This no-frills spot in Fort Lee is my pick for healthy, delicious food

The Hot and Dirty Bowl with added grilled shrimp, one of the quinoa-based dishes at the moderately priced Mood'whiches in Fort Lee, tastes even better than it looks.

Editor's note: A wonderful dish of quinoa and wild shrimp was among the highlights of a week of eating in and eating out; food shopping at Trader Joe's, and the anticipated reopening of Costco Wholesale in Hackensack.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I had my heart set on fish-head rice-noodle soup, but found the Malaysian restaurant on my must-try list had closed.

That's when I remembered another Fort Lee spot high on my list, Mood'whiches, where "eating healthy is the foundation to a good mood."

"We offer clean food, free of processed meats, refined products, artificial flavors and colors, additives, preservatives, fillers and anything that is not good for your body," according to the takeout menu.

"We serve local ingredients when in season and free range, humanely raised meats," all of which are antibiotic and hormone free.

Late Friday afternoon, I placed my order at the counter, and it was delivered to my table a few minutes later.

But customers of Mood'whices and sister restaurant Tast Eatery, on Anderson Avenue in Fort Lee, also can place their orders online. 

Bowled over

The Mood'whiches menu offers lots of salad, sandwich and bowl options for carnivores, herbivores and omnivores, and those in between like me (no bread, no pizza, no meat or poultry, but an unabashed lover of wild-caught seafood).

I was eager to try one of the quinoa-based bowls, and chose Hot and Dirty ($6.50), adding grilled wild shrimp ($4).

Other extra-cost add-ons are grilled chicken or tofu, flank steak and salmon.

The small bowl and fork were plastic, and the table was bare, but who cares?

The food couldn't have been more delicious:

Quinoa, jalapenos, carrots, potatoes, mushrooms, cheddar, black beans and pico de gallo with chimi churri, plus crunchy grilled shrimp.

I washed that down with a thick fruit smoothie, called Mango Ango, with orange juice, pineapple, mango and strawberry ($6 for 16 ounces).

The focus at Mood'whiches is on great ingredients and great food. Customers order at the counter, and the food is delivered to the table. Online ordering also is available.

Mood'whiches is decorated with food quotes, above and below.

Mood'whiches serves breakfast, lunch and dinner (2448 Lemoine Ave., at Washington Avenue, Fort Lee; 201-944-1404). Web site: Eat With Us & Heal The Planet

In January, I was intrigued with House of Malaysia on Main Street in Fort Lee, where I ate at a Japanese soba restaurant on the same block, and asked for a takeout menu. But when I returned on Friday for dinner, I found the restaurant portion of the business had closed. A bubble tea parlor remains open, and the sign on the door promises T-Swirl, described as a premier creperie, will be ready in April.

Silver Pond Seafood Restaurant at 230-34 Main St., Fort Lee, has been renovated and renamed Aquarius by the new owners, who operate Joyce Chinese Cuisine in River Edge. 

Aquarius Restaurant is expected to serve dim sum, as did Silver Pond.

Costco Wholesale parked delivery trucks near the entrance to its Hackensack warehouse, which is scheduled to reopen on Tuesday as a Costco Wholesale Business Center, the first in New Jersey. The warehouse will cater to restaurants and other small businesses and offer delivery, but also will be open to any Costco member (80 S. River St., Hackensack).

Takeout from Lavash City, a fast-casual Armenian grill and bakery at 331 Main St., Hackensack (201-464-5445). I ordered Mediterranean Salad, including stuffed grape leaves, cheese and olives, left; and 10-Vegetable Salad with roasted carrots, cabbage and cauliflower; and Hummus. They came with fresh-baked lavash, the thin, chewy and addictive Armenian bread. Small salads are $4 each and a small Hummus is $3. 

A serving of Trader Joe's O's ($1.99) has only 1 gram of sugar, but other cereals have more. Trader Joe's High Fiber Fruit & Nut Multigrain Medley ($2.99), made with seven whole grains, contains 8 grams of sugar per serving, and Trader Joe's Raisin Bran has twice that.

At the Paramus store, 404 Route 17 north, not all of the Trader Joe's Chicken Sausage is from antibiotic-free birds, though the price is the same, so you have to read the labels carefully.

A Rochelle Roll from Maguro Sushi in Rochelle Park is available for about $8.60 at the cafe in Englewood Hospital and Medical Center, 350 Engle St., Englewood. See ingredients below.

From Costco Wholesale, a homemade breakfast of two organic eggs, smoked wild salmon and Mexican-style salsa served over organic quinoa with organic diced tomatoes, organic black beans and whole garlic cloves.

My wife prepared canned mackerel with sweet peppers and onion for another hearty breakfast. I ate them with an omelet and mashed sweet potatoes.

Another heart-healthy breakfast substitutes pasta and eggs for bacon and eggs. Here, I enjoyed a simple egg-white omelet over organic whole-wheat fusilli with sardines and anchovies in Victoria Vodka Sauce, which contains no heavy cream.

Food memories are some of the strongest

At La Pola, Joe Rico makes Cuban sandwiches and finishes them in a heated press. For me, he made a sandwich with the smoked wild salmon I brought him, below. The other ingredients were sliced pickle, Swiss cheese, mustard and garlic sauce.

The press (la plancha) flattens the Cuban water bread and makes the crust crispy.

Editor's note: Today, I discuss strong food memories, the lack of an express line at Costco Wholesale, the Can Can Sale at ShopRite, pasta and eggs, and bread made with and without butter.

My friend Luis, who is in his 80s, was born in Cuba.

After a few spoonfuls of soup and conversation with other Cubans at La Pola in West New York, he recalled helping neighbors on the island hand turn a spit to roast a whole pig for Christmas many decades ago.

But as we left the Cuban sandwich shop this past Thursday, he couldn't remember where he had parked his car.

A nearby market promises the fish it sells were "sleeping in the sea" last night.

For Luis, it took only a little Caldo Gallego to bring back memories of Cuba. La Pola is a center of Cuban food culture, where machine-gun Spanish echoes off the tile walls.

As much else fades into the foggy past, Luis' memories of wood-fired roast pork and other Cuban dishes remain vivid.

One of his first jobs in the United States was as a short-order cook in a Route 4 diner in Paramus. 

Today, at home, he cooks picadillo, tostones and other Cuban food with the assurance of a kitchen veteran.

On Thursday, Luis struck up a conversation with the man at the next table who had ordered La Pola's palomilla steak special with french fries.

The Hoboken man said he was born in Cuba in 1925, and had worked in a shoe factory, making orthopedic and other types of footwear.

Luis' father owned a shoe factory, but it wasn't the one the man worked in.

He showed us a large, heavy Cuban 1 peso coin from 1934 that he uses as a key fob, and said it is plated in silver. 

Meyer Lemons, above, and wild-caught Pacific cod fillets, below right, were two of the three items I picked up at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack last Tuesday.

No mercy at Costco

As I returned to my car with fresh fish, bananas and Meyer Lemons I had just purchased at Costco Wholesale, I saw a woman walking in my direction with sleeping pillows and a large plastic bottle of honey.

She walked to the SUV parked next to my car, laughed and said no other shopper would let her check out first. 

I know the feeling. 

There are no express lines at my Hackensack warehouse store, and shoppers run the gamut from people who stop in for two or three items to members who are stocking small delis and convenience stores.

I had only three items, but still had to wait behind members with overflowing carts who had bought everything in sight. 

A 4-pound container of Meyer Lemons for $7.39 worked out to about $1.85 a pound.

The unusual fruit is a cross between a lemon and a mandarin orange, and a thin skin makes them easy to squeeze. But they contain a lot of pits.

My wife used most of them to make homemade lemonade. 

I served the cod with Trader Joe's Whole Wheat Spaghetti with sardines, above, and spinach from Costco I blanched in hot water and sauteed briefly in a wok, below.

 

No meal is complete without a bowl of pre-washed Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix, dressed simply with extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

I squeezed one Meyer Lemon over the fresh cod fillets before coating the fish in a spice mixture and roasting the fillets in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes. 

The wild-caught cod was $6.99 a pound, only $1 more than farmed tilapia from Central America.

I squeezed another Meyer Lemon into a glass with ice before pouring in Adirondack Seltzer, my favorite dinner beverage after wine.
 

The ShopRite in Hackensack has an olive bar priced at $6.99 a pound, above, or $3 more per pound than the Italian olives from Jerry's Gourmet & More in Englewood, below.

This dance is no bargain

I took a second swipe on Saturday at the 2013 Can Can Sale! -- this time at the ShopRite in Hackensack --  but the only exclamations I heard were from shoppers complaining about smaller discounts than in the past.

A dozen or more 50-cent and $1-off coupons from the newspaper helped, when multiplied, to cut prices on two items to at or below what they were at last year's Can Can promotion.

I bought Dial for Men body wash at $2.49 each, a can of Progresso Light beef soup for 85 cents and a 19-ounce spray can of Lysol Disinfectant for $2.25.

Can Can items included 5 20-ounce Ziploc plastic storage containers -- now BPA free -- for $2.49 or $1.30 0ff. 

I had eggs with Aleppo pepper over leftover spaghetti and sardines for breakfast, and again for dinner, below, with grated cheese and a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil.

 


Pasta and eggs 

The perfect companion for Trader Joe's Whole Wheat Spaghetti are one or two Costco organic brown eggs fried sunny side up.

The taste of the yolk broken over the pasta is incomparable. Now, this is comfort food. 
 

 

At Balthazar Bakery in Englewood, a baker, right, uses his hands to measure and weigh butter for croissants. He is said to have the softest hands at the bakery.

More baguettes

I returned to Balthazar Bakery in Englewood on Wednesday to pick up two more baguettes ($2 each), and saw a baker working with a huge mound of butter that would go into those flaky croissants.

It didn't tempt me. I long ago banned butter from my diet, and bread from breakfast, lunch and dinner.

When I got home, I cut off the heel of one of the crusty baguettes, which contain no butter, and ate it, enjoying the wonderful crunch and distinctive taste.

I sliced the rest into sandwich-size portions, and put them in the freezer for other members of the family.