There’s a Korean Cafe Hiding Inside a Guttenberg Mall, and It’s Already Open
You would never guess it from the parking lot, but one of the most interesting new cafes in Hudson County is sitting on the lower level of a mall in Guttenberg.
Cafe Arirang just grand opened on September 12 inside Galaxy Mall, tucked on the lower level next to the Resource Center at 7000 Boulevard East. This is not a food court situation with heat lamps and plastic trays. It is a Korean inspired local cafe doing proper Korean comfort food alongside coffees, desserts, and drinks. The kind of spot that makes you wonder how many other gems are hiding in plain sight in New Jersey strip malls and shopping centers.
The menu reads like a greatest hits of the dishes that made Korean food blow up in America. Gimbap, those perfect seaweed rice rolls packed with vegetables and beef that disappear in about four bites. Bibimbap, the rice bowl with seasoned vegetables, a fried egg, and gochujang that you mix into a beautiful mess at the table. Bulgogi rice bowls with that sweet and savory marinated beef. Japchae, the glass noodles with vegetables that somehow taste light and rich at the same time. This is the comfort food canon, done in a casual cafe setting where you can also grab a latte and a dessert and just hang out.
And that cafe part matters. New Jersey has no shortage of Korean restaurants, especially once you get into Bergen County. What it does not have a ton of is the Korean cafe experience, the kind of place where the food and the coffee program get equal love. Cafe Arirang is playing both sides. You can come for breakfast between 8 and 11 in the morning, or roll through for lunch from 11 to 3. Tuesday through Saturday. It is a daytime spot, which honestly makes it even more interesting. Most Korean restaurants around here are dinner destinations. A Korean cafe that opens at 8 in the morning is filling a completely different lane.
The location is the whole story here. Galaxy Mall is not where you expect to find your new favorite lunch spot. It is a neighborhood mall in Guttenberg, one of the most densely populated towns in America, sitting right on the Hudson with those wild Manhattan views. The lower level next to the Resource Center is about as unassuming as it gets. But some of the best food in New Jersey lives in unassuming places. Some of the spots I love most are in strip malls next to laundromats and tax offices. A mall lower level is just the next frontier.
There is also something to be said for what this signals about where NJ food is going. Korean food in New Jersey used to mean a big dinner in Fort Lee or Palisades Park, a whole production with banchan covering the table. Now it is gimbap at a mall cafe on a Tuesday afternoon. The cuisine is getting more casual, more everyday, more woven into how people actually eat. That is what happens when a food culture really takes root in a place. It stops being a special occasion and starts being lunch.
If you are in Hudson County and you have been sleeping on Guttenberg as a food town, consider this your wake up call. Cafe Arirang is open now. Go get the bibimbap, mix it properly, and thank me later.