Broa
“This was all paired up with a Portuguese house white and red wine that we brought from home (its BYOB – winning!!).”
“However, my 2 favorite dishes were the morcilla (blood sausage) and the chorizo bread – soooo good.”
“They have this tapas like meals, that in Portugal are called Petiscos, that are to die for!”
Broa
Takes Reservations: Yes
Take-out: Yes
Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
Bike Parking: Yes
Good for Groups: Yes
Outdoor Seating: Yes
Waiter Service: Yes
Caters: Yes
Price range.
$$ Price range $11-30
8 reviews
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Came here with a hungry stomach & a bottle of red as this place is BYOB. We waited in anticipation about 45 mins on Friday night around 7pm. Love the quaint atmosphere, romantic lighting and even concentrated kitchen smell that drenched our coats.
Small plates were written on a chalk board so that while you wait, you can decide what you will order.
Ordered 3 small $8 plates and 2 x small plates, $10 and another sandwich to share for $23.
Humm.. we asked for the sandwish about 3 times and all 3 times, re received the response from the server "about 10 mins". After being there for 2 hrs, we were still without the last plate. 50+ mins after seeing 2 of our sandwich being served to table sat later than ours, we casually asked for a check. If they feel that they can pick & choose who they prioritize as customer, they should also know that customers also can take their money and go else where.
What a pity.. this truly could have been a great 5 star gem if service was at least consistant.
Normally, Broa does not open on Mondays. But for the Jersey Girls Food Tour they hosted a small private dinner with a sampling of their tapas! So good! The decor in here will transport you to Portugal I swear. I love how cozy and intimate it feels, everything is made of wood or ceramic, and the food is just out of the world.
Really loved their bean salad, sardines shipped from Portugal, and their garlic shrimp. MmmmMmmm good.
Definitely will be back. This space is great for a small private party.
I really wanted to like it, but I walked away disappointed and still a bit hungry. The place is adorable, it is tiny and has the menu on the blackboard by the entrance. Also, it is BYOB, which is always a nice plus. Even though there are only 6-7 tables in the restaurant, there is only one waiter when I went, while all of the tables were taken. I felt bad for the guy as he was overwhelmed. We ordered four dishes, but he only brought out 3, we asked about the last dish and he said he would check, but I had a suspicion that he probably just forgot to put it in. We ended up canceling the last order as we waited for more than 30 minutes. Also, I really wanted water, and asked the waiter 3-4 times, he kept telling me that he would get them, but we ended up having to go up to the counter and get our own water. He wasn't a bad server, he was just overworked and overwhelmed, it would've been better if there was another server. Now on to the actual food:
Garden snails – it is rare to see the small black snails on menus, I love them and always order them when I see them on menus during my travels through Asia and Europe. I liked the way Broa cooked them, and were seasoned well
Stuffed Bread with Pork Belly – super disappointed with this dish, the pork belly was flavorless and the bread was dry.
Octopus Fritter – it was ok, the octopus was seasoned well, but it was a little tough. Overall, it was a good dish, but nothing to write home about.
Since the menu changes everyday, I want to go back and try a few of the other dishes.
I was very intrigued when I head of Broa – a Portuguese tapas place – How unique! I was very excited when I walked in for dinner. The place is cute and lots of 2 top tables fill the room.
As other yelpers have mentioned, there is no printed menu as it changes daily. There is the chalkboard at the door – so as others have recommended, we took a picture of it so we could reference and review it at our table.
The food is great! We ordered a few of everything – some sausages, some fritters, a salad, and a few mains. Everything was pretty good. I think the fritters were perfectly fried. They were a big hit among everyone at our table. Portions are pretty small – so it's best to order 3-4 plates per person.
The unfortunate part was the service. We asked for waters when we ordered our food and one of my friends also asked for sliced lemon for her water. We had to ask again a few times before we actually received said glasses of water and sadly my friend never got her lemon despite the multiple requests. Additionally, there were a few plate changes throughout the course of the meal, and the waiter always brought out one less than the number of people… so it always took a few minutes to get his attention again to have him bring another plate. However, the waiter was on point when it came to the wine. He made sure we had glasses and made sure a new bottle was opened when we were nearing the end of one. I guess their motto is to keep pouring the wine and then everything else will fall into place!
So. Much. Yes.
From the ambiance to the fantastic food to the BYOB and everything in between, Broa has got it all figured out. I finally came in for dinner and am already planning my next visit.
The space is small but that's part of what really gives Broa it's charm. You almost feel as if you are in the chef's personal kitchen / living room. But the cool thing is, you actually are. Mike who is the chef and owner is actually cooking all of the food in a kitchen that is right next to the seating area. So when you are eating something that is really yum (which will be anything) you can basically just shout over your praise and he'll give you a thumbs up.
Don't expect to find a set menu here because there isn't one. Yes, they've got some staples that usually don't change such as the fritters, breads and salads, but all of the entrees change daily depending on what Mike finds at the market that morning. It's usually a variety of fresh meats, seafoods and chorizos and everything sounds mouthwatering.
Upon being seated you'll find some fresh bread and olives at your table. I pulled a typical me and filled up on way to much bread. There is so much delicious food to come that next time I'lll resist the bread basket. We started off with chorizo bread and octopus fritters. The bread was stuffed with a ton of juicy chorizo and was oily, garlicky and delicious. There were also potato sticks served on the side which added some nice salt and crunch. All of the fritter options sounded delicious, but after consulting with our waiter we decided to go with the octopus. The fritter basket comes with four perfectly fried and golden fritters and they are stuffed with a sweet sauce mixture and pieces of octopus. I'm not exactly sure what the sauce was, but they were so good.
Finally, for our entree we went splitsies on the shrimp special. I forget what type of shrimp it was but the owner told us that it was the rolls royce of the shrimp world and hot dayuuum was he right. They were absolutely enormous and I basically just felt like I was eating a lobster tail. Oh and the butter dipping sauce on the side was something that I'll dream about, like forever.
If you haven't tried Broa yet then don't waste time! You are missing out!
Warm and cozy atmosphere, BYOB, traditional Portuguese food, and friendly but absent-minded service. We enjoyed the tomato salad with octopus, the heirloom tomatoes were terrific and the octopus well prepared. The ceviche was merely okay, with some of the calamari almost too tough to chew. The tuna deviled duck eggs were interesting and not terrible, although I think that I prefer the old school U.S. Southern family picnic style better.
The russa potato salad never arrived on the table but did show up on our bill (and was quickly taken off upon request). Water and bread took a while and a request (once for the bread and twice for water) to arrive. Our credit card almost went home with someone else when it was brought back to another table for signing. That was caught in time, however. Yikes. Friendly staff and home style kitchen and ambience. The food was good, but it's not my favorite and the service was a little too lackadaisical. Despite really wanting to like Broa, we probably won't rush back.
Okay – there are some super stellar reviews of this place and I was really, really looking forward to coming here.
The menu is on the chalkboard, take a picture (they tell you to because they dont have menus at the table). It would be REALLY helpful if you had a smaller chalkboard that the waiter could bring around to tables… or even just two boards on either side of the place – we sat in the back corner near the bathroom and would have preferred to have a menu closer.
Our waiter confirmed that our order of chicken fritters, octopus salad, and steak sandwiches probably werent enough for three… so he upsold us on mussels and a sausage sampler. Everything we ordered was in the $10 – $17 range… we didnt ask how much the two upsells were nor did we look at the photograph of the menu. Our mistake.
That sausage sampler was NOT worth the $30. when it came… no one explained what any of them were (well, we knew which one was the blood sausage). Pretty disappointing.
The course before that was lovely – the fritters were the star there. the octopus was extremely salty, but very tender. The mussels were fine. a little "fishy" for my taste and the bell-pepper stuff on top was a bit of a distraction: it didnt really complement the seafood.
The course after the sausages was also mediocre… extremely salty and the steak was well done and tough. Great seasoning on the meat though- very bold and full of flavor.
Overall, Im sure we probably could have had a better server and would have ranked this place a little higher.. but, with everything new and exciting going on in Jersey City, it'd be difficult to justify coming back.
I would give 10 stars for the atmosphere and decorations of this place if I could. It feels so cozy and welcoming , the owner of the place clearly knows how to make the best out of its space. The place looks super vintage and smells awesome like your grandma's kitchen. I just can't speak enough of it.
Free bread and olives were nice, but food and service were horrible. After being seated, we were left with two empty glasses for good thirty minutes before the waiter came to take our order, still no water or anything to drink. Not to mention that the place is small and not packed, I felt like we were invisible.
We ordered beef fritters, garlic shrimp and shrimp porridge. The waiter told us that each dish was served in a half serving, and two people might want to order 4-5 dishes for dinner. I was like, wth, each dish is priced at $15-$20 and I need 5 of those for 2 people?
Ten minutes later the fritters came, there was no sign of beef in the filling. I started to wonder if my English was so bad that the waiter could not understand and thought I ordered the cheese ones. Anyway, half way through our fritters, the waiter came and asked us if we wanted our beef fritters as the cook sent us the wrong items, we were so ready for the main dish that we decided to stick with the ones we got. Half an hour later, our shrimp porridge came, it was not my favorite but I had not tried that dish anywhere else before so I guess that it might be considered authentic and good to other people.
After I was done with my shrimp porridge for good 30', my husband's garlic shrimp never came. We just sat there waiting . Finally the other waiter (or manager?) came by to ask us if things were ok. He probably was ready to hand us the check when my husband mentioned about the shrimps that never came. That was when they realized that they forgot our order. Few minutes later, the shrimps came and looked super disappointing. We could not believe that we paid $18 for few tiny shimps that were cold and placed unappetizingly in this big bowl. They must have been some kind of magically healthy, organic, preciously imported shrimps?
When things could not get worse, we were asked to move to another table as soon as my husband got his shimps. We were offered free soda and desserts to compensate, but honestly, at this point I was so pissed that I just wanted to get out of here as soon as possible.
I am sure some of you may like this place, I probably might like this place better if I came here at a different time. But this is very disappointing experience that I had, and I doubt that I would set foot to this place again, ever.