The George Washington Bridge linking Fort Lee and Manhattan.
By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR
There are dozens of barbecue, tofu, cold-noodle and other types of Korean restaurants in North Jersey, but now, a chef trained at The Culinary Institute of America and tested under fire on Gordon Ramsay's "Hell's Kitchen" has broken the mold with Chef Ji's Moon Jar in Fort Lee.
Ji Cha, 36, turns out big flavors in this small, strip-mall space on Palisade Avenue, in sight of the George Washington Bridge (former home of Greek To Me, which moved down the street into its own building).
I didn't count them Friday night, but there are probably 25 seats at tables and a bar in the simply decorated but chic room.
The limited menu offers small plates of Asian-inspired food, all under $10, in a bow to the sluggish economy, plus specials, such as my perfectly cooked miso-sake fillet of sea bass served over spicy noodles with seaweed salad ($18.99).
I also tried one of the small plates, portobello "fries," lightly breaded pieces of mushroom served with an aioli ($6.25).
Other small plates include hoisin duck, dumplings, scallops wrapped in bacon and Korean BBQ sliders with Korean cole slaw.
A couple at the next table raved about several of the small plates they had sampled, including the sliders, duck and scallops.
Another special Friday night was a cheese-stuffed hamburger, and Chef Ji offers a five-course tasting menu for $36 or $45 with wine.
The bar turns out specialty drinks, such as the large, sake mojito with fresh mint that cooled me off ($9 or two for $9 during happy hour). Bottles of wine are under $30.
Service was helpful but not polished. Just when I needed a refill of tap water, Chef Ji was there with a pitcher, and she also cleared my table. All the hard surfaces can make conversation difficult when several tables are occupied.
The bar-restaurant takes its name from a mild, fermented Korean rice wine called makgulli -- Moon Jar. The chef offered me and other diners a small tumbler of it after our meals.
I was told makgulli was made by Korean farmers, reminding me of their American counterparts in the rural South who gave us moonshine and stock-car racing.
Chef Ji's Moon Jar, 1636 Palisade Ave., Fort Lee; 201 363-0097. Dinner only. Call for hours. See link below:
Chef Ji
The Fairway Market sales flier that came with the newspaper today invites shoppers to the "grand re-opening" of the Paramus store, which debuted in March 2009. Aisles have been expanded, better signs are up and organics, grocery and specialty items are grouped together. Who knew?
I last visited the Fashion Center store in the first half of June and didn't notice anything being changed. It was as much a labyrinth then as it was during my first visit ever -- minus the crowds, gridlock and people banging their carts into each other (photo).
The flier promises the store now is "easier to shop and browse." Inside the flier, Fairway lists about 20 grocery items and compares its prices to ShopRite in Paramus and Stop & Shop in Ridgewood. In each case, the Fairway price is lower.
Employees -- or customer-relations specialists, in Fairway speak -- will be wearing red aprons with big black letters, "NEED HELP?" In smaller letters, the aprons say, "I'm friendly and I have answers."
One pound of smoked, wild sockeye salmon at Costco in Hackensack -- sold under the Kirkland house brand -- is $14.99, not $4.99, as I wrote initially in the previous post. It is available year-round, and is a bargain at that price.
It's pre-sliced, and makes a great breakfast sandwich with pesto, hummus, Dijon mustard or yogurt cheese; tomato, lettuce and Swiss or sharp cheddar cheese.
The upscale Greek fish house called Nisi Estiatorio in Englewood offers a $17 lunch that compares favorably with the three $24.07 lunches I enjoyed recently in Manhattan. Nisi's lunch is three courses, like its pricier competition, and the fish is just as fresh. The restaurant serves olives and bread drizzled with olive oil.
I started with house-cured salmon in ouzo (the menu didn't say if this was farmed or wild-caught fish). My entree was a red-snapper fillet grilled simply with the skin on and served with an emulsion of extra-virgin olive oil and lemon with capers, and a side dish of sauteed greens, including Swiss chard. Dessert was rich Greek yogurt with berries. A terrific lunch.
Nisi Estiatorio is at 90 Grand Ave., Englewood; 201-567-4700.
Organic spinach at Costco
I stopped at Costco in Hackensack this morning to see if I could find organic spinach. A one-pound package was $3.99, compared with $6.99 at ShopRite.
Summer salads
I made a couple of salads over the weekend to see me through the week.
I took a half-pound of whole fava beans (photo) I bought frozen at Jerry's in Englewood, boiled them and dressed them in extra-virgin olive oil and fresh lemon juice, adding salt and Middle Eastern spices to taste, including cumin and Aleppo red pepper from Fattal's in Paterson.
I did the same with a half-pound of gourmet fingerling potatoes from Costco. Both the fava beans and potatoes taste great stuffed into warm pocket bread.
Skate wing for dinner
After lunch at Nisi in Englewood, I stopped at the Korean supermarket called H Mart to look over the fresh fish. I found skate wing for $2.99 a pound and, although the fishmonger said I don't have to do anything to it before cooking, I suspect the one-pound-plus piece I bought contains a bone.
At the Greek restaurant Anthos in Manhattan, where I had skate wing as part of a three-course lunch for $24.07 last Friday, it is listed on the a la carte menu at $29.
Wild salmon at Costco
There was plenty of fresh, wild sockeye salmon at Costco this morning for $8.99 a pound, its color a vivid contrast with the farmed, artificially colored salmon at the other end of the case. Costco also sells previously frozen, wild sockeye that has been naturally smoked without preservatives for $14.99 a pound, a price that would be hard to match elsewhere. Unlike the fresh sockeye, the smoked version is available year-round.
I originally wrote the smoked salmon was $4.99 a pound. That was incorrect.
The Record of Woodland Park is looking for a new food editor. The successful candidate would replace Bill Pitcher, who has been in the job for only four years and one month.
The job posting -- on the Web site of the University of Miami School of Communication -- reads almost exactly like the one the newspaper ran after Patricia Mack was forced to retire in 2006.
But the address for cover letters and resumes is now 1 Garret Mountain Plaza in Woodland Park, not 150 River St., Hackensack, former home of the newspaper and North Jersey Media Group. Here is one line from the July 20 posting:
"This editor must have a boundless enthusiasm for and a vast knowledge of food, dining, nutrition, fitness, diet and health issues."
Pitcher, who is being paid more than $71,000 a year, never put his stamp on food coverage. He took over the job in June 2006 -- several months before the Food section was folded by Publisher Stephen A. Borg -- and has been little more than a recipe editor. In the past six months, he has reviewed restaurants while Elisa Ung is on leave.
The brash, young publisher promised "every day" food news in the Better Living features section that Pitcher never was able to deliver, despite the assistance of Ung and other young staffers.
The successful candidate likely will be in their early 30s -- in keeping with Features Director Barbara Jaeger's desire to work with young people who won't challenge her authority.
To read the full posting, go to the university Web site (below) and click on "Career Connection" in the header, then "Jobs":
com.miami.edu
Ima is the Hebrew word for mother, but the food served at the kosher Teaneck restaurant pales in comparison to the dishes turned out by my Sephardic Jewish mother, who was born in Aleppo, Syria.
The cook at this restaurant is the daughter of the woman who opened the original Ima in Israel, featuring recipes from the family kitchen in Mosul, Iraq. Iraq and Syria share a border, but, judging from the food I ate at Teaneck's Ima, not the spices that set Grace Sasson's food apart.
This is also a kosher restaurant, which means it's expensive. I can understand why dishes with kosher meat are more expensive than non-kosher meat dishes at other restaurants. But why are dishes without meat so expensive?
I wanted to try one of Ima's signature items -- kibbeh -- which is a fried bulgur-wheat casing containing vegetables, but only the meat version was available Sunday evening. Instead, I ordered a red pepper stuffed with rice ($6), a bowl of tomato soup with white beans ($6) and an Israeli salad of chopped tomatoes and cucumbers that serves two ($8). Hummus was listed at $9.
The food was good, but bland. I couldn't taste any cumin, allspice or tamarind sauce, just three of the ways my mother seasoned her home-cooked dishes.
The restaurant is simply decorated and seats about 20. During my visit Sunday evening, I saw at least three, large Israeli families with noisy children eating there.
After I ordered, I received a small bowl of pickled vegetables and a single, doughy, partially burned pocket bread. I asked for a second bread during my meal. I drank water, because there was no seltzer.
Ima is about a mile from my home, and I was hoping it was a place where I could experience the flavors of my mother's kitchen, but I'll have to continue driving to Paterson for the real thing.
Ima Restaurant, 445 Cedar Lane, Teaneck; 201-357-5789.
Closed Friday at 4 p.m. during the summer, and all day Saturday.
The George Washington Bridge linking Fort Lee and Manhattan.
