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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Low quality, high prices

T.G.I. Friday's (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Editor's note: Today, I compare meals at T.G.I. Friday's and Lotus Cafe, both in Hackensack; and publish photos of Korean comfort food in Palisades Park.

I once had a cheeseburger at what I believe was the first T.G.I. Friday's -- on Third Avenue in Manhattan.

That was decades ago, and I no longer eat cheeseburgers or any other meat or poultry, and when I did, I tried to find beef, lamb or chicken raised without antibiotics or growth hormones.

I worked in Hackensack for nearly 30 years, and never visited the T.G.I. Friday's on Hackensack Avenue, so I wished my wife well earlier this month, when my 14-year-old son said he wanted to have dinner there.

My wife, son and his best friend spent $74.90 on food and soft drinks, got $18.72 in coupon and other discounts, and ended up paying $69.11 for three, including tip and tax.

For not much more than the original amount, four of us could have had a six-course Chinese dinner across the way -- at Lotus Cafe, a BYO in the Home Depot Shopping Center.

Looking at the itemized T.G.I. Friday's check, I see lemonades for $3.49 each, with free refills.

They shared the Tuscan Spinach Dip for $9.19. According to the nutritional information on the company Web site, the dip has a whopping 1,000 calories and 1,500 milligrams of sodium.

Nothing on the Web site indicates that Chicken Fingers ($10.79) or any other meat is naturally raised. 

At Lotus Cafe, the Dinner for Four ($66) includes Chicken & Wild Bamboo Soup, Mooshu Delight, Seafood and Tofu Casserole, Filet of Sole with Ginger and Scallion, Garden Fresh Vegetable and fruit for dessert.

With tip and tax, the dinner costs about $21 per person.

Lotus Cafe, 450 Hackensack Ave., Hackensack; 201-488-3202. Open 7 days. BYO.

Kimchi with raw oyster

Last weekend, we had another great meal at So Gong Dong in Palisades Park: Soft-tofu stew, fresh egg, seafood pancake, rice and side dishes.

The stew, a popular Korean comfort food, is $9.99 with rice and four side dishes, and tax is included in the price, which is rounded up to $10 on the check. 

The stew is available not spicy, spicy or more spicy.

A birthday party at the second-floor restaurant.

I broke a fresh egg into my bubbling soft-tofu stew with oysters.

A seafood-vegetable pancake is made from rice flour.

We love the kimchi (rear), but not when we get a raw oyster with it.

So Gong Dong Restaurant, 118 Broad Ave., Second Floor, Palisades Park; 201-313-5550. Open 7 days. BYO. Free parking on side streets.

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.

We brake for soft-tofu restaurants

Image via CrunchBase

A video shows how one Korean home cook makes soft-tofu stew (see link below).

Was it my idea to look around for a soft-tofu restaurant that offers better food and service than the second-floor tofu house in Palisades Park that has served us so many satisfying meals in recent years?

We tried Gamasot Restaurant in Fort Lee last April and Book Chang Dong in Palisades Park this month. On Saturday, we waded into the crowded dining room at So Kong Dong in Fort Lee -- and found it differs from our favorite, So Gong Dong, in more than how the second word is spelled.

The Fort Lee restaurant is where I first tried this Korean comfort food six or seven years ago, but I stopped going there after receiving terrible service on a night when the place was packed. I just happened to be comparing So Gong Dong and So Kong Dong for an article on inexpensive restaurants in The Record.

There is conflicting information on whether So Kong Dong and So Gong Dong are affiliated, but the well-dressed woman at the register Saturday evening said they don't have the same owner. I've heard from Korean friends that So Gong Dong is a section of Seoul where soft-tofu houses predominate. 
 

Both interiors resemble traditional inns, but the Fort Lee restaurant has a showcase of beautiful Korean dolls. It is popular with families, and on Saturday, it filled up quickly between 5 and 6 p.m., and people were waiting for tables.

So Kong Dong offers a variety of soft-tofu stews, steamed rice, five side dishes, a fresh egg and tea for $9, including tax, $1 less than its Palisades Park rival. But if the small parking lot is filled, as it was on Saturday evening, you have to pay 50 cents for one hour of parking in the municipal lot across the street.

I liked the taste of my soft-tofu stew with oysters, which I ordered "very hot (spicy)," but it wasn't bubbling as furiously as I prefer for cooking the fresh egg. My wife and son said their pork version didn't taste as good as at our favorite place. 

They also ordered "Korean BBQ ribs" ($14.99), the same price for what the Palisades Park restaurant lists as "prime beef."

Fort Lee doesn't offer Korean dumplings (mandoo) or a rice-flour seafood pancake (pajun) that you'll find in Pal Park for about $10 each. The dining room of the former and the wait staff both seem smaller. Portions at both places are the same, and both are BYO.

Fort Lee serves one more side dish or panchan and that's a delightful, mildly spicy water kimchi. The others are the same at both places -- cabbage and cucumber kimchis, bean sprouts and spicy raw squid. 

Both places uses a beef or beef-bone broth, although I came across a You Tube video showing a woman making a seafood-vegetable broth at home (see link below).

So, our favorite soft-tofu restaurant remains on top. We plan to revisit Gamasot in Fort Lee soon, and that should do it.

Video shows how to make soft-tofu stew

So Kong Dong Restaurant, 130 Main St., Fort Lee; 201-585-1122.

Restaurant So Gong Dong, 118 Broad Ave., Second Floor, 
Palisades Park; 201-313-8900.

At Chung Dam Dong Restaurant

Image by xoundbox via Flickr
Broad Avenue is the main street in Palisades Park, home to dozens of Korean restaurants and coffee shops.

If you love to see your meal cooked on the table at a Korean restaurant and if you're a big fan of octopus and squid in a seriously spicy sauce, head over to Chung Dam Dong in Palisades Park.


We had dinner there last night after negotiating with the waitress and the kitchen over what we wanted in our seafood stir fry instead of those invertebrates, which I love but which my wife and son abhor. 


The meal came with eight panchan, or side dishes, including a delightful salad of greens, two kinds of terrific kimchi, stewed radish and fish, steamed egg, and potato salad with mayo and raisins. Another was scallion, green pepper, carrot and Spam on a toothpick, battered and fried.


So we agreed on pork and shell- and head-on shrimp in our stir fry, which was cooked with vegetables and a half-dozen mussels in the kitchen and brought to our table in a wok that was placed over a gas grill to keep it bubbling. 


The mussels never opened, so I didn't eat them. A stone bowl of coarse, bland bean curd -- or was it tofu? -- was the perfect counterpoint to this spicy dish.


After we put a serious dent in the entree and several dishes of salad and kimchi, which were replenished when empty, the waitress brought out fresh bean sprouts and a medium-size bowl of steamed white rice and dumped them into the wok, stirring them into the remaining sauce and flattening the rice against the bottom and sides of the blackened wok -- for sort of a Korean paella. We tried, but couldn't finish the rice.


I don't know the name of this entree, but you can find it on the menu by its lofty price -- $42.99. The waitress told us it served only two and urged us to order soup, in addition to the fried vegetable dumplings we wanted ($11.99). We declined. 


This is one restaurant where the quality of the "free side dishes" make some of the pricier entrees palatable. The only beer available is Coors Light, and a small bottle of soju is about $12.


Chung Dam Dong also offers Korean barbecue, but I didn't pay too much attention to those selections, because we have long ago decided to buy our own free-range, grass-fed Australian beef and prepare barbecue at home, after consuming so much "mystery meat" at restaurants.


You'll find this second-floor restaurant in the same building on Broad Avenue that houses So Gong Dong, our favorite soft-tofu place. At the top of the stairs, you turn right for tofu stews, left for spicy stir fries and great side dishes.


Chung Dam Dong Restaurant, 118 Broad Ave.,
Palisades Park, 201-313-8900. No Web site. 

Gee, what's that in my kimchi?

Image by Taekwonweirdo via Flickr

With the wind howling and temperature falling, is there a better meal than a stone bowl filled with bubbling Korean soft-tofu stew, another bowl of steamed rice and several side dishes? So, last night, right after we placed our order at So Gong Dong in Palisades Park, a waitress brought us four side dishes to quiet our hunger.

We immediately attacked the cabbbage and cucumber kimchis, but my wife and son ignored the other side dishes -- bean sprouts and raw squid in a spicy sauce. Then, my wife's fork uncovered something odd in the cabbage kimchi -- it looked raw, almost rotten. I hit the button on the the table and a chime sounded, summoning a waitress, who said it was just a raw oyster. A raw oyster? My wife was horrified. She hates raw seafood, especially oysters and clams, and refuses even to eat cooked squid or octopus. We gave the waitress our cabbage kimchi and she quickly replaced it and added another dish of  cucumber kimchi.

My first taste of kimchi was in the late 1960s, when my Korean roommate at the University of Missouri-Columbia offered me some. Since the late 1990s, I have eaten it regularly at Korean restaurants in North Jersey, including So Gong Dong, and New York City, and now, I always have a bottle of cabbage kimchi in my refrigerator. I have never in all that time seen an oyster in my kimchi. In fact, the only seafood ingredients listed on the label of the Arirang-brand kimchi I often buy in Englewood are salted shrimp and anchovy sauce.

So Gong Dong offers soft-tofu with oysters and may make its own kimchi, so is it possible one of the oysters fell into the kimchi? Or are oysters an ingredient some kimchi-makers add?

Restaurant So Gong Dong, 118 Broad Ave., 2nd Floor, 
Palisades Park; 201-313-5550, open seven days.