From Dos Cubanos to no Cubanos in Paramus

Dos Cubanos, a moderately priced Cuban restaurant, opened in May 2012 in the space on Route 4 in Paramus once occupied by Fuddruckers, which served hamburgers, beer and wine.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I fell in love with Cuban food on seven trips to the biggest island in the Caribbean, but never ate at Dos Cubanos in Paramus.

When I want my fix of whole red snapper with white rice and black beans, I drive a short distance to Casual Habana Cafe, a BYO at 125 Main St. in Hackensack.

For a Cuban sandwich made with my own smoked wild salmon instead of ham and roast pork, I go to La Pola at 54th Street and Palisade Avenue in West New York, a cafe also known as "The King of the Cuban Sandwich."

Today, I noticed Dos Cubanos is closed and its name was removed from the sign in front of 282 Route 4 east in Paramus.

The owners called it the biggest Cuban restaurant in Bergen County.

A permit for a temporary sign offering restaurant space is taped to the glass next to the front door.

Before Fuddruckers, the hamburger restaurant, Le Peep, which served breakfast and lunch, occupied the half of the building that housed Dos Cubanos, which opened in 2012 after extensive renovations.

Popeyes continues to operate next to the shuttered Cuban restaurant.

The Jamaican people have little reason to cheer

At the Montego Bay airport, a man balancing a stack of Sunday newspapers on his head and other Jamaicans roared with approval as they watched live TV coverage of Jamaican speedster Usain Bolt reclaiming the 100-meter world championship in Russia.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor


"Welcome to the Third World" would be an appropriate message from the crew when your plane lands in Jamaica.

The small Caribbean island is poor, and many residents live in fear of gun violence.

The government is one of the most corrupt in the Western Hemisphere, and officials focus on lining their pockets, not improving the lives of citizens.

Jamaica celebrated 50 years of independence from Great Britain in 2012. This sign at Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay doesn't explain exactly what the nation's "mission" is beyond attracting tourists.

The government holds a 20% interest in Jamaica Public Service Company Limited, the exclusive distributor of electricity on the island.

The utility charges customers far more per kilowatt hour than does Public Service Electric and Gas in New Jersey, and there are no lower rates available from companies using wind and water power, as there are here.

I pay about 7 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity to a company that uses renewable energy. 


It's a steal

Electricity is so expensive for the average Jamaican that many people resort to stealing it from neighbors.

I know of one family that requested electric service, then saw their monthly bill swell month after month until it reached about $900 (U.S.), because neighbors hooked wires into their line. 

Taxing solar

The Jamaican utility's Web site mentions nothing about solar power, and solar panels aren't made on the sun-splashed island. 

In fact, the government discourages the use of solar, imposing a heavy tax on imported panels. 

Gasoline is about $5 a gallon for regular, but apparently none of the taxes are used to fix the  roads, some of the worst in the world.

A bar on Canaan Mountain in western Jamaica.

In 2011, The Gleaner newspaper reported a poll found 60 percent of Jamaicans believed the island would be better off "today," if it had remained a colony of Britain.

What would the percentage be, if the opinion poll was repeated this year? Seventy-five percent?

The wealthy 1% that rule the island are especially mean-spirited, because they are exploiting people of their own color.  

At Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay, I picked up a whole roasted fish to eat on the plane home for about 476 Jamaican dollars or around $4.75.

The big resorts and other elements of the island's struggling tourist industry are supported by low-wage workers.

I was shocked to learn a couple of years ago that a man I know who worked as a chef at the Ritz-Carlton Rose Hall, a 5,000-acre ocean-front luxury resort near Montego Bay, made less than $100 a week.

A system comprising 22 solar panels and 24 storage batteries at Zimbali Retreats on Canaan Mountain cost about U.S. $70,000 when it was installed 7 years ago, far more than an equivalent system in the United States.

Nearly every Jamaican has heard gun shots as they go about their lives -- going to work or school or marketing -- or knows a friend or relative who has been robbed, shot or killed.

The gun violence can be traced to a decades-old decision by the island's political parties to arm their supporters -- in a particularly savage voter-suppression program.

Jamaicans say the violence is fed today by the illegal importation of guns from the United States.

Running gun battles between the police and criminals are commonplace.

The wealthy who rule the island live behind high walls and gated compounds, and install security grilles on every window and door.

Many tourists trek to the Red Dragon Bar in Negril for its jerk pork, which is supposedly made in a drum pan -- roasted over wood in a oil drum that has been cut in half the long way and laid open on its side. The bar's interior is decorated with license plates sent in by fans from all over the U.S. and Canada, above.

My wife paid about $4 for this portion, but she wasn't impressed by the taste of the pork, which is rubbed in jerk spices before it is cooked. The drum pan wasn't visible, and the cooked pork was kept in a large covered pot under a lace tablecloth in another room.

At the Burger King in Negril, the driver of a green car and his family were so intent on eating there he parked in front of the wheelchair ramp.

Does any other Burger King have this view? I went in for coffee, but it is served only in the morning.

Jamaica is only a fifth the size of Cuba, its neighbor to the north, but the Jamaican government doesn't provide the free health care and education enjoyed on the Caribbean's biggest island.

And those high electric rates mean industry that establishes itself in Jamaica can't compete with established maufacturers in the United States.

A newspaper article estimates the cost as 44 cents per kilowatt hour in Jamaica, compared to 11 cents an hour in the U.S.

The island imports nearly everything, driving up the cost, and there are no Costcos or other discount stores to be found anywhere.

Many businesses are owned by Asian Indian and Chinese merchants.

On our last night at Zimbali Retreats, we went "jammin" in Negril, where we saw a reggae singer deliver credible versions of Bob Marley songs, above, and another group of African drummers and dancers (Seastar Inn, $5 admission).

 

From a communist country to a Costco near you

Costco Wholesale's Kirkland Signature Ground Saigon Cinnamon label is superimposed on a map of Vietnam, a communist country. A run-on sentence with a typo describes the cinnamon trees and the "unmatched" sweet-hot flavor of the cinnamon.

 

I've been using Costco Wholesale's Ground Saigon Cinnamon for years, and love the special flavor it gives to homemade lattes, hot cereal and salt-free roasted almonds.

I also buy Costco's farmed Black Tiger Shrimp from Vietnam, a communist country, and I know that schools of farmed, catfish-like basa fillet land on U.S. shores every year.

I don't really have a problem with Costco selling food from a communist country.

But I wish Costco and other U.S. retailers would sell products from another communist government, the one on the island of Cuba.

The trade embargo imposed on Cuba in the Kennedy administration means any U.S. company that tries to sell island products faces big financial penalties.

And customs officials likely would confiscate and destroy any Cuban products brought home by American tourists returning from the Caribbean's biggest island.

Cuba is known for its wonderful rum, but also produces excellent coffee, and it's the only place I know where you can find 100% mango juice in grocery stores.

Americans buy fresh, wild-caught red snapper from South America, but are denied Cuban pargo, lobster and other seafood.   

Seafood Gourmet is my port in the storm

The wonderful Bouillabaisse at Seafood Gourmet in Maywood.

Editor's note: After Superstorm Sandy hit New Jersey in late 2012, and knocked out power to my home and thousands of others, a meal in a restaurant seemed especially luxurious.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

What I really needed to feel normal again after days without power, stove-top omelets and grilled sweet potatoes was some fresh seafood.

So, on Friday, I drove carefully around detours and through inoperable traffic lights to have lunch at Seafood Gourmet in Maywood.

The small dining room behind a working fish market on West Pleasant Avenue soon filled up with customers, many of whom were still without power like me.

I looked over the specials menu and ordered the Bouillabaisse, which was filled with a great piece of fish, crunchy shrimp, buttery scallops and shell fish ($13.99).

The fragrant saffron-accented broth served as a second, soup course. Just delicious.

I ate and took part in a lively discussion with women at the next table who listened as their friend described her recent trip to Cuba.

At a third table, a woman who said she is Colombian and has always wanted to visit the Caribbean's biggest island asked about getting there, and I suggested she go via Mexico, Canada or Jamaica, all jumping off points I've used.

Get a room

After lunch, I stopped for coffee at Victoria's in Teaneck, one of the few businesses on Queen Anne Road with power.

My $3 cup of coffee included two refills, a good thing given the young couple at a nearby table who were kissing and pawing at each other.

Normally, I'd tell them to get a room, but hotels are likely filled with residents who have fled chilly homes and apartments.

Baumgart's

That night, I drove to Englewood and was glad to find Baumgart's was open.

I had tried to have dinner at a sushi restaurant in Fort Lee, but it was closed, as was the H Mart, Starbucks and other stores in the shopping center.

Baumgart's, a onetime ice-cream parlor on Palisade Avenue, has a terrific Asian-inspired menu thanks to the Chinese owners, who serve pristine raw and cooked seafood.

I started with sushi and seared-tuna appetizers ($8 to $11.50), and then tucked into an entree of Steamed Shrimp and Vegetables with a light garlic sauce ($16).

The plump shrimp were some of the best I've had, and I loved the soft tofu and crunchy celery in the dish. I ate all of it with brown rice.

I finished the evening down the street with a cup of Starbucks' medium-roast coffee -- then returned to my darkened home, where there was nothing to do but go to sleep and dream about my next great seafood meal.

Details

Seafood Gourmet, 103 W. Pleasant Ave, Maywood; 201-843-8558.

Baumgart's Cafe, 43 E. Palisade Ave.,
Englewood; 201-569-6267.

New food items at Costco Wholesale

Kirkland Signature Organic Salsa at Costco Wholesale.

After we stopped eating meat at the end of February, I started noticing all the alternatives that are sold at Costco. 

I am not a big fan of prepared food. Most of the stuff I've tried from Trader Joe's, for example, were one-time purchases. But Costco is selling some keepers.


We really love the Boca-brand soy burger (16 patties for $9.49). We usually heat these in the oven, cover them with a slice of cheese and then add onion, ketchup, mustard and so forth. 

Every time we have this meatless burger, we also heat up Dr. Praeger's spinach cake -- small, tasty disks of spinach and potato (20 for $8.99).


Costco also sells two wonderful cheese-and-vegetable quiches that make a great dinner with the addition of a homemade salad. One is made with asparagus, the other with artichoke, and they are packaged together (I don't have the price).


I recently tried the mango juice in aseptic containers from Brazil Gourmet. It's thick, sweet and delicious, despite being a 100% juice blend ($11.69). It's the only mango juice I've found to rival the pure mango juice sold in Cuba.


Pasta Prima's lobster ravioli actually have lobster in them, and the lobster flavor is noticeable. You get two servings for two or three people for $11.99. They don't even need sauce -- just a drizzle of good olive oil and cracked black pepper.


Another recent purchase are 100% whole grain tortillas from the Sante Fe Tortilla Co. You get 20 large, soft tortillas for $3.99, a good buy. 

This tortilla rivals Trader Joe's handmade tortillas, which are pricier. I just popped a Sante Fe tortilla, slice of cheddar cheese and salsa in the microwave for 45 seconds for an instant quesadilla. Yum.


On Tuesday, I bought burgers made from wild Pacific salmon (keta and pink), oil and spices that are sold under the Trident label. You get 12 for $12.99, but I had a $3.75-off coupon. We haven't tried them yet.


Looking for an alternative to Rosa Mexicano Restaurant's $12 guacamole (one avocado), I picked up three, one-pound portions made with Hass avocados for $7.99 on Tuesday. 

They are sold under the Wholly Guacamole label, and are made with jalapeno, onion, garlic and salt. They can be frozen, too.

Christmas Eve Cubano

We fought the holiday traffic today and drove to West New York, but, luckily, there was an empty parking spot waiting for us in the small lot next to La Pola Restaurant, self-described "King of the Cuban Sandwich." To that, I say, Amen.

Inside, proprietor Belarmino Rico, his wife, sons, grandchildren and merry band of helpful employees made and served hot sandwiches, or Cubanos, and packed up Christmas specialties his customers had ordered -- roasted hams, ribs and  whole, butterflied pigs; the rice-and-black beans combination called congris; tamales, Spanish potato omelets, plantain chips (photo) and chicharrones or fried pork rinds.

Rico, who was born in the Asturian village of La Pola in Spain, lived in Cuba and learned to make the sandwiches at his uncle's bodega in Havana.

My Christmas menu now is set:

Alaskan king crab and sweet corn chowder (Costco)
Cuban roast pork
Congris (white rice cooked with black beans)
Tortilla espanola (potato omelet)
Cuban ham croquettes
Organic spring mix salad
Wine
Pear and hazelnut galette (Balthazar Bakery)

One of my guests and her children don't eat pork, so I'll prepare Australian leg of lamb for her, and an organic hamburger and uncured hot dog for the kids, with mashed potatoes.

La Pola Restaurant, 5400 Palisade Ave (54th Street), 
West New York;  (201) 867-6028. Call for holiday hours.
 

Can coffee be subversive?

Image via Wikipedia

I just loaded the dispenser in my espresso machine with Cuban-style dark-roasted beans I bought from costco.com. A kilo (2.2 pounds) of this Ruta Maya organic Cubita coffee cost  $22.99, including shipping. That's about what I would pay for two pounds of coffee beans at Starbucks. Amazon.com lists the Cubita-style coffee for $36.78.

I haven't brewed a cup yet, but you can read this description from the warehouse store's Web site:

Ruta Maya’s Cubita Cuban Style Dark Roasted Coffee is the smoothest of the Cubita roasts, yet has a rich, dark chocolate roast. Cubita Coffee or “Café Sabor de Cuba” embodies the heady aroma and deep-bodied coffee flavor of Cuba. Styled after the national coffee of Cuba, Cubita is a blend of coffee beans from Latin American countries carefully selected and roasted to match the authentic Cuban coffee experience with lots of flavor and bite.

That could use some editing, but doesn't it sound promising? I hope I'll be able to recapture the taste of the coffee I enjoyed on a half-dozen trips to Cuba from 1998 to 2004 (photo is of Trinidad, Cuba). Here's the link to the site, but you'll have to search for "Cubita coffee."


http://www.costco.com/Common/Category.aspx?cat=3605&eCat=BC|3605&lang=en-US&whse=BC&topnav=

Exploiting the memory of Bob Marley

Update: We weren't exploited during a tour of Montego Bay, Jamaica, in August 2014, above and below, unlike the 2009 Bob Marley tour I wrote about here.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

During our visit last week to the island of Jamaica, we wanted to learn more about the Rastaman and reggae superstar Bob Marley, whose music has long inspired us. 

So one day, we drove to Ocho Rios (Jamaicans say "Ochee"), on the island's north coast, to have lunch at Mama Marley's Bar & Grill, one of the businesses his family has established since his death.

We had a pleasant lunch of bean-and-chicken soup, and steamed red snapper with rice and sauteed cabbage, plus a beer, juice, bottled water and coffee. 

The check, which wasn't itemized, seemed high at $53.17 U.S., because the food we ordered totaled just under $30. After I had paid and was arranging a tour of Bob Marley's boyhood home and tomb, I asked for an itemized bill.

10% service charge

The waitress didn't hesitate to show it to me. In addition to the food and drink we had ordered, there was a 16.5% General Consumption Tax added and a 10% service charge, which the waitress quickly explained went to the restaurant, not to her. 

I had given her an $8 tip on the $53.17, about 15%, so the lunch cost me $61 or so. Seemed high. And why is the restaurant hitting up customers for a 10% service charge?

I paid the Asian Indian restaurant manager $150 for a tour and lunch the next day: a driver would pick up me and my wife at our Montego Bay hotel, about 65 miles from Ochee, drive back to Runaway Bay and then take us on a tortuous, 45-minute trip up into the hills of Saint Ann's Parish to a place known as Nine Mile.

Country roads from hell

The road is narrow and filled with potholes, blind curves, frightening drop-offs, and there were numerous close calls. The driver was rushing and almost always blowing his van's horn to warn other, unseen vehicles around the next curve. But we made it alive.

The hilltop complex we visited included a restaurant serving the same dishes as Mama Marley's in Ochee, a full bar, a gift shop, Bob Marley's small, two-room, boyhood home; a chapel containing an elaborate tomb of Italian marble and Rastafari's Star of David in a stained-glass window through which the rising sun shines.

As a guide showed us around, I realized that Bob Marley is as much a revolutionary figure to Jamaicans as Che Guevara is to Cubans.

Our included lunch was jerk-chicken and mahi-mahi sandwiches, fruit juice and Red Stripe beer. 

$70 DVD

On the way up in the van, we had watched "Rebel Music: The Bob Marley Story," an extraordinary, 89-minute DVD made in 2000 that documented how the guitar player and singer fought against injustice on the island until his death in 1981. 

In the gift shop, I asked the Asian Indian manager for the DVD and the price was $70 U.S., which seemed like a lot, but I bought it anyway. (This DVD also plays non-stop on a flat-screen TV at Mama Marley's in Ochee.)

Three days later, as we were leaving Jamaica, I stopped at an airport shop, which was selling the same DVD For $42 U.S. When I got home, I called the restaurant, but the manager was unmoved.

Below is the link to the Web sites of the Bob Marley Foundation and Mama Marley's (she died in 2008). You can decide whether the family and its Asian Indian managers have added a third "R" to the singer's Rastafari and reggae legend -- rip-off.

http://www.bobmarleyfoundation.org/roots_RNM.html

http://www.bobmarleymovement.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=27&Itemid=72