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.

New Korean supermarket comes to town

Image via Wikipedia

Fort Lee, which is filled with Asian restaurants, now boasts two Korean supermarkets.

Han Nam Mart employees in red jackets were still putting price tags on grocery items and shelves Thursday, but this new Korean supermarket in Fort Lee is open for business.

This first Han Nam Mart in North Jersey is not to be confused with H Mart -- formerly Han Ah Reum -- the dominant Korean chain with four stores in Bergen County. 

The new supermarket, which has scheduled a grand opening for Jan. 27, is in the Plaza West Shopping Center just off Route 46.

This is a big space, formerly a Pathmark, but there are smaller selections of fish, produce and prepared Korean food than at H Mart, and far more American grocery items. I looked at some, such as canned red salmon and mixed berry jam made with sugar, and prices are higher than at ShopRite.

For example, Barilla pasta was two for $3, compared with three for $4 or nine for $10 during the Can Can Sale at ShopRite. Stem tomatoes from Texas were $1.49 a pound at Han Nam Mart. The new store carries a good selection of Arirang-brand kimchi from Englewood.

I bought a three-pound jar of peeled ginger in water for $1.99, the first time I've seen this convenience item. Organic jumbo brown, cage-free eggs were $2.29 a dozen. Lactaid organic 2% milk was $3.99 for a half-gallon -- cheaper than the same milk from Organic Valley.

Enoki mushrooms were 40 cents for an estimated four-ounce package. I bought five, and for a dinner side dish, I sauteed the spaghetti-like mushrooms in olive oil with a little salt until they were hot.

Whole fresh whiting was $3.99 a pound, and I bought two one-pounders for dinner Friday night.

I saw several shelves without price tags, and I couldn't find much prepared food, including the stewed tofu with red-pepper paste and stewed Alaskan pollock with hot peppers I usually get at H Mart.


At checkout, I used two reusable grocery bags, but received no credit for them, as I do at H Mart.

When I am in Fort Lee, I find the newest H Mart near Route 4 more convenient than this new supermarket if I want greens, fresh fish and prepared Korean food. 

I live in Hackensack, and a bigger H Mart in Little Ferry, one of my favorite stores, isn't far from the Hackensack ShopRite and Costco.

Han Nam Mart, 1475 Bergen Boulevard, Fort Lee; 201-224-0036.