Warming up to Cuban comfort food and music on a blustery fall day

Pargo Frito or Fried Red Snapper at Casual Habana Cafe in Hackensack, above and below.

The popular Main Street restaurant serves Cuban comfort food at reasonable prices.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Dashing out for an early dinner at a local restaurant turned into a comedy of errors on a rainy, windy afternoon.

On Saturday, we forgot that Art of Spice, a terrific Indian restaurant in Hackensack, closes between lunch and dinner, and we pulled in vain on the back door.

Then, we found a spot a half-block away on Main Street, and walked through wind-driven rain to the front door, where the hours were listed.

We were a half-hour early for the 5 p.m. dinner opening.

Luckily, we had parked in front of Casual Habana Cafe, one of our favorite restaurants in Hackensack, and decided to eat there.

We didn't have a reservation, which is recommended on weekends, and were given a table for four (tables for two pushed together), but during our meal, we had to give up one of them, making it difficult to juggle all the plates and glasses.

As the sound system played the Buena Vista Social Club and Cuban salsa, we ordered and then enjoyed:

A whole Fried Red Snapper ($19) with a side of soupy black beans and rice, a salad with avocado and pineapple ($7); a side of Tostones ($4), twice-smashed and fried green plantains; and Basil Lemonade for my wife ($3).

The fish was fried beautifully -- the flesh was moist and there was no greasy taste. It was perfect for two, but could serve three, if you order another entree.

We also ordered takeout, a large Chicken Soup ($7) and more Tostones, but instead of the fried green plantains, we got Arroz Moro, a dirty rice also known as congris ($4).

No Cuban meal is complete without Tostones ($4).

Ensalada Aguacate or Avocado Salad ($7) was difficult to eat because the romaine lettuce was cut into narrow ribbons.

Cubans sometimes call soupy black beans served with white rice Moors and Christians, a reference to the Moorish occupation of Spain from 711 to 1492.

My wife finds the Basil Lemonade ($3) too sweet so she asked for hers with seltzer.

A corner table at Casual Habana Cafe in Hackensack.

Details

Casual Habana Cafe, 125 Main St., Hackensack; 201-880-9844. Open 7 days. BYO, metered street parking and a small lot in the rear. 

Website: Authentic Cuban Cuisine

A tasty Cuban dinner for 4 in Hackensack

Fried Whole Red Snapper ($17), front, and Caribbean Paella ($19) at Casual Habana Cafe in Hackensack. Entrees come with two side dishes, such as black beans and white rice.

Tostones ($5), twice-mashed-and-fried green plantains.

House or Casera Salad ($6), with goat cheese and dried papaya.

Spinach Salad ($6), with blue cheese and beets.

Chicharron de Pollo ($5) or fried chicken.

Side dishes of vegetables and dirty rice or congris.

The beautifully renovated interior.

Ropa vieja and pernil are among traditional dishes. Our meal for 4 on Saturday night included Cuban Chicken Soup ($5), and cost $22 a person, including tip and tax.

Casual Habana Cafe, 123 Main St., Hackensack; 201-880-9844. BYO, small parking lot in rear, metered street parking.

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Hunting and gathering for Christmas

Belarmino Rico, left, master of the Cuban sandwich, and son Joseph at La Pola, their shop in West New York. The elder Rico is widely known as "King of the Cuban Sandwich."

The plan was to hit the gym at 9 a.m. and be among the first customers at Costco in Hackensack for its 10 a.m. opening today, but the store opened an hour early and the parking lot was half full when I got there, with traffic backed up in the turn lane and beyond at Kansas and South River streets.

My first stop was to get my Costco-bought eyeglasses adjusted and my second was the Seafood Road Show. 

There were about a half-dozen customers ahead of me, and I discussed the large lobster tails from Colombia with the man behind me, because they are the only seafood sold at Costco treated with a preservative, sodium bisulfite. I have never bought them because of the preservative.

Wikipedia says sodium bisulfite is used in wine and on leafy greens.

"In the case of wine making, sodium bisulfite releases sulfur dioxide gas when added to water or products containing water. The sulfur dioxide kills yeasts, fungi, and bacteria in the grape juice before fermentation.
 
"Sodium bisulfite is also added to leafy green vegetables in salad bars and elsewhere, to preserve apparent freshness, under names like LeafGreen. The concentration is sometimes high enough to cause severe allergic reactions.

 "In the 1980s, sodium bisulfite was banned from use on raw fruits and vegetables in the United States following the deaths of 13 people who unknowingly consumed produce treated with excessive amounts of the substance. "

I did buy three red king crab legs ($19.99 a pound), seven sea scallops ($12.99 a pound) and a pound and a half of U-15 farmed prawns ($9.99 a pound). 

I picked up a box of clementines from Spain for $4.99, a dollar less than when they appeared initially; five pounds of lemons, $6.79; and two pounds of Sunset-brand, herbicide-free Roma tomatoes, $4.99.

Cuban interlude

Around noon, we made our annual trek to La Pola, a Cuban sandwich shop in West New York, where the proprietor, his wife, sons Tony and Joseph, and employees greet a steady stream of customers who had placed orders for whole roasted pigs, pork shoulders, hams and ribs -- plus traditional side dishes -- for their Christmas dinners.

The atmosphere is always warm and welcoming. Belarmino Rico, who moved from his native La Pola in Spain to Havana, Cuba, is known far and wide as "King of the Cuban Sandwich."

His son Joseph feeds the heated press, or plancha, with sandwiches as the elder Rico and his helpers package pork and side dishes for customers.

We took home a small section of pork ribs; congris or white rice cooked with black beans; yuca, a garlic sauce for the meat and addictive, store-made plantain chips that have far less salt than commercial ones. Last year, we enjoyed a tortilla espanola, a Spanish potato omelet.

My wife and son ordered Cuban sandwiches -- roast pork, ham, Swiss cheese, pickles, mustard and garlic sauce. The heated press had melted the cheese and crisped the foot-long pan de agua or water bread.

For Christmas dinner on Saturday, I'll serve them appetizers of crab and prawns, then Cuban-style ribs with side dishes. My dinner will be all Costco seafood: crab leg, prawns and sea scallops.

La Pola, Palisade Avenue and 54th Street, West New York; 201-867-6028.

Moors and Christians

Image via Wikipedia

For breakfast this morning, I topped rice cooked with black beans, heated in the microwave, with a plain omelet and Valentina hot sauce, and went to town. The rice-beans combination is called congris, a Cuban term for dirty rice, but it's also known as moros y cristianos or Moors and Christians (at left in photo), a term reflecting the Arab occupation of Spain that ended in 1492.

The moros were left over from our Cuban roast pork feast on Christmas Day -- accompanied by ham croquettes and a Spanish potato omelet -- all from Belarmino Rico, owner of a West New York Cuban sandwich shop called La Pola, the Spanish town where he was born. All that was missing was a salad I forgot to make in the rush of heating up the Cuban food and preparing lamb, a hamburger, a hot dog and mashed potatoes for three guests who don't eat pork. Next year, I'll sautee collard greens with garlic.

The roast pork I sliced and plated was moistened with an addictive garlic sauce or mojito, which also goes into Rico's Cuban sandwiches before they are heated. This morning, I sliced off the roast pork's skin and fat and put them in the oven to crisp up the skin and liquify the fat. I ate entirely too many pieces, but included something healthy in my breakfast -- a small bowl of cabbage kimchi.