Putting a Korean accent on raw fish

Raw fish over rice at Woochun Restaurant in Palisades Park is dressed with a mildly spicy red-pepper paste from a squeeze bottle on the table, and served with six meatless side dishes and a small bowl of soup, below.

 

Editor's note: Today, I discuss the Korean way of decontructing sushi, and a great bowl of clam chowder at Fairmount Eats in Hackensack.

Those Japanese rolls of fish, rice and seaweed called sushi are terrific, but the Koreans have managed to deconstruct and improve on this healthy combination.

Order raw fish over rice at Woochun Restaurant in Palisades Park, and the sushi chef will send over a large bowl of fresh salad greens, bean sprouts, cucumber and seaweed topped with a few ounces of fluke, salmon and tuna ($15.99).

The rice is served on the side, and I asked for brown instead of white.  I also told the waitress to hold the tuna to cut down on mercury consumption.
 

Woochun keeps metal chopsticks and spoons in a box on the table.

 


I also ate the rice on the side, but I think I was supposed to put it in the big bowl, add lots of the red-pepper paste called gochujang and mix everything up like the classic Korean dish bibimbap -- rice, vegetables, ground meat and a fried or raw egg.

Along with the bowl of fresh spring mix and fish, I got six free side dishes: kimchi, greens, fish cake, radish, potatoes and ginger with hot pepper, plus soup and hot tea.

I couldn't finish all of that, plus a few more free side dishes I asked for, and took salad home.

The fluke in the dish may come from the live fish in large tanks at the back of the restaurant.  

The next time I order raw fish over rice I'll ask only for the wild-caught fluke, which is terrific eaten cooked or raw.
 

Near the rest rooms at the back of Woochun is a swinging door that leads to a Korean bar. The bar is BYO, serves food and is said to be a separate business.

 

Woochun Restaurant, 280 Broad Ave, Palisades Park; 201-242-9999. Free parking on side streets.

Manhattan Clam Chowder and a cup of organic coffee at Fairmount Eats.

A briny bowl of soup

On Saturday, I stopped at Fairmount Eats in Hackensack for coffee and a bowl of soup, and was served a wonderful Manhattan Clam Chowder with fresh, tender clams ($3.45).

I liked it so much I ordered a second bowl and a second cup of organic coffee ($1.65 with free refill).

The light, briny broth was filled with potatoes, clam pieces and other ingredients.


Fairmount Eats, 641 Main St., Hackensack; 201-489-3287.

The Korean-style pork cutlet that ate Palisades Park

The Jumbo Pork Chop at Woochon Restaurant in Palisades Park.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I met two friends for lunch today at Woochon Restaurant in Palisades Park, and one of them had never tried Korean food before.

Looking over the lunch menu and knowing what a dedicated meat eater he is, I suggested he have the Jumbo Pork Chop ($12.99).

He was delighted with it, but the closeup photo above doesn't do its size justice: 

The breaded pork cutlet -- not exactly a "chop" -- was at least 12 inches long and 6 inches wide, and its shape resembled the state of New Jersey.

In fact, my friend said, it reminded him of weiner schnitzel, a thin slice of veal that is breaded and fried.

The Korean cutlet was served on an enormous plate with white rice, french fries and salad. He took half of the cutlet home for his wife to taste.

My other friend, who served with the U.S. Army during the Korean War and speaks Korean, had a traditional short-rib stew with cabbage ($10.99).

I had my favorite dish, soft-tofu stew with seafood ($9.99), and both of us asked for brown rice instead of white.

Soft-tofu stew with seafood.

Five of the complimentary side dishes served with the meal.

More side dishes, including cabbage kimchi, front.

  

After lunch, I went for a walk along Broad Avenue, stopping at two catering stores to check out the prepared side dishes, soups, stews and fish, and the refrigerated bottles of kimchi.

This caterer offers a dizzying variety of Korean side dishes.

A sign says this new dumpling restaurant will open on Dec. 19.

Woochon Restaurant, 280 Broad Ave., Palisades Park; 201-242-9999. Free parking on side streets.

Update: Woochon Restaurant is closed permanently.

Korean food is ready for its close-up

Fresh, crunchy cabbage kimchi is one of four side dishes served at So Gong Dong.

So Gong Dong -- a popular soft-tofu restaurant in Palisades Park -- has been making a number of changes, from adding new dishes to changing servers' shirts from burgundy to red.

But the signature soft-tofu stew, rice, fresh eggs and four side dishes are as good as ever, and a complete, filling meal costs only $9.99. 

The second-floor entrance to So Gong Dong.

I ordered my soft tofu "more spicy," and broke two eggs into the bubbling broth.

A seafood pancake comes with a soy-based dipping sauce.

The Korean table is one of the most approachable, especially if you don't eat meat, but I see only a handful of non-Asians at So Gong Dong and other restaurants in Palisades Park, a center of the cuisine.

There is a good selection of non-spicy dishes, and an abundance of healthy tofu and vegetables.

The broth for soft-tofu stew is made from beef bones, but on request, So Gong Dong will use hot water, and make the stew as spicy or mild as you like.

A second kimchi is made from cucumbers, but you also get fresh bean sprouts.

Korean beef ribs are available for carnivores.

The four complimentary side dishes served with the tofu stew include three vegetables and highly spiced raw squid.

In addition to soft tofu, available plain and with meat or seafood, So Gong Dong is now serving rice-based bibimbap, and cold and hot noodle soups.

We've always had great service, but a button on each table allows you to ring a buzzer (or is it a bell?), and summon a server.

So Gong Dong, 118 Broad Ave., 2nd Floor, Palisades Park; 201-313-5550. Valet parking and free parking on side streets.

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This lunch made us forget about dinner

Woochon has a waterfall in the dining room and tanks of live seafood.

Editor's note: Today, I describe two great ethnic meals at restaurants in Palisades Park and Hackensack.

I came across a real eye-opener while looking over the lunch menu at Woochon, a new Korean restaurant in Palisades Park:

Hangover Stew with Clotted Ox Blood. 

We stuck with more conventional food during our lunch on Thursday -- my wife and I shared entrees of Grilled Spanish Mackerel ($13.99) and Soft Bean Curd Stew with Seafood ($9.99).

A large mackerel fillet comes with pickled ginger, watercress and a lemon wedge.

The bean-curd stew is served in an usually large stone bowl.

Menu prices include the side dishes of vegetables, fish and meat Korean restaurants are known for. 

On Thursday, we received 11 small dishes with fish cake, translucent noodles, spring-mix salad, peanuts, dark-green seaweed, mushrooms, kimchi  and other items, and several were replenished during the meal.

The restaurant serves summer water kimchi and white kimchi instead of the spicier mahk kimchi, which is made with a lot of red pepper and garlic.

The entrees came with brown or white rice, and with the side dishes, I was so full, I skipped dinner.


I was happy with tea, fruit and cheese until bedtime.

Some of the seafood in my bean-curd stew --baby octopus and squid -- was chewy, but a large shrimp in the shell couldn't have been more tender.

We also loved the juicy, skin-on mackerel fillet -- which came with a small bowl of soft-tofu stew -- and all the side dishes or panchan were delicious.   

When we walked it, we were greeted with shouts of welcome from the staff.

At the end of the meal, a male waiter bowed and presented the check on a small tray. 

Ten of the 11 side dishes we were served, above and below.

The restaurant, affiliated with another of the same name in the Flushing section of Queens, offers a full menu of sushi, tofu and barbecue.

Woochon customers also can sit at a sushi bar, rear.

An outside sign and a summer specials menu list dishes only in Korean. The restaurant is housed in an old corner bank building on the main street in Palisades Park.

Woochon Restaurant, 280 Broad Ave., Palisades Park; 201-242-9999.

Wondee's 

We had another wonderful dinner of seafood, tofu and vegetables at Wondee's in Hackensack on Saturday night, and the food looked as good as it tasted.

I remembered to grab a bottle of Mexican beer from the fridge, but forgot my iPhone and can't bring you photos of our meal.

Three of us had spicy shrimp-and-mushroom soup or wonton soup, an appetizer of fried tofu with a peanut dipping sauce, green papaya salad, large shrimp in a sweet chili sauce and stir-fried tofu with vegetables.

The shredded papaya is served over dark-green lettuce leaves you can use to wrap it, and the puddle of fish sauce-lemon juice dressing is terrific when eaten with a spoon. 

The wonderful shrimp came with a cabbage salad on the side. We ate white or brown rice.

We dined early, and three servers waited on us.

When we walked in, Chef Wandee Suwangbutra was having something to eat in the dining room before the expected rush of customers.

Wondee's Fine Thai Food and Noodles, 296 Main St., Hackensack; 201-883-1700 or 1715. Parking in rear, BYO.

Web site: Fine Thai Food


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Pizzeria is displacing Vietnamese restaurant

Image by aldenjewell via Flickr

Fort Lee street scene in 1951.

Mo' Pho in Fort Lee was the second Vietnamese restaurant from Chef K.T. Tran, specializing in the anise-flavored soup called pho.


But the restaurant at 212 Main St. has closed, and the facade is being renovated by the owner of a pizzeria and restaurant.


I described a bowl of pho this way:


"When Joe the waiter set down my bowl of pho with shrimp, I leaned close to the anise-scented beef broth and breathed deeply. Wonderful. You'd be hard put to find a soup that matches the aroma of this one." 


An Italian-American restaurant replacing a Vietnamese one is counter to the trend in Fort Lee, where Korean restaurants have proliferated in recent years.


Several blocks down Main Street, the facade of So Kong Dong also is being renovated, but the Korean soft-tofu restaurant remains open for business.


Side dishes galore 


On the way to a Suzanne Vega concert on Thursday at Bergen Community College in Paramus, we stopped for a soft-tofu stew dinner at Pine Hill Restaurant.


I continue to be impressed by how many free side dishes this Korean restaurant serves, while others have cut back noticeably.


After we ordered seafood soft-tofu stews ($10.45 each), the waitresses set down 10 small dishes on the table between me and my wife.


Our side dishes included fish cake, stewed tofu, kimchi, bean sprouts, iceberg-lettuce salad, yams in sweet syrup, steamed greens and half of a broiled small fish.


Unlike Korean restaurants specializing in soft tofu, Pine Hill serves a stone-bowl egg souffle, instead of a fresh egg to cook in the soup. 


And the waitress brought us a bowl of nutty brown rice, instead of usual steamed white rice, plus a second dish of cabbage kimchi when we asked for them.

Pine Hill Restaurant, 123 Paramus Road, Paramus; 
201-843-0170. Open for lunch and dinner.

Driving here and there for my weekly fix

Image via Wikipedia

Side dishes such as these are one of the best parts of a Korean meal, though no North Jersey restaurant serves them in such abundance.

The vibrant colors and flavors of Korean food are hard to match, and I try to enjoy them every week, keeping prepared items in my refrigerator and eating out in new and old places.


I am also really loving the "The Kimchi Chronicles" on Thirteen, a PBS TV station in New York.


The series explores Korean dishes prepared with meat, poultry, fish, vegetables and tofu -- in restaurants and in the kitchen.


On Saturday, I had dinner at East Seafood Restaurant on Grand Avenue in Palisades Park, where the windowless dining room is below street level, under a billiard hall.


This place is off the beaten path in Palisades Park, which has more Korean restaurants than any other town in North Jersey, but it has been around for years.


Now, it has a new name, and the waitress said it has a new owner.


Unfortunately, the new owner not only just stretched a banner over the old name on the outside of the building, he left untouched the worn interior and linoleum floor I remember from a lunch a few years ago.


That's too bad, because the spicy monk-fish stew, or tang, I chose included eight side dishes, including a small grilled fish in a sweet-and-sour sauce ($14.99).


This is also the only restaurant I know with large tanks of live fish, lobster and abalone. You can ask for a small fluke to be served to you raw as sashimi. 


(The New York Times reported in 2004 it is illegal in the United States to serve raw fish unless it has been frozen first to kill parasites.)


I had hoped I could order one of the live fish and grill it on the table, as I saw Koreans do in the "The Kimchi Chronicles," but I couldn't.


After I ordered the monk-fish stew, I received a small bowl of rice porridge and six side dishes -- cabbage kimchi, seasoned scallions, pickled jalapeno peppers, crunchy cooked broccoli, bean sprouts and sweetened black beans.


Later, the waitress brought me the small, whole fish and steamed rice. The stew contained tofu and a head-on shrimp, in addition to monk fish and vegetables.


"Dong Hae Restaurant" appears on the credit-card slip. Whatever it's called, I won't be going back.


East Seafood Restaurant, 445 Grand Ave., Palisades Park;
 201-461-4447. Valet parking, liquor license.


Korean food at home


Earlier Saturday, I drove to H Mart in Fort Lee for some of my favorite prepared dishes.


Stewed wild-caught Alaska pollock ($5.99) and stewed tofu ($3.49) are seasoned with scallions and onions or garlic; red pepper, sesame oil or soy sauce, and sesame seeds.


Kimbap is a sliced sushi roll of seaweed, seasoned rice, crunchy vegetables and crab, garnished with a few Korean pickles ($4.99).


A few pieces of tofu and kimbap, warmed in the microwave, made for a tasty breakfast today.


Web site:  H Mart