MP Taverna: Go for the great food, not the view

Trio of Dips with Pita -- from top, yogurt, eggplant and chickpeas -- is an appetizer at MP Taverna in Irvington, N.Y., that tastes even better than it looks ($11.95).

At the end of May, I just caught a glimpse of a restaurant sign and the Hudson River beyond as my fast-moving train passed through Irvington, N.Y.

Moments later, I Googled "MP Taverna" on my iPhone and came across a highly favorable review from The New York Times.

At home a week later, I looked at the menu on the restaurant's Web site. Then, I made a lunch reservation for this past Thursday.

The food and service were well worth the 25-mile drive, but I was mistaken about being able to see the Hudson River from the dining room, which are about a short block apart.

The Westchester County restaurant is described as Chef Michael Psilakis' modern interpretation of a traditional Greek tavern.

Of course, you can't walk into the kitchen and peek into pots or the oven to see what's cooking, as I did in Greece in the early 1990s.

We'll sit at a table the next time to avoid booths with uncomfortable upholstered benches that don't have enough seating surface to support customers' thighs.

Fresh pita triangles are ideal for scooping up the flavorful dips.

MP Taverna has a 3-course, $15 lunch, but it includes fish only on Fridays, when I work part time.

We ordered a la carte, which was a splurge, and ended up with too much food -- a salad and entree would have been enough.

My grilled sea bass fillets and especially a side of spinach tasted so rich I asked the waiter if the kitchen uses butter in the dish.

No. Only heart-healthy extra-virgin olive oil is used. 

A small bottle on the table tempted me to have a couple of crusts of fresh bread and a pita triangle or two dipped into the fruity oil.

The MP Side Salad ($5) is one of the best I've had, with chopped olives, tomato and cucumber, and feta cheese hidden under romaine lettuce.

Grilled Branzino or Mediterranean Sea Bass on a bed of spinach, which I asked for instead of fingerling potatoes ($19.95).

My wife had the Simply Grilled Fish of the Day with salad or vegetable -- head-on Prawns served with Asparagus ($19.95). No fish of the day was available, the waiter said.

For fish lovers, Friday is the day to land a 3-course, $15 lunch special.

The view of the Hudson River customers can't see from the dining room.

MP Taverna, 1 Bridge St., Irvington, N.Y.; 1-914-231-7854. Other MP Tavernas are in Rosyln, L.I., and Astoria, Queens. 

Web site: www.michaelpsilakis.com

Lobster ravioli, crab cakes and other delights at Costco Wholesale

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You don't have to go to a seafood restaurant to dine on premium lobster ravioli, crab cakes, lobster bisque and other briny delights. All are available at Costco Wholesale, along with fresh, wild-caught fish and farmed prawns, and frozen sockeye salmon and mahi-mahi.


The wide selection at the Hackensack, N.J., warehouse store has helped me stick with a non-meat diet for the past eight months.


The lobster ravioli with parmesan and ricotta cheese from Pasta Prima are outstanding ($11.99). They actually taste of lobster, which is the first ingredient listed. 

When thawed, they take only five minutes to prepare and need only a drizzle of olive oil, cracked black pepper and grated cheese. You get two portions, each enough for three people.

The Maryland-style crab cakes from Phillips Seafood Restaurants list crab as the first ingredient and contain no breadcrumbs. You get six crab cakes for $13.69 at Costco, and $11.99 at BJ's Wholesale Club.

Blount Lobster Bisque ($10.89) and Legal Sea Foods Sweet Corn and Crab Chowder ($9.79) are two of the great seafood soups available.

Four pounds of prawns from Vietnam were $37.99 (U-15 or 15 to the pound). 

They have been cleaned, so all you have to do is shell them, marinate them in the juice of two or three lemons, along with dried or powdered garlic, red-pepper flakes and other seasoning, then sautee them in olive oil until they turn pink and curl up.

Between the bread

Besides giving up meat, I am trying to cut down on pizza and bread -- one of my favorite foods -- to lose weight, and it seems to be working. I lost weight in Italy and I've lost more weight since I returned Sept. 20.

So, it isn't unusual for me to have salad with reduced-fat cheese and smoked wild salmon or enjoy leftover ravioli or fried fish for breakfast.


This morning, I ate leftover haddock from Costco that my wife fried for dinner last night, along with cabbage and salted cod, and boiled green banana -- all doused with Valentina hot sauce. 

Yesterday, I had leftover lobster ravioli and spinach and cheese ravioli, both from Costco.


Leftover spaghetti with sardines made a good side dish for the fried haddock we had for dinner the following night.

UPDATE: So many fish in the seven seas

-- VICTOR E. SASSON

Shopping, cooking and dining notes

Image by skeggy via Flickr

Fish counter at a Whole Foods Market (not Paramus).

It's been fairly easy to keep eating at the level I did in Italy. There is plenty of fresh seafood available in North Jersey -- at Costco, Whole Foods Market and Fairway Market -- organic salad mix and decent produce.


Last week, I picked up two pounds of what was labeled Pacific true cod at Costco in Hackensack for $5.99 a pound. I cut the fillet into pieces, coated them in bread crumbs and chili spices and baked them at 375 degrees for about 25 minutes, until they gave up their liquid and started to flake.


Two days later, I bought two dozen farmed prawns from Vietnam at Costco for $9.99 a pound (vein removed). I shelled them, marinated them in the juice of three lemons and seasoned them with red-pepper flakes, garlic powder, black pepper and a little salt. Meanwhile, I cut up sweet peppers and garlic, opened a can of diced tomatoes and boiled a half pound of organic pasta bowties from Whole Foods in Paramus.

I sauteed the peppers and garlic in olive oil, added the diced tomatoes and then the shrimp with all its marinade. When they were cooked, the pasta went in. I mixed it well and put the pot on the table with a slotted spoon. Next time, I'll drain the diced tomatoes. 

When Italians eat pasta, the sauce coats the spaghetti, tagliatelle or whatever they use, and doesn't pool in the bottom of the plate. Of course, there is always just a little sauce left over to be wiped up with bread.

Some of the large sizes at Costco make me wonder if the store expects customers to do clam bakes at this time of the year. Little Neck clams and mussels were in the fish case, but only in 5-pound packages.

Having recently returned from Italy, I couldn't pass up a wedge of Kirkland's imported Grana Padano at $8.99 a pound, a grainy, skim-milk cheese from cows that are grazing on the same grass their predecessors did in Roman times, according to the package. 

There is a great fish counter at Whole Foods in Paramus, with fresh seafood arriving seven days a week. I usually buy what's on sale, such as large, whole whiting for $4.99 a pound. My wife cut these in half to fit in the pan, coated them in flour and fried them.


My wife found farmed whole branzino for $5.99 a pound (usually $9.99 a pound). Two branzini that  weighed just under two pounds made a great dinner for three, seasoned, stuffed with herbs and lemon slices and baked in the oven.


I also love the fish counter at Fairway Market in Paramus, but I'm often put off by high prices, as I was on a visit to the store Saturday morning. I did buy four, one-pound packages of salted cod fish ($8.99) and one of salted pollack ($5.99) to compare with the cod.

I needed tomatoes, but one-pound packages of small, round Campari tomatoes were $2.99 -- too high even if they're herbicide free. Sometimes, Fairway sells three packages for $5. Why not on my visit? 

I wanted to try Polar lemon-flavored seltzer at 12 cans for $1.99, but inadvertently purchased Polar Dry Orange, which contains 6% orange juice, according to big lettering on the package. To my horror, I read the small lettering of the ingredient list when I got home, only to discover it also contains high fructose corn syrup, the first time I've seen a seltzer with it.


I picked up Marco Polo red-pepper spread (spicy) from Turkey for $2.99, compared with a similar product from Macedonia on the shelf above for $4.99.

 Australian beef

The ShopRite sales circular that came with the paper is offering Nature's Reserve, grass-fed, free-range beef from Australia for $3.99 a pound with a store card, through Saturday, Oct. 9. You have to buy several pounds of it -- the whole beef tenderloin for filet mignon -- and trim it before cutting it into small steaks or thin slices for Korean barbecue.

Here is a link to the U.S. federal trademark registration of Nature's Reserve beef in 2003. The producers say the cattle are never confined and no additives are used: Nature's Reserve Australian Beef

Last month, the Coles supermarket chain in Australia announced it would not sell beef containing hormone growth promotants. That has upset beef industry groups, including the Australian Beef Association and the Cattle Council of Australia, because smaller cattle will sell for less. 

At lunch one day in Italy, I met two Australian women who were traveling without their husbands and children. I asked them about Australian beef. They were not familiar with the Nature's Reserve brand, which apparently is sold only in the United States.

But one said beef producers are now confining cattle in feed lots and feeding them grain for the kosher and halal markets in the U.S.

Chef Ji's Moon Jar in Fort Lee


Chef Ji Cha, who competed on Gordon Ramsay's "Hell's Kitchen" TV reality show a few years ago, has revised the menu of her Korean fusion restaurant and is preparing to open for lunch starting Oct. 15. I had dinner there Saturday night, and will report on the meal in my next post.

Six months without meat

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I'm not sure what I expected, but going without meat for six months hasn't resulted in anything dramatic -- except a sense of relief from not always having to worry how the poultry, beef, pork and lamb were raised before I got to them in stores.

My overall cholesterol dropped only four points -- to 176 -- probably because I started eating much more full-fat cheese than before. In the last month or so, I've switched to low-fat cheese and plan to resume eating aged Parmigiano Reggiano (photo), which is made with skim milk.  

I don't think I saved money, because the seafood I substituted for meat often cost more, including Costco's wild sockeye salmon and farm-raised prawns from Vietnam that weigh about two ounces each (eight to a pound) and cost a small fortune.


Do I feel better? Yes. But I can't separate the effects of going to a gym five mornings a week for the past two months or so, and the lighter feeling of not being weighed down by meat.


I've always loved salads and grilled vegetables, and I've been eating them more frequently and incorporating greens and vegetables into sandwiches and frittatas or just eating them on their own.


Last Sunday, I picked up fresh mustard greens and two heads of arugula at the Tenafly farmers' market.


One morning, I quickly blanched the mustard greens, then poured some extra-virgin olive oil and Costco egg whites into a 10-inch, nonstick frying pan. When the eggs set on the bottom, I added the mustard greens, sliced beefsteak tomato and low-fat cheese; sprinkled on some salt and finished the frittata under the broiler. (Preparation tip: Chop greens into bite-size pieces to make frittata easy to portion and eat.)


Today, I made a breakfast sandwich with grilled eggplant and carrot, baked wild salmon with herbs straight from the fridge, cheese and fresh arugula, spreading toasted 100% whole-grain bread with Dijon mustard. Outrageously good.


A friend who is a faithful Costco food shopper invited me over for a lunch the other day and served me items from the warehouse store: A Greek salad with anchovies and crumbled cheese, and a fruit salad with mango, strawberries and other fruit. We had an appetizer of spicy hummus and  drank coffee and seltzer.


For the last few weeks, I've wanted to add antibiotic-free poultry back into my diet -- Readington Farms chicken from ShopRite and turkey parts and duck from Goffle Road Poultry Farm in Wyckoff.

But I haven't done that yet, secure in the knowledge there are so many other good things to eat that don't involve meat.