Lactose-free search, cheap sake, discounted coffee beans, baguettes

At the ShopRite in Paramus, Lactaid-brand 100% Lactose-Free milk is far more expensive than the store brand, even when on sale.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

After the bigger Costco Wholesale opened in Teterboro, I haven't been able to find Kirkland Signature 2% Lactose-Free Milk.

The lactose-free house brand showed up for the first time in February at the old warehouse store in Hackensack -- three half-gallons for $7.99 or about $2.66 each, much cheaper than any other brand.

Then, ShopRite lowered the price of its store brand lactose-free milk to $2.99 from $3.49.

On my last few trips to Costco, I've had to settle for a 96-0unce container of Lactaid-brand 2% Lactose-Free Milk for $4.99, a dollar less than at ShopRite.

Now, I'm back to buying half-gallons of 1% lactose-free milk at ShopRite, 224 Route 4 east, Paramus.

On Tuesday, I purchased two half-gallons of the ShopRite brand and one of Smart Balance Fat-Free Lactose-Free Milk, which was on sale for $2.99, a reduction of $1.80.

ShopRite also had two Golden Pineapples on sale for $2.50 each. A bunch of fresh cilantro was 99 cents.

Mitsuwa Marketplace, the pricey Japanese supermarket at 595 River Road in Edgewater, is offering boxes of osechi for New Year parties -- sushi, kelp rolls, sweet omelets, fish and other food --that are priced from $260 to $413.

Sake for cooking

I shop at Mitsuwa in Edgewater once or twice a year, but make few purchases at the Japanese supermarket known for sticker shock.

You can easily spend $50 for a pound of beef or giant blue-fin tuna, even the farmed variety from Spain.

Imagine paying a premium for raw fish with more harmful mercury than many others.

Better to boycott over-fished blue-fin tuna, as I've been doing for many years, as well as Mitsuwa's annual blue-fin tuna cutting demonstration, if the store still puts on the event.

My only purchases on Tuesday were two 1.5 liter bottles of sake, which I use for cooking, on sale for $6.99 each, a discount of $3.

Sho Chiku Bai-brand sake is produced in California, not Japan, and has an alcohol content of 15%.

The colorful label shows that 2016 is the Year of the Monkey.

One change I welcomed on Tuesday is that Mitsuwa finally accepts American Express credit cards.

But the store no longer operates a free shuttle to Edgewater from Manhattan.

A 1-pound package of Starbucks whole coffee beans was sold at deep discount on Cyber Monday. When the beans are ground Turkish, the resulting powder yields a robust cup from my drip coffee maker.

Dark-roast coffee beans

I've been buying Starbucks whole coffee beans for use in my drip coffee maker since 2013.

On Cyber Monday, Starbucks.com offered bags of whole bean and ground coffee at the biggest discount I've seen, and repeated the offer on Sunday.

Shipping was free both times, and I got $25 off a purchase of $60 or more on each order.

Today, I received the second shipment of five 1-pound bags of whole coffee beans, all dark roast, that I'll take to the store at 360 Essex St. and have ground Turkish.

I paid $7.11 to $9.43 for each pound of coffee beans, which normally retail for $11.95 to $14.95.

Balthazar baguette

On Wednesday, I stopped at Balthazar, 214 S. Dean St. in Englewood, for three crusty baguettes, which are still $2 each, as they were when the French bakery's retail store opened 13 years ago.

Each baguette is just under 2 feet long, and they are crispy when the humidity is low, as it was on Wednesday.

I cut each baguette into four sections, slice them in half for sandwiches and freeze them. The frozen bread thaws in the toaster.

I'm on a no-bread diet, but allowed myself three small ends or heels with my dinner of whole-wheat pasta with sardines, salad and a couple of glasses of Chianti Riserva from Trader Joe's. 

Window shopping at pricey Mitsuwa, stocking up at Korean markets

The belly meat of even farmed blue-fin tuna goes for $79.99 a pound at Mitsuwa Marketplace, the Japanese supermarket and food court in Edgewater. The portion shown here is only 1.6 ounces and costs $8. Meanwhile, store-made sushi rolls contained added sugar and some salad dressings I saw listed high-fructose corn syrup as an ingredient.

Wagyu Beef, named for a Japanese cattle breed, is heavily marbled with flavorful fat, and priced at $44.99 a pound.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

On my rare visits to one of North Jersey's most expensive supermarkets, I buy cheap sake for cooking and a couple of over-sized cans of Japanese beer.

But I spend most of my time gawking at the ridiculously high prices Mitsuwa Marketplace shoppers pay for what is billed as premium fish and beef.

Anyone who thinks Whole Foods Market is expensive will get a reality check at Mitsuwa.

Over the years, I've splurged at this Japanese supermarket on ices delicately flavored with fruit and mackerel sushi rolls imported from Japan.

On Friday night, I picked up a 1.5-liter bottle of Yaegaki Sake brewed in California ($6.99), a 25-ounce can of Kirin Ichiban 100% malt beer ($2.99) and a 1-liter can of Asahi Super Dry ($3.49).

I briefly contemplated going to my favorite Japanese restaurant, Hiura on Main Street near Anderson Avenue in Fort Lee, with the giant can of Asahi, but then how would I drive home after consuming all that beer?

Mitsuwa Marketplace, 595 River Road, Edgewater; 201-941-9113. America Express credit cards aren't accepted. 

In contrast to Mitsuwa's prices for raw fish and meat, stands in the food court offer complete meals for under $10, above and below, and seating at tables with a view of the Hudson River and upper Manhattan.

Plastic representations of food-court meals look good enough to eat.

Shoppers at Mitsuwa Marketplace have the Hudson, but at H Mart in Little Ferry on Sunday, customers found a flooded parking lot entrance full of hidden potholes.

From the Hudson to the Hackensack

At the customer service counter of H Mart in Little Ferry, the young woman apologized for the flooded, potholed parking lot, but said the Korean supermarket chain has no plans to fix it until spring.

I've spoken to other customers who believe the shabby store, which occupies less than half of a large, otherwise empty building near the Hackensack River, will be torn down eventually.

Meanwhile, the store offers some of the best free samples on weekends, making lunch unnecessary.

On Sunday, I tried three or four kinds of fresh and dried fruit, a seafood pancake, cooked octopus slices, green tea noodles and fish cake in hot broth.

I picked up a box of Shin Ramyun, a spicy instant noodle soup, with 16 4.2-ounce portions for $9.99 with a store card, a savings of $7.

Two big heads of leafy baby mustard greens were on sale for 88 cents a pound (regularly $1.69 a pound).

H Mart, 260 Bergen Turnpike, Little Ferry; 201-814-0400.

Arirang Kimchi 

From H Mart in Little Ferry, I drove to Arirang Kimchi in Ridgefield, and purchased a 64-ounce bottle of Mahk or Cabbage Kimchi ($10).

Arirang is in the small H&Y Marketplace shopping center, where I picked up Marinated Tofu ($4.99) and Jun's Wild Sesame Tofu ($5), both made in that Korean supermarket.

Red bell peppers were on sale for 79 cents a pound.

H&Y Marketplace (Han Yang Mart), 1 Remsen Place, Ridgefield; 201-943-7100. Free food samples on weekends.

So Gong Dong, a popular soft-tofu restaurant where a complete meal costs $10, is on the second floor of this Broad Avenue building in Palisades Park. My final stop on Sunday afternoon was to pick up takeout for dinner.

Fruits of my Korean food odyssey at my front door on Sunday.

Organic Spanish rice, Australian beef, blue-fin tuna boycott

Moist, filling and delicious, and a great bread substitute: Organic brown rice with organic chicken stock, organic diced tomatoes, peeled garlic cloves and saffron.

Editor's note: Today, I discuss an easy recipe for organic Spanish rice, share an e-mail from a woman whose family raises beef in Australia, and urge you to boycott the annual blue-fin-tuna cutting demonstration at a Japanese supermarket.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Here is another easy electric rice-cooker recipe that requires you to do little more than measure, pour the ingredients into the appliance and plug it in.

I used three cups of organic brown rice, twice that in liquid (organic chicken stock or water), a can of organic diced tomatoes with their juices, a lot of peeled garlic cloves, a few ounces of extra-virgin olive oil, sea salt and a few threads of Spanish saffron.

Most of the ingredients came from Costco Wholesale.

Doubling the amount of liquid in relation to the rice results in a moist dish with creamy garlic cloves.

A few days later, after enjoying the rice for breakfast and dinner instead of bread, I prepared pretty much the same dish using organic quinoa and organic lentils, in addition to the liquid, diced tomatoes and garlic cloves.

Organic quinoa with organic diced tomatoes, organic lentils and garlic cloves, all from Costco. I served it for breakfast with a wedge of egg-white frittata made with chopped garlic, black olives and sun-dried tomatoes, and topped with Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto.

Grass-fed Nature's Reserve Australian beef pan fried with cabbage, sweet peppers, onions and garlic.

Australian beef in the U.S.

In recent years, I've noticed a subtle shift in the promotion of Australian beef that no longer mentions whether the cattle were raised without animal antibiotics, which some experts say are harmful to humans.

ShopRite Supermarkets, where I buy Nature's Reserve whole beef tenderloins for filet mignon, also has added another line of Australian beef, Clayton's Organic Beef.

Organic beef can't be raised with antibiotics, growth hormones or feed with GMOs.

Here is a note from Diane Carter, who is in the cattle business in Australia:

"Here are a few thoughts and facts about Australian beef.  

"My family have been in the cattle business in Australia for 100+ years. A lot has changed.  I won’t go into all the history but, over the last 5-10 years there has been a resurgence of grass-fed and finished beef.

"While the domestic market accounts for the largest share of Australia’s beef production, overseas markets are extremely important, often taking beef cuts that are not as popular with Australian consumers.  

"The USA is currently the biggest overseas market, having just overtaken Japan.  

"The USA takes large quantities of 'manufacturing' beef (read hamburgers), whereas Japan and South Korea, the next biggest, import a lot of prime cuts as well as steak for stir fry and hot pots.

"China is now emerging as a rapidly growing market for our beef.

"The question of antibiotics is a bit complicated.  

"Nature’s Reserve is not a single source supplier. They buy their meat from a large number of producers.  It is all grass fed and finished but they cannot always get enough supply to meet their demands by insisting on antibiotic-free meat.  

"Their suppliers generally will not be using antibiotics as growth promotants, but will treat individual animals when necessary.  

"You would have to go organic to be sure of being completely antibiotic free. Clayton’s, being organic, can make this claim.  

"As for kosher and halal, their meats would be like all others, i.e., if they are lot fed they will almost certainly have had antibiotics, grass fed may or may not, organic will not.

"I hope this sheds some light on the subject for you and your readers."

Time to boycott Mitsua tuna cutting

The giant blue-fin tuna is one of the most magnificent creatures in the sea, but it has been over-exploited for sushi and shashimi.

A few years ago, Mitsuwa Marketplace, the big Japanese supermarket in Edgewater was selling the prized belly meat for $60 a pound.

This fast-swimming fish is even being farmed to meet the demand from Japan and other countries.

Every year, Mitsuwa stages a two-day tuna cutting demonstration, where a small army of workers reduce previously frozen blue-fin tunas weighing hundreds of pounds into thousands of packages of raw fish.

The heads of the fish are usually put on display.

I have been boycotting the demonstration since 2010, and urge you to do the same this weekend.

Blue-fin tuna may be delicious, but the red flesh also contains an unusually large amount of harmful mercury.

Consumption by children and women of child-bearing age isn't recommended. 

For Japanese cabbage rolls, you're asked to use your imagination

Farm-raised blue-fin tuna sashimi is $49.99 a pound at Mitsuwa Martketplace in Edgewater. Eggs from caged fish are used to raise the tuna without hormones, according to European media. Wild blue-fin tuna are over-fished and endangered, principally to satisfy the demand from Japan and other countries. Blue-fin tuna also contain high levels of harmful mercury, and consumers should consider such alternatives as yellow-fin tuna, albacore or wahoo.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The sales flier from Mitsuwa Marketplace that came in the mail showed appetizing cabbage rolls and, when I looked closer, I saw "meat substitute" as a suggested stuffing -- perfect for a non-meat eater like me.

I once saw stuffed cabbage offered as a lunch special at Hiura, a family owned Japanese restaurant in Fort Lee, and always wondered if the dish was adapted from another cuisine.

So, I set off for the big Japanese supermarket in Edgewater, only to be told no cabbage rolls were being offered, just cabbage at 99 cents a pound.

"You are supposed to imagine them," the woman at Mitsuwa's customer service counter said when I showed her the cabbage rolls on the flier.

Asian cabbage is on sale for 99 cents at Mitsuwa Marketplace in Edgewater, but you won't find any cabbage rolls, despite the photo on the sales flier.

  

Farmed blue-fin tuna

I went over to the fish department and looked over farmed blue-fin tuna sashimi and other raw fish, then walked to another part of the store to check out sushi rolls.

I am boycotting blue-fin tuna, but all that fish made me hungry.

Omusubi Gonbei, one of the food stands at Mitsuwa Marketplace, is "cash only," a policy you'll find at most of the other stands. Ramen and full meals also are available at Mitsuwa Marketplace. A stand-alone Japanese restaurant is undergoing renovation.

My two rice balls were made with the palest brown rice I have ever seen.

One of the many plastic models in Mitsuwa's food court.

Rice balls

I snacked on two omusubi or rice balls wrapped in dried seaweed from Omusubi Gonbei, one of the stands in the food court, where tables afforded a terrific view of the Hudson River and Manhattan through dirty plate-glass windows.

One rice ball had spicy pollock roe, and another was stuffed with mustard greens ($2 and $2.20). I asked for them to be made with brown rice.

Raw, wild-caught blue mackerel from Norway was $3.99 for a fillet of one-third or one-half of a pound. Are you supposed to eat the skin, and if not, how do you separate it from the flesh, or are the fillets meant to be cooked?

Seafood rolls include fish eggs.

$1.99 each

I watched Japanese customers filling their baskets or carts with cheap-looking, plastic or metal kitchen items that were on sale for $1.99 each, and wondered what they were thinking.

One young woman put down her hand-held basket, which was brimming with such "convenience" items -- called zakka -- walked outside and returned with a grocery cart.

I stopped for a cup of coffee at a small restaurant just inside the store entrance that offers a Wagyu steak dinner for $24.

Then, I saw a Panasonic store, and decided my old Panasonic 10-cup rice cooker needed a break after at least 15 years of reliable service.

I bought a new one and filled out the order online.

The saleswoman said it would be shipped to me free within a few business days.


Mitsuwa Marketplace, 595 River Road, Edgewater; 201-941-9113. For more information, click on the following link:  Open 365 days a year   

It's time to boycott bluefin tuna stunt

Giant bluefin tuna fisherman Yukinobu Shibata. (Wikipedia)

Mitsuwa Marketplace, the large Japanese supermarket in Edgewater, is staging its "Giant Fresh Bluefin Tuna Festival" this weekend, but anyone with a conscience will stay away, as I have for two years.

I admit that I attended the carving of these beautiful, fast-swimming fish into sashimi by a small army of store workers, as customers pressed against counters on all sides.

And I paid $60 a pound for the prized belly meat -- wrapped in plastic on foam trays -- but that is all in the past.

Japan's voracious appetite for the giant bluefin tuna has driven the fish onto the endangered list, and consuming its mercury-rich flesh is unhealthy.

It's puzzling that Mitsuwa claims the bluefin tuna it will sell this weekend is "fresh."

I have seen only frozen whole bluefin tunas that thawed out and were beheaded before they were carved up.  

The bluefin tuna festival was delayed by Superstorm Sandy, which hit New Jersey on Oct. 29.

Maybe God, Mother Nature or another great force was trying to tell us something.
 

Guess how much salt is in your ramen?

Tonkotsu ramen (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I stopped at the Japanese supermarket in Edgewater on Saturday to sample several kinds of ramen, but was shocked to see how much sodium was listed on the ingredients labels.


Three Japanese companies -- Myojo, Sun Noodle and Yamachan -- set up stands near Mitsuwa's food court and handed out small cups of the ramen they make in the United States.


There were nine varieties of fresh noodles and condensed soup available for purchase at small discounts, but one of the servings contained close to 100% of the daily recommended sodium intake and two others ranged from about 120% to more than 140%.


I have never seen that much salt in a processed food product.


I bought two 2-serving packages of the refrigerated ramen, one from Myojo with 48% sodium and another from Sun Noodle with 65% ($3.69 each).


Those packages had the lowest sodium of the nine varieties of ramen for sale.


My son's favorite spicy Korean soup -- Shin Ramyun Gourmet Spicy Noodle Soup -- contains dried noodles, but only 43% sodium.


He usually asks for it at breakfast, eats all the noodles and dumps most of the red broth -- and the salt -- down the drain.


In related news, a second new Japanese restaurant will be opening soon in Fort Lee, according to a sign I saw in a Main Street storefront.


Ramen Setagaya, a branch of a Manhattan restaurant of the same name, will open around the corner from Batten Ramen, an inexpensive, cash-only BYO on Center Avenue that has served ramen and other Japanese dishes for many years.


The new restaurant will join Yamagata, a high-end Japanese sushi spot in a strip mall on Palisade Avenue.


In recent years, restaurants opening in Fort Lee have been almost exclusively Korean.


Mitsuwa Marketplace, 595 River Road, Edgewater; 
201-941-9133. American Express cards not accepted.

Looking for healthy food in the hospital

Image by Sifu Renka via Flickr

Although you can't stop the destruction of the giant bluefin tuna, you can refuse to buy
 any at Mitsuwa, the Japanese supermarket in Edgewater, and at Japanese restaurants.

Editor's note: Today, I discuss my search for healthy food in a hospital cafeteria, urge you to boycott a Japanese supermarket's bluefin tuna festival, note higher prices at Costco Wholesale and offer a recipe for a mayo-less canned fish salad.

Sliced strawberries nestled in whipped cream? For breakfast?


I stared at the tray on the fruit-salad bar in the cafeteria of Englewood Hospital and Medical Center, and wondered what hospital administrators are thinking.


In September, I had tests and then open-heart surgery at the hospital, and was served a series of healthy but awful meals during my recovery: no salt, no sugar, no caffeine and no taste.


Since I started cardiac rehab a few weeks ago, I had walked past the cafeteria on the first floor without going in, so on Friday, I walked through and did the same on Monday morning.


The cafeteria is open to the public as well as to the staff, including doctors and nurses, but the chances of finding healthy food are slim. 


On Friday, just after 9 a.m., the first salad bar I came to had only a few shrink-wrapped platters of pale, farmed salmon with vegetables or salad, but on Monday, the same bar was empty.


To the right, there were bananas and two other kinds of whole fruit, plus buttered rolls, big Jersey bagels, pastries, muffins, sugar buns, cookies and pound cake. 


The Boar's Head Sandwich Bar was self-service, but you can be sure the only cold cuts served there are from animals raised with antibiotics and growth hormones, and cured with preservatives.


A grill offered an "all-natural" hot dog without nitrites for $2.66. The hamburger and cheeseburger are a mystery, however.


A steam table offered two or three kinds of hot cereal and scrambled eggs, plus greasy mystery bacon, sausage and corned-beef hash.


At the fruit-salad bar, fruit salad was 50 cents an ounce -- or $8 a pound. I guess the sliced strawberries and whipped cream cost the same.


I'm on a no-bread diet, so if I wanted to have breakfast there, I would have to satisfy myself with coffee or tea and fruit salad or maybe some eggs without anything else.


Tuna-boycott time


It's time to boycott the Giant Bluefin Tuna Festival on Nov. 19-20 at Mitsuwa Marketplace in Edgewater.


Please stay away from the Japanese supermarket's three "cutting performances," in which beheaded fish weighing hundreds of pounds are reduced to sushi and sashimi by a small army of workers.


The magnificent giant bluefin tuna is an endangered species, but the Japanese have a voracious appetite for the fish, despite its extremely high mercury content. 


In 2009, Mitsuwa sold sashimi from the belly of the fish for $60 a pound. 


Women of child-bearing age and children should not consume any blue-fin tuna.


Higher Costco prices


In looking over my wife's receipt on Monday from Costco Wholesale in Hackensack, I noticed a couple of price increases.


Two pounds of Jarlsberg sliced, reduced-fat Swiss Cheese are now $9.49, compared to $8.99.


Two large containers of Greek Yogurt are now $6.99, and 1 pound of Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix is $4.89.


The Roma plum tomatoes are from Euro Fresh Farms, but they are grown in the United States and pesticide free ($4.99 for 2 pounds).


Canned-fish salad


I chopped up red onion and sweet yellow pepper, opened up two cans of pink salmon, two cans of Moroccan sardines and a can of light, yellowfin tuna.


Everything, including the liquid from the cans, went into a plastic container, and I mixed it all up.


Then I added lots of Dijon mustard, ground cumin and fresh lemon juice to taste, but no mayonnaise. 


A big mound of the canned fish salad made a nice breakfast over red-leaf lettuce dressed in extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar, with olives on the side. 

Boycott bluefin-tuna cutting

Image via Wikipedia

Last year, the giant bluefin tuna I saw cut up originally weighed about 1,000 pounds.

In the past two years, I joined hundreds of others jostling for space at the Japanese supermarket in Edgewater to watch workers reduce a giant bluefin tuna to sushi and small blocks of sashimi. 

I bought a half-pound of the well-marbled belly meat, called oh-toro, for $62.99 a pound in 2009 -- up from $60 a pound in 2008.

However, since last year's "cutting performance" at Mitsuwa Marketplace, the news about bluefin tuna has been all bad, and I'm planning to boycott the performance and sale on Nov. 20 and 21. 

I'm urging you to do the same. Click on the link below to read how these magnificent creatures are being driven toward extinction. The Japanese eat most of the world catch.

Although bluefin tuna contains beneficial Omega-7 fatty acids and literally melts in your mouth when raw, it also has a great deal of harmful mercury.

Dark side of bluefin tuna harvest

Greenpeace and Costco

Greenpeace has launched a campaign against Costo for selling what it calls "red-listed fish," such as orange roughy and Chilean sea bass. 


I buy a lot of seafood at the Costco store in Hackensack, and have never seen either of them -- fresh or frozen. 

My repeat buys include wild sockeye salmon, fresh, frozen or smoked; wild-caught haddock and flounder; frozen, wild-caught  mahi-mahi; and farmed shrimp and prawns from Vietnam.

I e-mailed Costco last week to ask about the Greenpeace campaign, but haven't received a response. Click on the link below for more information:

Greenpeace goes after Costco 

Warm, delicious Japanese rice balls

Image via Wikipedia

The Mitsuwa Marketplace flier translates omusubi as rice balls, but actually, they are triangular in shape. Some are wrapped in seaweed, providing a convenient holder, and others are studded with sesame seeds. But they have one thing in common: When eaten right after they are made, they are warm, comforting and delicious.

Omusubi Gonbei, a Japanese chain known for its handmade rice balls, opened a kiosk at the Edgewater supermarket on Friday, and it will be selling rice balls there from 9:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. through Nov. 7. They are made with organic white or brown rice, and cost $1.50 to $2.50 each (cash only), depending on the filling. A flier I received Friday listed the price incorrectly as $1.50 each.

When I arrived a little after 1 Friday afternoon, the shelves were bare -- the demand was overwhelming on the first day -- and the kiosk staff was getting ready to make more rice balls. I was told the wait would be at least 30 minutes.


I ordered rice balls with salmon eggs ($2.50 each) and went to have a cup of coffee. When I returned, I was informed the salmon eggs were still frozen and I would have to choose another filling. I asked for five rice balls with cooked salmon. Meanwhile, I bought a warm mixed-rice ball to tide me over and ate it right away. I ate two of the salmon rice balls with the last of my coffee, one in the car and saved the others for my wife.

They are delicious in their simplicity: a few ounces of warm rice formed by hand with a little cooked fish and miso paste inside, wrapped in seaweed. I asked if the Japanese ate them as an appetizer or snack, but was told they are considered a meal.


As a steady stream of customers lined up to place their orders, I watched a man and two women behind the counter making rice balls as fast as possible. 


I have been eating rice balls for years, but none of them approach the warm rice balls turned out by this team. When they return to Japan, you can find rice balls at Mitsuwa, as well as at Parisienne Bakery at Main Street and Center Avenue in Fort Lee.

Mitsuwa Marketplace, 595 River Road, Edgewater; 201-941-9113. 

A buy on Mexican hot sauce 

I found a 34-ounce bottle of Valentine Mexican hot sauce for $1.99 at Hackensack Market on Passaic Street in Hackensack. The shelf sign said two for $4. I bought the bottle with the black label, marked "extra hot."

 

An anniversary sale I couldn't miss

Image via Wikipedia

I was out of the inexpensive sake I use for cooking, so the anniversary sale at Mitsuwa Marketplace in Edgewater came just in time. Prices are good through Feb. 28. This sale is not to be confused with the Decemeber sale, when just about everything in the Japanese supermarket is 20% off.

You will find some items at 25% off, such as the California sake I use to steam clams and frozen wild salmon or to add to an Asian-inspired noodle sauce. Dry Yaegaki sake is $5.99 for a 1.5 liter bottle -- $2 off. I bought two yesterday. I also bought Hakushika-brand Japanese sake for drinking, $7.99 for a 720 milliliter bottle -- also $2 off.

Unfortunately, sale items are scattered throughout the store and many were gone by noon, when I got there. Three non-sale items: instant ramen with the lowest salt content I could find -- Shirakiku Miso Ramen, five packages for $4.99; three packages of miso soup mix with tofu ($1.99), grilled eel ($5.25) and whole wheat soba noddles ($3.49).

Mitsuwa has one of the best food courts around, and tables have a terrific view of Manhattan and Riverside Church. You can enjoy ramen, Berkshire pork cutlets, sushi and even spaghetti and meatballs. At St. Honore Bakery, where I bought a cup of black coffee, you can get a pan-fried noodle hero sandwich for $1.80, said to be a popular item.

I don't think you can find higher prices than you'll see on kobe beef, raw blue-fin tuna belly, produce and some other items at Mitsuwa. I saw one young man selecting two, small Washington State-raised kobe steaks -- each about a third of a pound -- for about $26 a pound.

On the way home, I always stop at the Trader Joe's just down the road for uncured, preservative-free hot dogs and bacon ($3.99), and drug- and preservative-free Applegate Farms cold cuts, $3.59 for ham and $3.69 for herbed turkey breast. (Fairway Market in Paramus offers Applegate Frams products by the pound, as well as pre-sliced.) I also picked up organic, free-range chicken drumsticks for $1.99 a pound.

Trader Giotto's hand-made, frozen, mostly organic vegetarian pizza from Italy ($4.29) sounded promising, having been cooked in a wood-burning oven. I heated in up for dinner (13 minutes in a 400-degree oven), and it was filling but bland. When I served it to my wife, her reaction made me feel like a waiter in a lousy pizzeria.

Mitsuwa Marketplace, 595 River Road, Edgewater;
201-941-9113. American Express cards not accepted.
http://www.mitsuwa.com

Trader Joe's, 715 River Road, Edgewater;
201-945-5932. http://traderjoes.com