Photo by Neidy Gutierrez / SOC Images.
Walking around near Grove Street in Downtown Jersey City, you’ll find a handful of coffee shops, restaurants and bars. But if you’re looking to satisfy your sweet tooth, you can choose to step away from the busy main street and venture to Morgan Street right off of Warren Street.
Nestled between the high-rise condominiums, you’ll find a hidden sweet spot called Tart-Da, introducing you to a world of Asian-fusion desserts. Tart-Da shares the 153 Morgan Street location with Teazzi, a women-and Asian-owned bubble tea shop.
“[Tart-Da] are basically French tarts, but I like [to] do [it with] Asian flavor[s]… so they’re like Chinese-mixed-French, like those kinds of things to cater to the neighborhood here…,” the owner told Slice of Culture.
“[But] I also wanna focus more on the [other locals] as well, because this is for everyone, who doesn’t like sweets, right?” she laughed.
Tart-Da joins the many participants for the Jersey City Restaurant Fest’s Winter Fest Week, which runs until Saturday, March 15. The promotional two-week event features a number of local businesses from restaurants, bars and more. Tart-Da, who is in the fest for the first time, is offering 15% off customers’ purchase; all you have to do is mention JC Restaurant Fest to get the offer (some restrictions may apply).
Something Sweet, But Something Different
The idea of Tart-Da—which plays off of the expression “Ta-da!”—came around March of last year. The owner said she noticed that there weren’t “a lot of dessert places” in their part of downtown and as a “big dessert person,” she wanted to do something about that.
So she began experimenting.
She liked the idea of French tarts, which is made with a special technique to create the tart or shell, but she didn’t want to do the traditional filling like mousse or fruits. Instead, she wanted to implement more Asian-inspired flavors like matcha, black sesame and mochi.
It officially launched in June of last year with flavors including black sesame 黑芝麻撻, pistachio 開心果撻, double dark chocolate 雙重黑巧克力撻, peanut butter mochi 花生麻糬撻, uji matcha 宇治抹茶撻 and nutella hazelnut—and it was a hit.
A month later, the owner of Tart-Da wanted to bring a popular dessert in Asian culture to the downtown area which introduced their pudding series. The pudding offers more traditional Asian flavors like uji matcha jasmine pudding and pistachio oolong pudding 開心果烏龍奶茶凍. Unlike traditional pudding, Tart-Da’s desserts implement milk tea pudding like jasmine green tea milk pudding and oolong milk tea pudding.
“So there’s some fusion in there!” she smiled.
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When asked about customer favorites, she said it depends on the person. She also added that one of her favorite ways of creating new flavors is by talking to customers.
“I always talk to customers, just chit chatting to understand, ‘Oh, what do you like or what do[es] your country offer? What are the flavors that you would want to add?’ I constantly ask my employees, ask the customer these types of questions so that I can add them to my menu to cater them,” she said.
That’s how Tart-Da released its most recent flavor mango coconut pudding 芒果椰奶凍; she said she discovered this combination after speaking to some customers of Indian background and learning the popularity of mangoes in their culture.
Today, you can grab some of their specialty tarts like uji matcha 宇治抹茶撻 and black sesame 黑芝麻撻 or mix flavors with their black sesame pudding 黑芝麻奶凍. Tart-Da also offers chocolate bars like cashew chocolate 腰果巧克力 and macadamia chocolate 夏威夷果巧克力.
Looking ahead, the owner said she wants to continue whipping up new flavors with Asian elements to cater to the community. You can order Tart-Da by visiting their Morgan Street in person or ordering online through Uber Eats, DoorDash or Postmates.
She also added that they will soon launch a new brand, with a different name but similar offerings, in another part of New Jersey.
