A Passover meal with tortillas -- not matzo

Cover of Rosa Mexicano

Rosa Mexicano Restaurant usually delivers delicious food prepared from scratch, as reflected in the cover photo of Chef -Founder Joseifna Howard's cookbook.

My best-laid plans for our one dinner out each week often go awry when my wife and son refuse to cooperate with my vision for the meal.

And on Saturday night, at my favorite Mexican restaurant in North Jersey, the kitchen let me down for the first time with an entree I chose from the "Passover a La Mexicana" menu.

They pass over menu

Although I told my wife and 13-year-old son I wanted to have a Passover meal at Rosa Mexicano in Hackensack and made a reservation, they didn't want to order anything from the special menu, which is available through Monday, April 25.

I couldn't get them interested in the crispy corned-beef tacos or the soft ones stuffed with beef tongue; the roasted brisket in a banana leaf; or the tropical haroset and spring noodle kugel.

No. My son insisted on ordering the restaurant's guacamole, which is made at the table from a single avocado for an exorbitant $12 (with handmade corn tortillas and two salsas). And he ate so much of it, he couldn't finish his entree from the regular menu; nor could my wife finish hers.

Only two non-meat dishes

For me, there was one non-meat appetizer and one non-meat entree on the Passover menu, but it would have been folly to order both at this expensive restaurant, where portions are large and everything is made from scratch.

So, I asked for Salmon-Stuffed Cabbage Veracruzana ($19) -- a twist on stuffed cabbage that my Sephardic Jewish mother made with rice and ground meat, and baked in a tamarind sauce until the cabbage was soft and could be cut with a fork. 

The menu promised a "sweet-and-sour tomato sauce with olives, capers, sweet peppers and raisins," but when my entree came, I found the sauce on the plate, around the two stuffed cabbage, not over or inside them.

And I guess by ordering only one entree from the special Passover menu, we didn't get two side dishes listed as "for the table" -- spicy, pickled cucumber, carrot and cabbage -- and a spicy salsa made with cilantro and garlic.

Undercooked cabbage

I was looking forward to salmon fillet wrapped in cabbage, but the fish was ground up and combined with rice -- a too-literal interpretation of traditional stuffed cabbage, and the cabbage was still crisp, so I need a knife to cut it. It was so bland, too, so I asked the waiter for some chili sauce to pour over it.

My wife ordered Alambra de Camarones ($24) -- shrimp over rice -- and  my son tried the Tablones ($25.75) -- 18 ounces of boneless short ribs in a sauce with onion, carrot and peppers. Two small bowls of herbed rice and refried beans came with their food.

The bill -- $117 with a 15% tip -- included a glass of kosher red wine for me ($9). I guess I'll drink to compromise and family harmony.

Rosa Mexicano, 390 Hackensack Ave., 

in The Shops at Riverside, Hackensack; 

201-489-9100. Web site

Shopping for a couple of good dinners

Image via Wikipedia

Our cleaned Spanish mackerel weighed 1.17 pounds and served three.

Me and my wife did a lot of food shopping Monday and Tuesday to assemble a couple of home-cooked meals -- a big pot of soup with chicken feet and beef, and fresh Spanish mackerel braised in a red-wine sauce with a side dish of bok choy.

We had frozen, organic chicken feet from Whole Foods Market, so she returned to the store and bought antibiotic-free beef shank and short ribs for the soup, then stopped at Hackensack Market for root vegetables, sweet potato and chayote.

My meat-free dinner was a can of Progresso Mexican-style black bean soup and firm tofu, which I sliced, dipped in egg and corn meal and fried in a little oil. I plated the bland tofu and poured on a little Korean red-pepper sauce.

Today, I stopped at H Mart in Little Ferry to pick up fresh fish and greens for dinner, selecting my meal from more than a dozen of each.

I found a slim, silvery Spanish mackerel for $2.99 a pound, and asked for it cleaned, with the head and tail on. At home, I cut the fish into steaks. The baby bok choy, which had deep-green leaves, was $1.49 a pound.

I made the sauce for my fish from olive oil, chopped garlic, red wine from Argentina, the juice of a lemon and a splash of ponzu sauce, bringing it to a boil to reduce and thicken it.

Then I added the fish steaks, head and tail, turning them in the sauce, lowered the heat and put the glass cover on. They were done in about 15 minutes.

I washed the bok choy, blanched the four whole heads in hot water for a few minutes and then transferred them to another pan with warm oil. I seasoned them and heated them up before covering the pan and turning off the heat. 

The fatty mackerel was tender, though it had some bones. The bok choy retained its crunch. I ate them with a salad, but my wife steamed some rice as a side dish.

Our dinner with Chef Gordon Ramsay

Image via Wikipedia

Chef Gordon Ramsay in 2006. He is all-blond now.

We went inside "Kitchen Nightmares," the TV reality show where foul-mouthed Chef Gordon Ramsay tears down, then rebuilds a restaurant that has lost its way to customers' hearts.

We didn't actually have dinner with the chef, though he greeted us after we were seated Thursday night at one of two tables in the bar room of the Spanish Pavillion, a 34-year-old Harrison restaurant that was getting a makeover, including an overnight renovation of its dated interior. (One thing the chef missed is the misspelling of "pavilion.")

If we had made our e-mail reservation earlier, we might have gotten a table in the dining room, where Ramsay and two camera crews spent most of their time. But we never heard the chef raise his voice, curse or throw a tantrum during the restaurant's relaunch.

In fact, he seemed to have a lot on his mind the few times he passed our table on the way out, presumably for exterior shots or to take a break in his trailer at the back of the parking lot.

I stopped him on his way in on one occasion, and mentioned that Chef Ji Cha, one of his "Hell's Kitchen" alumna, had opened a Korean fusion restaurant in Fort Lee, and he reacted positively.

"That's good news," he said softly.

It rained all day and into the night Thursday, and traffic to Harrison was awful. But we got there for our 6 p.m. reservation, then had to stand around in a chilly tent while production staff checked us in, had us sign release forms and photographed us holding numbers and a sheet of paper with our family name on it. 

Inside, production crew in jeans and sweaters constantly checked their paperwork, whispered into microphones, and moved around with cameras and sound booms, focusing on groups waiting at the bar for their tables.

We pumped the woman checking coats and the man who came out from behind the bar to serve us for information, but didn't find out much. 

Image via Wikipedia

The woman, a former employee who was helping out on this special night, said the show's producers approached the restaurant, and that it was a long process, possibly two years. She said we couldn't go to a downstairs bathroom, because of all the recording equipment there.

The bartender said the restaurant was doing business, but was serving the same menu as most of the other Spanish places across the river in Newark's Ironbound -- huge portions and acres of yellow rice and addictive, thin-sliced fried potatoes.

Meanwhile, the dining scene had changed, with the addition of tapas bars, updated  Portuguese restaurants and an influx of Brazilian places.  At the old Portuguese places, you can gorge on unlimited quantities of roasted meat and poultry presented at your table on spits.

Ramsay updated the menu at Spanish Pavillion, adding tapas (small plates) and light entrees accompanied by vegetables, plus soup or salad. He also made a special, coffee-flavored flan for the relaunch. You can still get paella for two.

We started with three small plates -- potato-and-cheese croquettes ($6), patatas brava ($4) and an assortment of olives with bits of manchego cheese ($4). We loved the croquettes, but the patatas brava were just fried potatoes by another name.  

The soup wasn't the standard potato-and-greens soup called caldo gallego, but a delicious puree of potato and garlic with a little cream and possibly sherry. The salad wasn't just a little iceberg lettuce with a few olives, but spring mix in a champagne dressing.

Our entrees were short ribs with carrots ($19); monk fish with sweet red peppers, artichokes and onions ($19); and fillet of sole with a lemon-butter sauce ($20), accompanied by spinach and zucchini.

My son complained his block of meat didn't have any actual ribs and was "bland," to boot. I loved my monk fish, which has the texture of lobster, and its simple sauce, and my wife couldn't finish the sole, though she liked it.

I drank a full-bodied red wine from Rioja (only $5.25 a glass). Soft-drink or juice refills were free. 

We shared the flan ($5), and the coffee flavor gave new life to this old standard. 

As you might imagine with a new menu after so many years of preparing and serving standards, we had to wait for each course, but it wasn't intolerable.

When we left, our last glimpse of the chef in his white jacket and black pants was as he ducked into his trailer.

Spanish Pavillion Restaurant, 31 Harrison Ave., Harrison; 973-485-7750.

www.spanishpavillion.com