A filling birthday dinner at Simply Vietnamese in Tenafly

At Simply Vietnamese in Tenafly, a whole fish smothered in fried onions and scallions recalls a time when food was prepared with only fish sauce, below.

Owner and Chef K.T. Tran described this as a ginger fish sauce.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I picked Simply Vietnamese in Tenafly to celebrate my birthday on Tuesday night, enjoying three wonderful seafood dishes and even trying a few spoonfuls of dessert -- warm sticky rice bathed in sweet milk.

Owner and Chef K.T. Tran prepared an off-menu whole fried fish with onions and scallions, a bowl of fish sauce on the side ($19.95).

That followed summer rolls stuffed with carrots, rice and shrimp; an appetizer of broiled mussels and a plate of crunchy cooked vegetables.

Summer Rolls with Shrimp are wonderful when dipped in a peanut sauce ($8.50).

Broiled New Zealand Mussels in a ginger wasabi sauce ($8.50).

A plate of sauteed mixed vegetables.

The restaurant's specialty, Pho, an anise-flavored noodle soup, here with beef ($14). My wife and mother-in-law shared Pho with Seafood ($12).

Garnish for the soup includes fresh cilantro, bean sprouts and jalapeno peppers.

Complimentary desserts: Fried bananas with ice cream and warm sticky rice covered in sweet coconut milk, below.

Simply Vietnamese, 1 Highwood Ave., Tenafly; 201-568-7770. BYO, free street parking.

Web site: Fine Vietnamese Cuisine

This year, we're giving thanks without the turkey

The wine department at Costco Wholesale in Wayne offers some pricey bottles, above. A 3-liter bottle of Veuve Clicquot Champagne from France is priced at $299.99.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

Our Thanksgiving menu this year offers a bounty for meat eaters and vegetarians alike, but doesn't include the traditional turkey.

A whole turkey hasn't been the centerpiece of our meal for several years, because we prefer the dark meat and usually visit Goffle Road Poultry Farm in Wyckoff for naturally raised drumsticks, thighs, wings and necks.

This year, we're picking up ingredients for the holiday meal at Whole Foods Market, Costco Wholesale and ShopRite.

For the meat eaters, we'll serve a Niman Ranch Smoked Uncured Petite Ham from Whole Foods Market in Paramus.

This fully cooked, 3.3-pound ham -- which is vegetarian fed and raised without antibiotics or growth hormones -- was $7.99 a pound. 

We'll also serve a Kirkland Signature Frenched Lamb Rack from Australia ($10.99 a pound) that I picked up today at the Costco Wholesale in Wayne.

Kirkland Signature Champagne, left, and California Cabernet Sauvignon flanking Beaujolais Nouveau.

I drove to Wayne to shop the only Costco wine, beer and liquor department in the area, picking up Kirkland Signature Cabernet Sauvignon and Kirkland Signature Champagne (Brut).

A 1.5-liter bottle of the California wine was a bargain at $7.99. 

The champagne, from France, was $19.99, about half the price of such premium brands as Veuve Clicquot Brut (more than $40 at Costco).

I also purchased a bottle of Goerges Duboeuf Beaujolais Nouveau for $8.39, about 60 cents less than elsewhere.

The new wine has always been overpriced, and this year is no exception.

On Wednesday, I plan to shop the Seafood Road Show at the Hackensack Costco for Alaskan king crab legs and mussels.

They will be part of my Thanksgiving seafood meal, which also may include whole wheat pasta with marinara sauce, and sardines, shrimp or salted cod -- possibly all three.

For side dishes, we also have ShopRite sweet potatoes to bake or mash; and broccoli, organic spring mix and Campari Tomatoes from Costco.

As for turkey, I plan to donate a whole one to the Center for Food Action in Englewood, as I do every year.

A Feast of the Seven Fishes -- just barely

Black Tiger shrimp, above, and a frittata with salted cod fish, below, were two of the courses in a hastily improvised Feast of the Seven Fishes on Christmas Day.

With the meat eaters in the family preparing a Christmas dinner of Cuban roast pork and lamb, I tried to reproduce a Feast of the Seven Fishes with what I had on hand.

A few days earlier, my wife made a canned fish salad with yellowfin tuna, pink salmon and sardines, so I decided to start my seafood meal with that, knocking off three of the seven fish.

My first course: Canned fish salad with Dijon mustard, lime juice and ground cumin.

We had plenty of salted cod fish for a fluffy frittata with whole organic eggs, low-fat milk and shredded Italian cheese, topped with fresh and sun-dried tomatoes, and pesto, and finished under the broiler.

In the freezer, I also had a box of New Zealand Green Lip mussels, which I popped into the oven for about 15 minutes (under the broiler).

Mussels with brown rice, black beans and organic diced tomatoes, and vegetables.

A slice of the cod-fish frittata was my second course, followed by a big plate of mussels, vegetables and organic brown rice with black beans and organic diced tomatoes prepared in an electric cooker.

Rice, beans and diced tomatoes went into an electric cooker at the same time.

I should have stopped there, but to get to seven fishes, I had to have a few jumbo shrimp and a piece of salted mackerel fillet with plum concentrate I found at H Mart, a Korean supermarket, and put in the freezer.

The Feast of the Seven Fishes, which originates in Italy, is usually eaten on Christmas Eve.

I threw together my seafood mini-feast after our plans for a multi-course Christmas dinner for 8 at Lotus Cafe in Hackensack fell through when our guests cancelled.

When I mentioned that plan to another friend, he said it reminded him of "A Christmas Story," a movie about a family that had their Christmas dinner in a Chinese restaurant.

I had never seen the film, so I recorded and watched it, discovering a couple of disturbing scenes (see photos below). 

"A Christmas Story" is a 1983 film based on a Jean Shepherd screenplay. In this scene at a Chinese restaurant, the waiters' inability to pronounce the letter "r" is mocked.

Here, the restaurant owner has just hacked off the neck and head of the duck the family would be having for Christmas dinner after their turkey was eaten by stray dogs.

Will my complaint do any good?

Image by Anthony Quintano via Flickr

This Hackensack sky suggests God is watching customers who touch fruit.

I called Costco Wholesale's Customer Service line on Tuesday and spent four or five minutes complaining about fellow shoppers at the Hackensack store who engage in a forensic examination of the fruit.


I passed along a suggestion from a reader of Do You Really Know What You're Eating? that the store supply rubber gloves to customers who want to touch, squeeze and get up close and personal with tomatoes, cherries, peaches, nectarines and other fruit.


I feel a visual examination is enough, especially when the fruit comes in a plastic, see-through container that allows you to examine the bottom, sides and so forth.


The woman at Customer Service said maybe better packaging is needed. 


I replied even closed boxes wouldn't stop someone determined to examine every orb, every sphere and every globe in order to get perfect, ready-to-eat fruit.


She took my customer number and said she'd pass along my rubber-glove suggestion.


H Mart coupons


At the H Mart in Fort Lee today, I picked up a box of 16 champagne mangoes from Mexico for $9.99 -- three dollars less than the same box I saw at the Little Ferry store on Sunday.


I also bought the addictive sushi roll Koreans call kimbap -- made with seaweed, rice, vegetables, egg and crab for $4.99 (16 ounces, including a few Korean pickles). 


Two pounds of mussels from Maine were on sale for $1.89. Normally, they are $2.99, compared to $5.99 for the same amount of Canadian mussels at Whole Foods Market in Paramus.


When I got home, I found another H Mart coupon book in the mail. 


I started getting the coupons after I applied for a store card, which rebates 1% after you spend $1,000. 


These coupons are good from July 23 to Aug. 21, and on the back of the booklet, I see that a second, smaller store, called H Mart Fresh, has opened in Fort Lee at 1379 16th St. I'll have to check it out one day.


Update: When I cooked and ate the mussels, I found a few with sand in them, an unpleasant experience at the table. The Whole Food Market mussels were perfectly clean, so they might be worth the extra cost.