New Armenian grill in Hackensack, good buys at Maywood's Market

Armenian lavash is a soft, thin, unleavened flat bread. The large menu at Lavash City lists wraps made with the bread and many other dishes.

Editor's note: Today's post includes a new restaurant on Main Street in Hackensack, good buys at a premium supermarket in Maywood and a so-called farmers market I haven't patronized for years.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The newest restaurant on Main Street in Hackensack is an Armenian grill that offers the usual kebabs as well as dozens of homemade soups, salads and cold appetizers.

Lavash City Grill & Bakery, which opened a couple of weeks ago at 331 Main St., serves lunch and dinner in a completely renovated space.

Armenian cuisine is said to have strong ties with Turkish, Georgian and Persian cooking.

The restaurant offers kebabs, shawarma, rotisserie chicken and pilafs.

Owner Anna Yeritsyan says she prepares soups, salads and other dishes "from scratch."

"Nothing comes from cans."

Details

Lavash City Grill & Bakery, 331 Main St., Hackensack; 201-464-5445.

Open 7 days for lunch and dinner, BYO, parking at meters and in free lots for shoppers nearby.

"No store has this price," boasts a Maywood's Marketplace sign with rough wedges of aged Parmigiano Reggiano Cheese from Italy, sometimes referred to as the "King of Cheeses" (the name is misspelled on the sign).

Maywood's Marketplace

I got a Maywood's Marketplace flier with the newspaper, and the cover showed a "super special" on Parmigiano Reggiano, the crumbly aged cheese from Italy that is one of my favorites.

Eaten out of hand, with fruit or in a salad, this cheese, made with part-skimmed milk, is hard to top.

At $9.77 a pound, the price undercuts even Costco Wholesale. In fact, the Hackensack warehouse store was out of the cheese last week.

I stopped at the Maywood market on Thursday and picked up wedges of the aged cheese, selecting two that had rind only on the end.

Others had rind on two sides.

When I got the wedges home, I cut them into smaller chunks, and found the cheese soft, crumbly and full of flavor.

Some cooks dice the rind and put it in their pasta sauce for added flavor, but it doesn't completely dissolve.

Wine, corn and salmon

I also bought three bottles of wine from Italy -- Il Carnevale di Venezia Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinot Grigio -- at $4.99 each.

Five ears of fresh corn were $2.

I noticed the flier also offers wild king salmon for $13.99 a pound, another good buy that beats Costco, which was selling those fillets for $16.99 a pound just last week.

The sale prices in Maywood are good through June 24.

Part of the produce section at Maywood's Marketplace, one in a dwindling number of small, premium supermarkets in Bergen County. Another is Cafasso's Fairway Market on Anderson Avenue in Fort Lee.

Details

Maywood's Marketplace, 78 W. Pleasant Ave., Maywood; 201-843-8361.

Open 7 days, 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Parking lot. 

Web site: Worth the detour

The Giant Farmers Market is at Main and Berry streets in Hackensack. The parking lot is behind the store, on River Street.

The Main Street entrance is far from appetizing. I stopped patronizing this store years ago after finding much better quality at H Mart, the chain of Korean supermarkets in Little Ferry, Englewood, Fort Lee and Ridgefield.

The floor in front of the fish counter and in other parts of the store is dirty or cracked or both. The credit-card minimum for fish is $10. In the rest of the store, the credit-card minimum is $5.

A sign with bags of apples offers a so-called special on sweet peppers.