Bocconi in Hackensack is offering big flavors in a small setting

A special of Grey Sole Oreganata at Bocconi Pasta Pronto & More in Hackensack included shrimp, vegetables and potatoes -- a well-balanced one-dish meal. I asked the kitchen to make it without butter.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

It's nice to find a restaurant with good food, good service and moderate prices where you usually can get a table for dinner without a reservation.

Bocconi, which means "bites" in Italian, is a 50-seat BYO that shares only eight off-street parking spaces with another restaurant near one of Hackensack's busiest intersections. 

Bocconi opened more than five years ago, and has survived thanks to a brisk lunch business from a big medical center across the street.

Ravioli with Sausage and Broccoli Rabe is served in marinara sauce.

We asked to share an Arugula Salad. The kitchen split the salad and served the portions in broad soup bowls.

'Sit anywhere'

When we arrived at the Italian-American restaurant a little after 4:30 on Saturday afternoon, we were told we could sit anywhere.

Two other tables were occupied. 

We chose a table for two, but when our salad and appetizer arrived, the waiter pulled over another table to make room for all of the dishes.

We chose from the regular menu and a sheet of daily specials with prices.

We ordered an Arugula Salad to share ($7.95), an appetizer of fried Crab Cakes to share ($9.95), Ravioli with Sausage and Broccoli Rabe for my wife ($12.95) and a special of Grey Sole Oreganata for me ($18.95).

We enjoyed all of our food, but my wife doubted the the crab cakes, though tasty, contained much crab meat and none of it was lump.

My sole fillets were accompanied by three or four shrimp, vegetables and potatoes -- a beautifully balanced entree. 

An appetizer of four Crab Cakes came with salad and a homemade tartar sauce.

Bocconi is a BYO.

Crusty bread was served with butter and a plate of extra-virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar and salt, which is unnecessary and can mask the peppery taste of the oil. 

The dining room was filled with a soundtrack of the legendary Luciano Pavarotti, and some specials were listed on one of the two TVs.

'Restaurant Row'

Bocconi is one of three eating places on busy Essex Street, near Prospect Avenue, that form a modest restaurant row.

The Italian-American restaurant shares its L-shaped parking lot with Fire Pit Barbecue (357 Essex St.), which serves Portuguese-style ribs, steak, pork and even grilled codfish with potato, pepper and onions.

On the other side of Bocconi is Mazza Falafel (365 Essex St.), a Middle Eastern restaurant offering falafel, salads, stuffed grape leaves, shawarma and kufta kabob.

Mazza Falafel has no parking lot, and the eight spaces shared by Bocconi and Fire Pit Barbecue include two reserved for the handicapped.

There is plenty of parking in a big lot across the street at 360 Essex, a medical arts building with Starbucks Coffee and Cosi on the ground level.

And Bocconi, Fire Pit Barbecue and Mazza Falafel have delivery available.

Review of Bocconi

I came across only one newspaper review of Bocconi, which opened in 2009.

The Eating Out on $50 review appeared in The Record of Woodland Park on May 28, 2010, when Jeffrey Page praised "this dandy Italian restaurant that served terrific food in generous portions and at moderate prices."

Unfortunately, Page got the location of the restaurant wrong, saying it was at Essex Street and Summit Avenue, when it is almost a block away, near Prospect Avenue.

Bocconi Pasta Pronto & More, 363 Essex St., Hackensack; 201-342-3888. BYO. Open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. or 10 p.m. Mondays to Saturdays.

Entrance to parking lot is on Prospect Avenue.

Web site: Take a bite out of Hackensack

  

'Mega' sushi buffet set to open on Pearl Harbor Day

A press release promises the 400-seat interior of the Hackensack sushi buffet restaurant will be "chic" and "Vegas-style." 

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

POC American Fusion Buffet & Sushi -- a new Hackensack restaurant serving Japanese-style raw fish crafted by a chef who worked at top Japanese restaurants -- is set to open on the anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

A press release, apparently put out today, Veterans Day, said the restaurant will open on Dec. 7.

Hundreds of Japanese fighter planes attacked the American naval fleet at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on Dec. 7, 1941, drawing the United States into World War II.

More than 2,000 American soldiers and sailors died. The anniversary is known as Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.

The POC news release was reported by Second Helpings, an online food blog from The Record, a daily newspaper in Woodland Park.

POC is renovating the space formerly occupied by Green Grill, a rodizio-style buffet restaurant at 450 Hackensack Ave., in Hackensack's Home Depot Shopping Center. 




The restaurant will be the first POC "mega buffet" in the tri-state area, according to the press release from Port of Call owner Will Lin.

It will be open 7 days for lunch ($13.69), weekend brunch ($17.99) and dinner ($24.99 to $27.99).

Besides sushi and other seafood, the buffet will offer a carving station; a cold bar with more than 20 salads; and a hot bar with "Grand Marnier Prawns, Citrus Filet Sole, Veal Osso Buco [and] vegetarian-friendly options."

Whole Foods fined for sanitary code violations

Image by javajoba via Flickr

Until Whole Foods opened a supermarket in Paramus, I made the trip to its Edgewater store only a couple of times a year. The view of the Hudson was superb, but it was just too much of a schlep.


Today, The Record of Woodland Park reports the Edgewater store was fined $1,037 on May 13 for violations of the state sanitary code, including "improper storage of waste, improper sanitizing, failure to keep equipment in good repair, improper food protection and failure to keep food-contact surfaces clean."

(Photo: From the food bar at Whole Foods Market.)

Can you trust big-city paper's food writing?

The Record today carries an article from the Chicago Tribune on nutritious foods, including sardines. Because I eat a lot of sardines, one sentence caught my eye: "Avoid sardines packed in vegetable oil, which is high in pro-inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids."

Before I dump all my sardines in oil and replace them with cans of fish in tomato sauce, I did some research and came across this from the American Heart Association:

DALLAS, Jan. 27, 2009 — Omega-6 fatty acids – found in vegetable oils, nuts and seeds – are a beneficial part of a heart-healthy eating plan, according to a science advisory published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

So who do you believe, Julie Deardorff of the Chicago Tribune (whoever she is) or America's heart doctors? The link to the AHA article is below:

Omega-6 fatty acids can be part of healthy diet

Korean restaurants in the news

Image by churl via Flickr

Korean food is vibrant and a great source of vegetables and soy, but at least two restaurants have been fined for sanitary code violations recently by health inspectors.

The Record today reports a $960 fine for Gam Mee Ok Restaurant in Fort Lee, one of my favorites for its unique kimchi service and its stone-bowl bibimbap. Two issues the inspector noted were "storing beef in stagnant water" and the "staff's failure to wear gloves when handling hazardous foods."

Madangsui Restaurant, also in Fort Lee, was fined $285 on Nov. 10 for defrosting meat on the floor and not covering it.  This was a real surprise, because it  has always boasted of serving fresh beef and is the only Korean barbecue restaurant I've been to that offers prime beef, the highest USDA grade.

I've long been concerned about the "mystery meat" served at many Korean restaurants, so much so that we started buying free-range, grass-fed Australian beef and preparing barbecue at home, with rice, kimchi and other side dishes.

Maybe the lesson of these fines is to avoid eating meat altogether. With soft-tofu stews, spring-chicken soups and other non-beef  selections, that's easy to do at Korean restaurants.

Good for the ocean, but not good for you

The Record's Better Living section has the usual food coverage in a Monday paper -- a single vegetarian recipe -- but under Health on F-8, there is more: a Washington Post story about fish that are not only caught sustainably but are also rich "in long-chain omega-3 fatty acids," a key in reducing the risk of heart disease. Pole-caught albacore tuna is listed, but the rankings by the "influential" Monterey Bay Aquarium don't take this tuna's high mercury content into account. So the headline isn't really accurate: "Good for the oceans and good for you." The story probably could have used a subhead: "Oh, but not the albacore tuna."

This is one of the dangers of running a lot of stories supplied by outside sources, including the Washington Post, especially when, like The Record, your food and copy editors know little about what is healthy and what is not.

Hold the swordfish, please

Image via Wikipedia

In Friday's restaurant review, Elisa Ung of The Record says the owner knows what will sell to his "primarily senior citizen clientele ... fish selections like swordfish and grouper, not something like wahoo."

Wahoo? I had never heard of it and had never seen it listed on a North Jersey menu, so I did some internet research. I learned it is an "eco-sustainable alternative to swordfish," which is a fish so high in mercury that young women and children are warned not to consume it. I'm a senior and would order wahoo every time to avoid  mercury and certainly would patronize a restaurant that served it over one that served swordfish. Learn more about wahoo at this Web site:

www.tobagowild.com

Returning to the restaurant's name, Ung reports it is named for the owner's daughter, Davia, and son John wanted "no part of the name." Imagine if he did. It could be called Davohn, Daviohn, Javia, Javian, Johnia, Jia, Davia-John or John-Davia. 

Restaurant coverage in The Record

In Better Living today, an Italian restaurant in Fair Lawn gets two and a half stars from The Record's reviewer, Elisa Ung. That's only a half star more than she awarded a faux-Caribbean chain restaurant in Wayne several weeks ago.

In the review of Davia, Ung reports on a potato-crusted salmon entree and a strip steak, failing to mention whether the former was wild or artificially-colored farmed fish or whether the latter was grass-fed or at least raised without anitbiotics and growth hormones.

Ung spends too much time writing about desserts. Recently, she related she had a "nightmare" about dessert. I guess she doesn't realize that many people are watching their weight or cholesterol and forgo dessert, especially at a restaurant with big portions, like the one she is reviewing today. In fact, she says fewer than half of its customers order dessert, but that doesn't stop her from sampling four of them.

I found the following hilarious. She reports the restaurant is named after the owner's daughter. "Their son, John, wanted no part of the name." That's a good thing, isn't it, but with a name like John, why does that have to be mentioned? Would anyone name an Italian restaurant just John? Wouldn't  people think it's an elaborate bathroom?  Maybe John's Trattoria.

On Page 20  of Better Living, the restaurant health inspections appear, but many towns' restaurants are excluded today and, in fact, never appear in the paper. Thirteen towns are listed today out of the more than 90 in The Record's circulation area.

Today's food coverage in The Record

In The Record's Better Living section today, on F-2, we read about an "authentic" Greek place that serves burgers, mozzarella sticks and Buffalo wings. I and many other North Jerseyans shop frequently at Korean markets, but an item about Korean black garlic lists no Korean store that stocks it.

These two food reports, an illustrated recipe and a story about wine ($12 a bottle and higher) are all the newspaper could muster on a Wednesday, when readers in the past could feast on an entire Food section.

The Food section was dropped by Publisher Stephen A. Borg, who promised readers food coverage "every day." Unfortunately, despite an occasional house ad touting "every day" food news, there is no food coverage on Thursdays and a vast majority of Saturdays. Monday's coverage usually consists of a single recipe for vegetarians.

http://eyeontherecord.blogspot.com/

Food coverage in The Record

In the Better Living section of The Record today, on Page F-1, 2 and 3, a staff written story on Jewish deli maven David Sax and a so-called 15-minute pork-chop recipe from the Chicago Tribune fail to discuss whether any of the meat was raised on factory farms with antibiotics, growth hormones or animal byproducts (bits of dead animals and kitchen scraps), or whether the hot dogs contain preservatives linked to cancer.


The paper's food coverage rarely discusses these issues, whether in a feature story, restaurant review or recipe. I've always been in favor of reviewing supermarkets, rating them on price and how much naturally raised food they stock. But For The Record, that might jeopardize sorely needed advertising revenue.

On Page L-10 of The Record, in business news, there's no mention in the Start-Ups column of whether the sea salt being promoted contains iodine, a necessary nutrient.