually been to Cairo but I imagine that this is what it would be like.

I ate at Suez canal a while back, had the fried shrimp and calamari in red sauce. This restaurant is filthy! I've eaten in more than a few dives but this was the worst I've ever seen. The walls were covered with grime and the floor hadn't been swept in 6 months. Doesn't suprise me at all to hear about health violations. I actually assumed it while I was eating there.

But the food was excellent. I'd go back for take out.

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If you check back with city records this place was zapped with tons of health violations, dumping fish near the grounds of their establishment. Hopefully they "cleaned" up their act by now.

Review of Suez Canal at Jersey City Independent.com:

Fish. Fish and Brazilian guarana soda that tastes like bubble gum.

If you don?t want either of these things, then there?s no reason to wander down to Suez Canal. But if you want fish, and you want fish that is uniformly fresh and excellently prepared, then hike to Tonnele Avenue, ask the nice woman who brings you the menus what?s fresh, and get ready to have some of the best fish you?ve ever had. They do fish ? fried, grilled, in sauce ? they do it right, and they don?t do anything else...

Read the rest at:

http://www.jerseycityindependent.com/ ... /but-i-digest-suez-canal/

can i just say i think this is so funny one little egyptian fish shack has received 39 passionate responses....only in jersey city. oh yeah, and that daffy duck sign is too funny.

Suez Canal is excellent food, though (humm d'allah)

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Yep - I saw the owner taking the review off the wall and bringing it to the dudes.

This place is something else.

I did not know what to think about the map titled "The Muslim World", wherein the Mercator projection of the world is presented as % of Muslim population in any given area, depicted as different colors.

Disclaimer - I would be equally uneasy with a map entitled "The Christian World" or "The Jewish World" (that would be a small map, only Israel, Hollywood and NYC ).

This topic has produced its fair share of participants that are either on medication or need medication.

To the restaurant owner - if an Australian family comes to eat at your premises, don't include us with what others have written about you or your business.

I hope you win the lottery and your family lives a happy life.

injc - yes, five adults and two babies!

We tried to order according to the menu ("I will have the flounder, he'll have the red snapper") and the owner cut us off - he had "fresh white fish" and we should order it fried or grilled, fillet or sliced, and it would all be good. It was quite an experience...

There were two other guys (presumably not Egyptians) there too, and they even took pictures of the joint. The owner proudly showed them the NYT review.

I really wish I hadn't seen the insect, though... Whatever that was, it didn't look good.

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Were you in a group of about 5-6 people with an empty baby stroller right next to you? That was about 2 pm today.

If so, injcsince81 and wife were sitting right next to you.

The owner came out, a little bewildered by all the Americans in his joint.

He said that everything tastes good because it's fresh, and that many Americans come only once and don't come back because they want to bring their own wine and he won't let them drink in his establishment because he's Muslim.

I said I totally respect that and will be back (that was before I saw the mouse).

But the calamari dish was so good that I say the heck with the mouse.

I went there for lunch today as well... Everything was great and very, very tasty. But I agree with previous poster - not the cleanest. Didn't witness the mouse, but some crawling insect I was not sure about.

By the way, I went with friends who know a little bit of Arabic, and Donald Duck is saying nothing more than the name of the restaurant...

Just got back from lunch at Suez Canal.

The calamari in red sauce was phenomenal. Tahini salad (sesame dressing) very good as well.

Saw a mouse making his way (slowly) across the restaurant floor. The place is not the cleanest.

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I started to translate this for you but then had second thoughts. I am steering clear of any cartoons containing the word Allah.

We went to Suez on Friday night, and loved it! From downtown walk down Newark Ave., past little India, at the bottom of the hill left at Tonnele Ave and it is on the right. I've driven by there dozens of times, and never noticed it.



We noticed the paintings of whales, crab & seahorse on the front window.



We ordered the salad, eggplant and pepper appetizer, brown rice (may have been brown colored white rice?), calamari with red sauce, and fried boneless gruper - special not on the menu.
Everything was very tasty, and the fish was especially fresh and good. They also serve syrian bread with tahini to each table.



The owner's son was giving us a look curiosity while we were eating. He finally came over and asked if we'd been there before. We said no, and I mentioned the Voice article, and jclist. He wrote down jclist.com on a bit of newspaper and said he'd check it out. There have been lots of new faces, "Americans" in there lately, he mentioned, which was a good thing. I told him we'd be back!

Anyone understand Arabic? I'd like to know what Donald Duck is laughing about.

Well we went over and the first thing we saw was a big sign on the door borrowed from Sea World in Florida with whales and dolphins, yes WHALES and DOLPHINS.

The place does look somehow like you are inside a fish tank - we ordered the calamari (not deep fried) in the red sauce ($8) -- with salid (just got cucumbers and lettuce) in a nice light dressing $2 (no oil) great stuff.

The rice wasn't ready so we got it to go and had it at home with rice from a near by chinese place.

What a great cheap meal!

I talked to the owner Hasan-- he didn't know what the Village Voice is or how to get it -- I told him it was all over Manhattan -- he told me "what good is that!" -- haha -- I told him that it is also placed on Grove Street in red boxes and around Exchange Place -- and of course over in Hoboken.

He looked at me and said I remember you! You were in here awhile back -- I said no -- I think maybe that was the guy who wrote the article.

They are muslim so maybe SOME of you should stay home!Great place inside. Clean enough!

Map of the Muslim world on the wall. and a great sign in farsi (or whatever it is) for a seafood place (maybe this place) with Daffy Duck.

Must say -- the Muslim free newspapers (this weeks and last weeks) were pretty shocking -- the cover photos of little kids dead and bleeding was a bit off putting -- so you might want to bring reading material or call in advance for a take out order -- (201)333-5305 or 333-5357

I tried to get a take-out menu -- all I could get was his business card!

It would be fun to eat in there though! When you get there you will know what I mean.

It is just a block from the Little India area of Newark Avenue.

(Oh and something else, I found funny -- this place had a glowing review way back in 1995 in the New York Times - he has it hanging on the wall -- Thanks MCA for reposting it above!)

The Village Voice is late to the party. The NYT reviewed this place 11 years ago!
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QUICK BITES/Jersey City; A Fragrant and Tangy Egyptian Fish Stew

By ANDY NEWMAN
Published: August 13, 1995

When you get right down to it, there just aren't a lot of places that do a decent samak bil-salsah these days. That's why Suez Canal Fish and Things is such a treasure.

Samak bil-salsah is, simply, fish in sauce, but Hassan Ibrahim's whole porgy baked in tomato sauce, Port Said-style, is anything but simple. The recipe is from Mr. Ibrahim's father, a fisherman in Egypt's main Mediterranean port, and the taste is a fortuitous midsea collision of cuisines: tomato, onion, garlic, parsley, dill and cumin with phantom notes of cinnamon, anise and eggplant. The tangy, salty sauce plays delicately off the fish itself, the sweet flesh of which falls from the (plentiful) bones. Not bad for $6.

Suez Canal Fish and Things, around the corner from the strip of Indian restaurants on Newark Avenue in Journal Square, is worth a visit for the atmosphere alone. Just about the only sit-down restaurant serving Jersey City's 10,000-plus Egyptian community, it has the cozy feel of a neighborhood hangout. Men spend the evening talking over glasses of hot sugared tea. The room gives one the impression of being inside a giant aquarium. An undersea scene is painted on the window, and the red neon crab and blue wavelets on the opposite wall bathe the place in faint purple.

Mr. Ibrahim has unofficially dropped the "and Things" from the establishment's name (though the sign outside hasn't changed) because he no longer serves the Things -- kofta kebabs, lamb chops, chicken -- the better to concentrate on fish. The house mainstay is pollack or porgy dipped in whole wheat flour, grilled over charcoal, dunked in salt water and served with limes.

Suez Canal Fish and Things, 117 Tonnelle Avenue, Jersey City. (201) 333-5305. Open Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday from 1 P.M. to 1 A.M. Open Friday and Saturday from 1 P.M. to 2 A.M. Closed Wednesday.

I'm so there too -- I'm going for lunch right now!

I'm going to try the calamari ($8) flooded with a red sauce that owes much to Italian marinara, with the herbal seasoning shifted in a Middle Eastern direction. And I'm getting a dirty rice and a small salad!

I'm so there

Yum!

Click here to go to the Village Voice

Single-minded Egyptian fish joint rules near Journal Square

by Robert Sietsema -Village Voice
August 17th, 2006 3:50 PM

You might go just for the neon. Waves of it course across the rear wall, upon which a happy blue porgy and pink octopus dance, and orange Arabic script crawls across the front windows. In addition, there are nautical motifs galore, including lighthouses and carved boats. You'll feel as if you were dining in a ship's galley, or maybe in Sea World. Open more than a decade, Suez Canal is one of the Egyptian fish restaurants that constitute Jersey City's greatest culinary asset, though light years away from the high-rises and shopping opportunities of Harborside and Newport Mall. The proprietors are from Port Said, at the mouth of the Suez Canal, where fresh fish is an obsession.

In fact, fish is so much the focus of the menu, there's little else to eat. If you prefer, you can begin with a rudimentary salad of iceberg, purple onions, tomatoes, and cukes in a bare-bones vinaigrette (large, $2; colossal, $4), which could be readily shared, respectively, by two or four persons. The best part: There's no balsamic vinegar anywhere on the premises! Then there's the thing I call the eggplant appetizer ($2), even though most diners use it as a side dish. Fried rounds of aubergine are heaped with diced tomatoes and mild green chiles, then sprinkled with dill, which is not the first herb you'd expect to find sprouting next to the Suez Canal. These two starters are sided with pitas warmed on the grill and a saucer of herbed tahini.

Apart from the starters, and a big plate of dirty rice that can be ordered separately, the rest of the menu is entirely seafood. First off, there are whole fish. These are dipped in whole-wheat flour, blackened over charcoal, then baptized with salt water. This process renders the skin inedible, but turns the flesh supremely sweet and moist. One evening, proprietor Hasan El Khodairy sidled up and showed us how to peel the skin away before attacking our foot-long sea bass. The market price was $8—but what planet is that market on, we wondered as we tore into the wonderful fish? We learned to extract more flavor by dipping our pitas in the cooking moisture that accumulated in the bottom of the metal salver. There are usually a couple of other whole fish available in the same price range, including red mullet and porgy.

Being sophisticated New Yorkers, we initially eschewed the fried filets. Were we ever full of shit! Described simply as "white fish," the breaded and boneless grouper filet ($8) flops over the sides of the plate, crisp and chestnut-colored. Alone, it would have made a perfect meal. But it came flooded with a thick tart garlic sauce that seeped into the flesh as we cut through the breading, making the fish seem like an aquatic take on chicken-fried steak. More surprises were in store on subsequent visits. Shrimp and calamari are available singly ($8) or in combination ($14). They come flooded with a red sauce that owes much to Italian marinara, with the herbal seasoning shifted in a Middle Eastern direction. After exhausting the plate of dirty rice we ordered with it, we looked around sheepishly. Then we were unable to restrain ourselves from tilting the plate and drinking the remaining fluid as if it were a soup.