Fruit flies invite themselves to dinner

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My favorite cereal from Bob's Red Mill in Oregon is made with 10 grains.

Editor's note: Today, I discuss dinner at a Brazilian restaurant in Newark's Ironbound section; a documentary that questions our over-reliance on animal protein, and a hot cereal that is far better than oatmeal.

The first thing we noticed late Sunday afternoon at the Casa Nova Grill in Newark was how crowded it was on a day when the temperature hovered around freezing.


But we only had to wait inside the door for about 5 minutes before we were shown to a table in one of the first-floor dining rooms of this Brazilian restaurant in the Ironbound section.


The second thing we noticed were two or three of those tiny fruit flies over our table, the ones that seem impossible to kill -- and I tried. They stayed for dinner.


When we asked our waiter, Oswaldo, about the flies, he said the management was aware of them and that after closing the night before, the restaurant was fumigated. A second fumigation was scheduled for that night.


Our last visit to Casa Nova was on an overcast April day, when few of the cherry trees in Branch Brook Park had blossomed. We ordered too much and our bill for three soared over $100.


On Sunday, after a concert at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, my wife and I ordered two entrees to share, which came with a visit to the salad bar.


Our main dishes were Giant Tiger Shrimp from Mozambique ($20.95) and Cod Fish, Portuguese style ($15.95). My wife drank fruit juice ($4) and I had a generous glass of California merlot ($5). 


Brazilians love meat, as we saw from waiters walking around the dining room with skewers of skirt steak, sausage and other items, and stopping at tables to serve customers who had ordered unlimited barbecue.


But they also love carbohydrates and starch: We found a platter of tasty potato sticks on the salad bar, and we got two small servings of delicious cheese bread, a couple of Portuguese rolls, sliced bread and freshly made potato chips with the shrimp, and boiled potato and a side dish of white rice with the cod stew.


The two head-on shrimp are the biggest I've seen served in a restaurant, and they came in the shell with a dipping sauce of garlicky oil.


Skin-on salted cod fillets were served in a milky broth with a boiled egg, boiled potato and whole garlic cloves, which melted in the mouth, and they were covered with shredded collard green.


The selection on the salad bar didn't seem as varied as on our first visit, but we did find beets, crunchy steamed broccoli, small tomatoes with cheese and those potato sticks.


The restaurant also serves salted cod or bacalhau, Brazilian style, with marinara sauce; and a Brazilian fish stew with coconut milk, as well as whole red snapper, each at around $16. 


Casa Nova Grill, 264 Ferry St., Newark; 973-817-7272.


'Forks Over Knives'


"Forks Over Knives," a new documentary I got from Netflix, argues animal proteins -- from meat, dairy and eggs -- are slowing killing us.


The doctors and scientists who appear in the film claim they can reverse and cure heart disease, cancer and other major health problems with a whole-food, plant-based diet.


Several people are shown throwing away their medications, and turning to such a diet, as well as to exercise. All lose weight and improve their health tremendously.


Bob's Red Mill Cereal


After my exercise session at Englewood Hospital and Medical Center this morning, I stopped at the ShopRite for more of Bob's Red Mill 10 Grain Hot Cereal.


A 25-ounce package of the whole-grain cereal cost $2.79. 


Preparation takes about 15 minutes on the stove top. I usually add dried blueberries, and cut-up dried apricots, plums and dates to it, as well as slivered almonds or pine nuts, and blue agave syrup as a sweetener.


The cereal comes from Bob's Red Mill Natural Foods Inc., an employee-owned company in Oregon. Here's a link to its Web site: 


Bob says, "To Your Good Health"


I also picked up 5 pounds of clementines from California for $4.99 with a store card, and a half-gallon of ShopRite 2% Lactose-Free Milk for $3.29, 20 cents less than usual.

Trying to share the wealth in Newark's Ironbound

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Cherry blossoms in Branch Brook Park.

If there is any place where sharing food makes perfect sense, it's Newark's Ironbound, a neighborhood of Spanish, Portuguese and Brazilian restaurants that serve large portions at reasonable prices.

But without the cooperation of family members or friends, any plan to eat well without spending a lot of money can quickly fall apart, as it did on Saturday during our first visit to Casa Nova Grill, a Brazilian restaurant on Ferry Street.

We left in mid-afternoon to view the cherry blossom trees in Branch Brook Park, but could find only a half-dozen or so that were showing petals. We didn't even get out of the car.

The plan was to eat an early dinner at one of the places offering a "Go Newark" Restaurant Week discount. From the park, I called a Spanish restaurant on Market Street, Catas, that had a three-course, $30 dinner, but no one answered the phone and there was no recorded message.

At Adega Grill, a Portuguese restaurant we like, the fixed-price dinner menu is $40 for only two courses, according to its Web site. That's no bargain.

Newark has a long way to go on making its Restaurant Week appealing, with varying 10% and 15% discounts or fixed-price meals, compared to uniform prices for three-course lunches and dinners during New York City's Restaurant Weeks.

So we headed over to Casa Nova (New House) to try our luck with the a la carte menu of the Brazilian restaurant, which has a brick-and-wood interior and all-you-can-eat barbecue. 

I am not eating meat or poultry and my wife is eating  them only once a week or so, but our 13-year-old son is a dedicated carnivore. I had hoped to order an appetizer and two entrees to share.

But my son would not be dissuaded from ordering penne with small shrimp in vodka sauce -- a dish I wouldn't try in a Brazilian place -- and he wanted an appetizer of clams with white wine and garlic. My wife wasn't sure what she wanted.

So I ordered the clams ($11.95), a grilled whole red snapper ($17.95), enormous Tiger Shrimp ($20.95) and the penne ($15.95). I was in trouble already on assembling a meal that wouldn't bust the bank.

This was way too much, even before the waiter told us the food is made to order and asked us to serve ourselves from the salad bar, which is free with an entree.

There were more than a dozen cooked or raw vegetables, plus cheese and an odd cabbage salad with raw octopus. We went back two or three times for crunchy string beans, beets, shredded collard greens, raw broccoli and cauliflower, and other items.

The dozen briny clams were plump and the salty broth was so good, I scooped it up with one of the shells.

The Tiger Shrimp are from Mozambique, a onetime Portuguese colony, and you get only two to an order. They are grilled and served in the shell, with the head on, and uncurled, they are about 10 inches long. Extraordinary.

We eat a lot of whole fish, but the red snapper was unusually good. It came with sides of rice and black beans, plus vegetables and potatoes on the plate. The shrimp came on a large metal platter accompanied by addictive, freshly made potato chips.

We couldn't finish our food and took home leftovers.

Image by carlaarena via Flickr

With three glasses of juice or lemonade ($4 each), a big glass of Portuguese red wine ($5), a bottle of Saratoga Springs, N.Y., water ($6) and an espresso ($1.50), the bill came to $91.30. A 15% tip of $13.69 and tax were added, sending the total soaring to $111.

We liked Casa Nova, but next time, I'll cut that by at least $30 to $40.

My son wants to return for the all-you-can-eat barbecue. He counted more than 20 skewered items in the open kitchen.

Casa Nova Grill, 262 Ferry St., Newark, 1-973-817-7272. 

Web site: Casa Nova Grill