Two lunches: Trip to the Middle East and exotic seafood close to home

Trip to the Middle East, a hot appetizer served in the cafe at Fattal's in Paterson, could feed two or three people for lunch.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

After picking up a menu at Fattal's in September, a hot appetizer called Trip to the Middle East stuck in my mind.

Dips, stuffed grape leaves, kibbeh, falafel, pies, pickles and more -- this one dish has many of the great Syrian comfort foods I enjoyed growing up in Brooklyn.

On Tuesday, I finally ordered one to eat in the specialty food store's small cafe, but took home plenty of leftovers, because there was enough to feed two or three people ($14.99).

As I ate, I realized my hunger was driven in part by the anniversary the next day, Dec. 7, of the death of my mother, Grace Ashkenazi Sasson, who was born in Aleppo, Syria.  

Substitutes

I don't eat meat or poultry, and had to work out substitutions for the deep-fried kibbeh stuffed with ground beef, lamb, onions and walnuts; the grape leaves with meat and the meat pies.

Fattal's makes wonderful grape leaves stuffed with vegetables, and terrific pies with vegetables, including sweet pepper, and olives. 

I also got two more falafels (made with chick peas, fava beans and spices) in place of the two kibbeh.

I loved everything, but thought the tabbouleh could have used more bulgur, and at least one more Syrian pocket bread should be included.

Then, I went into Fattal's grocery aisles for a dozen cans of Al-Shark brand Sardines in Tomato Sauce to take home (99 cents each).  

My next stop was Costco Wholesale in Wayne, where I picked up eight bottles of red wine, including Kirkland Signature Malbec from Argentina ($7.99), and a boxed set of four Bordeauxs from France ($29.99 or about $7.50 per bottle).

Kirkland Signature Prosecco, a sparkling wine from Italy, is an easy to swallow $6.99; and at only $19.99, the house label Champagne (Brut) from France is less than half the price of some other brands.

You'll find the cafe at Fattal's in the back of the store, past the pastries, spices, gold jewelry and bread racks.

I ate sandwiches of grape leaves and falafel stuffed with tomato, pickles, hummus and baba ghanoush.

Three-liter bottles of California red wine at Costco Wholesale in Wayne.

Details

Fattal's, 975-77 Main St., Paterson; 1-973-742-7125. Open 7 days. Large parking lot. Syrian bread, groceries, meat and poultry, gold jewelry, cafe.

Costco Wholesale, 149 Route 23, Wayne. Open 7 days. Members-only warehouse also sells wine, champagne and prosecco, including Costco's Kirkland Signature label.

A Seafood Trio --Char-Grilled Swordfish, Halibut and Octopus -- served over Stewed Lentils was one of the lunch specials on Monday at Seafood Gourmet, the fish market-restaurant in Maywood, below.

Exotic seafood

If you love seafood, don't miss the imaginative specials from Chef Dave Fuentes at Seafood Gourmet, the fish market-restaurant on Maywood's main street.

On Monday, I met a friend there for lunch and enjoyed two of the specials, a cup of Bahamian Conch Chowder ($3), and a Char-Grilled Seafood Trio swimming in a soupy stew of lentils and other vegetables ($16). 

The conch in the soup and the octopus in the Seafood Trio were unusually tender, and the latter was served with a spoon so I could enjoy all of the lentil-and-vegetable stew. 

After lunch, I stopped at Maywood's Marketplace for a large head of Romaine lettuce ($1.29) my wife wanted, and looked over the impressive selection of takeout food and wine.

Nearly all of the fresh fish in the market at Seafood Gourmet can be enjoyed in the small dining room or is prepared and available for takeout, below.

The produce section at Maywood's Marketplace, above, and takeout food, below.

Above the creamed spinach are mashed sweet potatoes.

Details

Seafood Gourmet, 103 W. Pleasant Ave., Maywood; 201-843-8558. BYO, free street parking, closed Sundays.

Maywood's Marketplace, 78 W. Pleasant Ave., Maywood; 201-843-8361. Open 7 days.

Another great seafood lunch on Maywood's charming main street

Soft-shell crabs and fresh trout on ice, above and below, at Seafood Gourmet, the Maywood fish market and restaurant where you can order just about anything you see served to you in the dining room.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Maywood's downtown is not only pleasant to visit. 

The main street is called West Pleasant Avenue.

That's where you'll find Seafood Gourmet, the market and restaurant that keeps your fish or other selection fresh on ice until you order it for lunch or dinner.

On Monday, I met a friend for lunch there, then strolled along the main street, where parking is free, and stopped at Maywood's Marketplace, one of the best independent supermarkets around.

Grilled Wild Salmon Miso with Jasmine Rice and Bok Choy was one of the specials on Monday ($14.99).

My friend ordered another special, Southern Fried Catfish with Black Beans and Yellow Rice ($12.99), and picked up the check.

From simple to sophisticated

The kitchen at Seafood Gourmet can prepare your selection simply broiled with steamed vegetables, but also offers sophisticated specials, such as the wild salmon with a miso glaze I ordered.

I tasted my friend's catfish, which was coated in corn meal before frying, and it was moist and delicious.

The cook shows restraint in adding salt and other seasoning, a nod to the many older customers who patronize the restaurant.

The small dining room can get noisy when full, as it was on Monday afternoon.

Other specials on Monday were an entree of Crabmeat Stuffed Calamari, simmered in a Blue Crab tomato sauce ($13.99); and an appetizer of Prince Edward Island Mussels steamed with beer and jalapeno peppers ($9.99)

Twin Door Tavern at 122 W. Pleasant Ave. is offering an Oktoberfest menu.

Maywood's Marketplace is an independent supermarket that may remind you of Cafasso's Fairway Market in Fort Lee. I bought five ears of fresh sweet corn for $1.99.

At Maywood's Marketplace, there is plenty of opportunity to say "cheese."

The deli counter.

Seafood Gourmet, 103 W. Pleasant Ave., Maywood; 201-843-8558. Open for lunch and dinner. Closed Sundays. BYO, free street parking, Web site. 

With only 38 seats in the dining room, reservations are recommended for dinner.

Maywood's Marketplace, 78 W. Pleasant Ave., Maywood; 201-843-8361. Open 7 days from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., Web site.

At Seafood Gourmet: With great fish, I make poor choices

Almost all of the fresh seafood you see on ice in the market, above, is served in the adjoining dining room at Seafood Gourmet in Maywood.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

With only about 35 seats, getting a weekend table at Seafood Gourmet in Maywood is a challenge.

The popular fish market-restaurant reminds me of DiSalvo's on Main Street in Hackensack, where I enjoyed many great lunches of fried calamari topped with a spicy red sauce in the years I worked nearby.

But Seafood Gourmet offers a wider variety of seafood and more sophisticated preparations than DiSalvo's, which closed and was eventually replaced by a Cuban restaurant.

I called Seafood Gourmet on Saturday afternoon and was told we could dine at 5 p.m. or 8 p.m. The week before, there wasn't a free table until 8:30 p.m.

Sole Francaise with roasted potatoes and mixed vegetables.

Lots of choice

At lunch, Seafood Gourmet offers 13 different fish fillets or shrimp, scallops, lobster tails and other seafood, either simply broiled or grilled, and at dinner there is a choice of 18.

Fourteen are available fried, and the menu also lists appetizers, salads, sandwiches, a raw bar and even chicken dishes.

A tank in the market held live Canadian lobsters for $12.99 a pound.

Oscar who?

What did I do? I fell for one of the specials, Halibut Oscar ($25.99), prepared with a sherry glaze, topped with crab meat and served with risotto and fresh asparagus.

When I ordered, our waiter said the halibut had run out (at 5 p.m.?), and Chilean sea bass was being substituted.

That sea bass is actually the brutish Patagonian toothfish, which is over-fished and high in mercury, so I asked for something else and was offered wild salmon.

The king salmon, which I also saw displayed on ice in the adjacent market, was nicely prepared and moist throughout.

I liked the dish, but being on a diet, I could have done without all that risotto. With a simply prepared fish fillet, I could have asked for steamed vegetables.

And I wanted a salad, but our server apparently didn't hear me.

He didn't charge me for the cup of delicious Red Snapper Chowder I also picked from the specials menu, and the choice with my entree was either soup or salad.

He did the same for the cups of tasty Lobster Bisque my wife and mother-in-law ordered.

And I heard him offering specials to others, but not to me, including the rarely seen arctic char and grey sole.

King Salmon Oscar topped with crab meat. I asked that the dish be prepared without butter.

Perfect shrimp

My wife had linguine with jumbo shrimp in vodka sauce ($21.99), substituting that pasta for penne and asking the kitchen to hold the scallops that also come with the dish.

She said the crunchy shrimp were cooked perfectly.

And my mother-in-law ordered Sole Francaise in a lemon-butter sauce with roasted potatoes and mixed vegetable (also $21.99).

Neither could finish their meals, and took home leftovers. 

I counted 34 seats in the narrow, somewhat cramped dining room.

We did a lot of waiting for the food, and a takeout order of steamed clams ($9.99) I asked for when the busboy picked up the unfinished entrees to pack them.

It's likely the kitchen couldn't keep up with the orders, because there were three servers and the busboy, and not all the tables were full.


The Restaurant at Seafood Gourmet, 103 W. Pleasant Ave., Maywood; 201-843-8558. BYO, free street parking, open for lunch and dinner, closed Sundays.

Web site: Seafood-Gourmet.com

Our second choice for seafood is no slouch

Shrimp Soong at Lotus Cafe in Hackensack.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

We planned to have dinner at Seafood Gourmet, the popular fish market-restaurant in Maywood, but couldn't get a reservation before 8:30 on Saturday night.

So, we jumped into the car and drove a couple of miles to Lotus Cafe in Hackensack, our favorite restaurant for Chinese-style seafood.

Three of use ordered seafood soup, a shrimp dish, a fish dish and a vegetable stir fried with fresh garlic, plus small bowls of complimentary white and brown rice. We took home leftovers.

My portion of Seafood Soup for 3 ($11.25) contained a stray piece of meat, which I gave to my wife in return for the tender squid she put in my bowl.

Our waiter divided and served the soup, as well as the Shrimp Soong.

From the menu's list of Chef's Specialties, we chose Shrimp Soong ($16.95), a delicious combination of minced shrimp with celery, pine nuts, black mushrooms, water chestnuts, sweet pepper and peas, which we ate wrapped in a lettuce leaf.


  

Ask for chili paste to spice up your food.

Our second seafood dish was one of our favorites, Filet of Sole with Scallion & Ginger ($16.95), and our vegetable was Chinese Broccoli stir fried with fresh garlic, a vegetable that is both leafy and crunchy ($9.95).

We found that all of the dishes but the soup served four.

Filet of Sole with Scallion & Ginger.

Chinese Broccoli.

Lotus Cafe, 450 Hackensack Ave., in the Home Depot Shopping Center, Hackensack; 1-201-488-7070. BYO. Free delivery within 3 miles ($12 minimum).

Lotus Cafe is a BYO.

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.

At Seafood Gourmet in Maywood

Image via Wikipedia

The Great Fish Market, an oil painting by Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568-1625).

Enter Seafood Gourmet's market and restaurant in Maywood, walk past the fresh fish in the refrigerated cases and take a seat in the small dining room in the rear. When you're handed the menu of specials, it's likely the fish you just saw will be on it.

The Maywood restaurant was our fall-back. We tried to have dinner late Saturday afternoon at Grand Lux Cafe, next to the AMC movie theaters in Paramus, but the mall parking lot was packed and we tired of looking for a space. 

Grand Lux is described as an "upsacle casual restaurant" from the creator of The Cheesecake Factory, with food inspired by the menus of Italian trattorias, French bistros and Viennese pastry shops. Next time.

Looking around the 36-seat dining room at Seafood Gourmet, which we haven't visited for about a year, I thought, This place could be called a 'joint,' in a good way. But when I asked about the mismatched wall covering and paint, the waitress said a small expansion was under way to add a few more seats.

Wild salmon and Florida grouper were two of the choices on the specials menu, so I picked Salmon Oscar, with crab risotto and asparagus ($21.99). My wife and son shared a Seafood Festival -- angel-hair pasta with lots of crab, lobster and shrimp ($24.99).

Each of them had a cup of delicious lobster bisque and I enjoyed the cream of fresh mushroom soup. We were charged for one bisque ($2.95), so the others must come with the entrees. There are free refills when you order the excellent lemonade and plain seltzer ($1.95 each).

I asked for my salmon medium-rare, but it came cooked through. Still, it was moist, and the fish, risotto and three crunchy asparagus added up to a beautifully balanced meal. My wife found her pasta dish too rich, saying it was made with butter and cheese, but she took home the leftovers.

We have always liked the food and service at Seafood Gourmet, and plan return visits. I can't think of another fish market-restaurant. It reminds me of the old DiSalvo's in Hackensack, but the cooking at the Maywood restaurant is more sophisticated.

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

BYOB, free street parking, reservations recommended on weekends.