Oh! Calamares Peruvian Restaurant

My wife and son weren't interested in the black mint sauce, ceviche, squid or rabbit. Before I could order the braised tripe, she asked for a small sample. We were looking over the adventurous menu at Oh! Calamares, a Peruvian restaurant in Kearny, and trying to put together a meal on Saturday night, our one dinner out last week.

The menu listed dishes I had never seen at our favorite Peruvian restaurants, including Pollos El Chevere in the city of Passaic and Jaimito's in Clifton. The former is owned by Japanese-Peruvians, the latter by Chinese-Peruvians. Italians also influenced the cooking of Peru.

My wife and son insisted on ordering chicken soup ($8.50), and the bowl was so big, they not only couldn't finish it, but they had room for little else. Each bowl contained a quarter of a big, boiled chicken in one piece and fat, Chinese-style noodles that were falling apart.

I ordered chicharron de pescado ($10.50) as an appetizer -- fried chunks of breaded grouper fillet, fried yuca and tartar sauce. We ignored the tartar sauce and doused the fish and yuca with the pale-green hot sauce we got when we sat down with a separate dish of addictive, popped and salted corn kernels. The fish-yuca appetizer was great.

Our entrees were cau-cau ($9) -- braised tripe and potatoes with peas, served with white rice -- and tallarin saltado ($15) -- thick, Chinese-style spaghetti with shrimp. I did my best, but we took about half of each home. We drizzled hot sauce on the mild, toothsome tripe and potatoes. The shrimp snapped.

So there are lots of dishes left to try, probably when I go alone for lunch: grilled, marinated veal-heart kebabs; sliced, boiled potatoes in a black mint sauce; oven-roasted rabbit; spicy, braised duck, black-conch ceviche, and more.

The articulate, young man who showed us to our table said the restaurant, once located in North Bergen, was named after his father's onetime favorite place in Peru. He is a second-generation restaurateur. The building looks modern outside and traditional on the three levels inside. Tables are bare. The atmosphere was marred by a poor quality DVD of a concert that was playing at high volume on flat-screen TVs in the two-level dining room.

Kearny Avenue, once solely a destination for Scottish fish and chips, now is home to several ethnic restaurants besides Oh! Calamares (that's "Oh! Squid" in English).


Oh! Calamares Restaurant, 102 Kearny Ave., Kearny;
201-998-4111. Peruvian beer and wine available.
Municipal parking lot across the street.

On a food run down south

A friend and I took a drive yesterday into southern Bergen County and part of  Hudson County, looking for good food. We found a heady ethnic mix of Italian, Portuguese, Peruvian, Scottish, Brazilian and Colombian fare, though we didn't sample all of it.

We started out on Ridge Road in Lyndhurst, where every block seemed to have an Italian trattoria, bakery or deli.

Our destination was the corner retail store in the Pechter's factory, which occupies a full square block in Harrison, suffusing the neighborhood with the comforting smell of fresh-baked bread. We bought and split a sliced, three-pound seeded rye (about 2 feet long) for $3.75, and I grabbed some small onion and large poppy seed rolls. (840 Jersey St., 973-373-1200, cash only.)

On the way back, we stopped at The Thistle Restaurant in Kearny, one of the reliable places for Scottish fish and chips. I took out a dinner serving of battered and fried haddock and french fries (from a bag) for $13.95. My 12-year-old son managed to eat about half of it last night; he liked the fish and didn't complain about the fries. (87 Kearny Ave., 201-998-3443.)

Our final stop was Mazur's Bakery in Lyndhurst, where I picked up a pumpkin pie ($7.98). My friend was delighted with a large raisin bread for only 99 cents, a permanent special, the clerk said. (323 Ridge Road, 201-438-8500.)

One of the places I'd like to return to is Oh! Calamares, a stylish-looking Peruvian restaurant in Kearny. The takeout menu lists dishes I haven't seen in other Peruvian places, such as Pollos El Chevere in Passaic, including rabbit, tripe, potatoes in a black-mint sauce and black-conch ceviche.