Your server might be making $2.13 an hour

Why are these waitresses smiling?

I am shocked to learn that the minimum wage for tipped workers in New Jersey is $2.13 an hour -- the same compensation as in federal law.

So, the next time you're upset by the quality or preparation of food in a restaurant, you might want to talk to the restaurant owner instead of stiffing the waiter.

Of course, many restaurant owners already have the upper hand, paying slave wages to workers and hiding or misrepresenting the quality of the food they serve. 

The media go along with this by rarely devoting any space to the origin of restaurant food.

The New Jersey Assembly wants to raise the minimum wage for tipped workers, but is Governor Christie going to be any more supportive of the effort now that he's refused to raise the minimum for all workers?

“The minimum wage for tipped workers in New Jersey is $2.13 per hour, a paltry sum that has been frozen for more than 20 years and is lower than most states, including all of our surrounding states,” explains Assemblywoman Shavonda Sumter, one of the sponsors. “It is time for New Jersey to catch up.”

It looks like nothing will change. Customers and servers will be pitted against each other, and many restaurant owners will be laughing all the way to the bank.

The link below provides more information on wages and tipping:

A Guide to Tipping

At Costco Wholesale in Hackensack, a customer behaves badly

At Costco Wholesale, unsalted raw almonds were $9.89 on May 7 and $10.99 on May 29. To put some crunch in these nuts, I roast them in the oven at 275 degrees for 1 hour.

Editor's note: Today, I discuss food shopping at Costco Wholesale, ShopRite and H Mart.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

My wife couldn't believe her eyes as she stood in line to return Fuji apples at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack.

A woman in front of her was seeking a refund for a 1-pound container of Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix, which she apparently didn't finish before its expiration date; three 1-pound packages of Black Tiger shrimp, and a bag filled with Romaine lettuce.

My wife said the Organic Spring Mix was rotting.

Costco has a liberal return policy, giving customers a full refund for any item they don't like.

Executive Members of the warehouse club don't even need a receipt.

But if this woman and others abuse the policy, Costco may change it, hurting honest customers.

We were returning the Washington State Extra Fancy apples because two of three we cut into were brown inside. The week before, we returned pears from Chile because they were mealy.

We've asked for refunds for Organic Spring Mix that rotted before its use-by date on the package, but never after.

A 1-pound package of the best-tasting salad mix in the world is only $4.99 at Costco.

Free-range beef

ShopRite has knocked $3 off a pound of Nature's Reserve free-range, grass-fed beef from Australia -- perfect for Korean barbecue.

A whole tenderloin for filet mignon is $5.99 a pound with the store's PricePlus card through Saturday.

In the Paramus store, I bought a tenderloin weighing about 6 pounds, and my wife trimmed it and sliced it thinly, dividing it into three portions and adding Korean bulgogi marinade.

We put two portions in the freezer. 

She grilled the remaining beef on a stove-top grill, serving it with red-leaf lettuce, white rice, red-pepper paste and Korean side dishes.

I ate wild salmon with pesto.

ShopRite also had a sale on seedless watermelons for $4.99 each. I bought one, but it was smaller than Costco's $5.99 melons.

Neither store has a scale that allows you to weight the melons

I bought 2 pints of Jersey blueberries for $5 after comparing their weight to an 18-ounce package of Jersey blues for $4.99.

The pints weighed a couple of ounces more.

You roll up beef, rice, red-pepper paste and seasoned radish in red-leaf lettuce, and pop the package into your mouth. Below, Korean side dishes are seasoned radish, stewed tofu and pan-fried fish cake with carrot and jalapeno pepper.

Mexican mangoes

In addition to buying prepared Korean side dishes at H Mart in Little Ferry, I picked up Champagne mangoes on sale-- a box of 20 for $9.99, a discount of $4.

These Mexican mangoes are intensely sweet and not at all stringy.

Have your own Wild-Salmon Festival

Fresh wild sockeye salmon with leftovers from Wondee's in Hackensack.

Wild-caught salmon, homemade shrimp and broccoli with fresh garlic.

Wild salmon with pesto and leftover pasta from BV Tuscany in Teaneck.

Editor's note: Today, I've included a recipe for Blender Pesto. Pesto -- basil, garlic, olive oil, pine nuts and grated cheese -- goes perfectly with fish, especially wild salmon from Alaska.

  
With fresh wild salmon from Alaska now selling for under $10 a pound at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack, I'm throwing my own festival at home.

My wife brought home a nearly 2-pound fillet of Copper River salmon for $9.99 a pound this past Friday, and we're working our way through the seven or eight portions I prepared in a preheated, 400-degree oven.

The week before, Copper River salmon dropped to $8.99 a pound from $13.99 a pound, so now, it is only $1 or $2 more a pound than artificially colored farmed Atlantic salmon.

Before I cooked the wild-salmon portions, I squeezed on fresh lime juice and sprinkled them with Aleppo red pepper. The portions cooked through in 10 to 12 minutes.

When I took them out of the oven, I spread pesto on each juicy piece. I reheat the leftover fish in the microwave for about 1 minute.

I roast the heart-healthy fish on aluminum foil sprayed with oil, so the skin doesn't stick. 

I found a container of pesto in the freezer, marked "8/3/09," but it was fine, and I added grated Pecorino Romano sheep's milk cheese, also from Costco.

Here is the Marcella Hazan recipe I use:

BLENDER PESTO

Enough for 1 pound or 6 servings of pasta

2 cups fresh basil leaves 

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons pine nuts

2 cloves garlic, lightly crushed with a heavy knife handle and peeled

1 teaspoon salt (optional)

1/2 cup freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese

2 tablespoons freshly grated Pecorino Romano cheese

1. Put the pine nuts, garlic cloves, basil and extra-virgin olive oil in the blender and mix at high speed.  Stop from time to time and scrape the ingredients down toward the bottom of the blender cup with a rubber spatula.  

2.  When the ingredients are evenly blended, pour into a bowl and beat in the two grated cheeses by hand. (This is not much work, and it results in more interesting texture and better flavor than you get when you mix in the cheese in the blender.)  If you do not want to use the pesto immediately, put it into a closed container and freeze it before you add the cheese.

3. Before spooning the pesto over the pasta, add to it a tablespoon or so of the hot water in which the pasta has boiled.  Do not heat the pesto before you add it to the pasta.

Note: The best pesto has a great deal of basil in it. I use leaves and stems, and pack a measuring cup with it to get 2 cups you need. 

The more basil, the better. I've also added mint, rosemary, arugula, parsley and other herbs, but think basil makes the best pesto.

The original recipe included 4 tablespoons of butter, but I eliminated that decades ago.

Of course, you don't have to eat pesto with pasta. You can spread it on bread or toast for sandwiches or on top of fish right after you take it out of the oven.

Today, for a snack, I spread some of the pesto that I had left on a slice of wild smoked salmon and rolled that up with a piece of sliced cheese.

Smoked wild salmon and eggs, above and below, would be wonderful with pesto.

Organic whole-wheat pasta and wild salmon with pesto.

Wild salmon with organic brown rice and carrots.

'Fine Italian Cuisine' is no idle boast

Mediterranean colors brighten the interior of BV Tuscany Restaurant in Teaneck.

As we were leaving BV Tuscany with leftover penne and lobster on Saturday night, we looked back at the words on the Teaneck restaurant's red awnings.

"FINE ITALIAN CUISINE."

That says it nicely, and in this case, the food and service lived up to the boast.

In fact, this was the best Italian meal I have had in a North Jersey restaurant in more years than I care to remember.

BV Tuscany, which opened in 2009, reminds me of the restaurants in Milan, Venice and on Lake Maggiore that I enjoyed during a 10-day visit to Italy in 2010.

My wife's salad of Baby Arugula, Poached Pear and Mango was a special.

My Tre Colore Caterina Salad included endive and shaved Parmigiano Reggiano cheese.

We started with two salads, and I was sorry I didn't follow my wife's example and order the delicious Baby Arugula with Poached Pear and Mango in a mango dressing from the list of specials recited by the waiter ($8.95).

My Tre Colore Caterina from the menu was excellent ($7.95), but unfortunately, both salads used pale, thin, cold tomato slices that lost whatever flavor they might have had in the refrigerator.

Our entrees were Lobster Fra Diavolo ($28.95) and Atlantic Sea Bass with Spinach ($23.95). Neither dish is made with butter.

The pound-and-a-half Maine lobster was cooked in the dining room, below, after a server brought the pan over to our table and showed us the crustacean.

The lobster claws and tail were unusually tender.

The spicy preparation of lobster is usually made with linguine, but I asked for whole-wheat pasta and was told only penne was available.

My wife and I shared that dish and a second entree of sea bass fillets served over a bed of sauteed spinach.

We couldn't finish the food, and took home the penne, which I had for breakfast this morning.

A few other minor complaints:

A fine-dining restaurant should have a larger selection of whole-wheat pasta. 

The sea bass was wonderful, but a wedge of lemon on the plate would have made it perfect.

BV Tuscany has a large staff for a small restaurant, but the solicitous waiter who recited the specials spoke so quickly and in such a hushed tone my wife didn't understand a word he said.

We did like the homemade breadsticks and olives we got after we placed our order.

Two small sea-bass fillets were stacked on a bed of fresh spinach.

Our bill totaled $74.69 with tax but not tip. I used a $50 Living Social voucher that cost me $25.

So, I paid $24.68 with tax and left a $11 tip, for a total of $35.68. With the $25 I paid for the voucher, the meal cost us $60.68.

As we left, I thanked the staff, and promised to return.

Each table at BV Tuscany holds a bottle of wine.

BV Tuscany Restaurant, 368 Cedar Lane, Teaneck; 201-287-0404. Dinner only. Free street parking.

Web site: Fine Tuscan Cuisine

In Newark's Ironbound, Iberian food is a moveable feast

The upscale Adega Grill on Ferry Street in Newark offers seafood and wine.

 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

On Thursday, I took a walk on the mild side up and down Ferry Street, the commercial heart of Newark's Ironbound section.

I stopped for coffee at one of the Portuguese bakeries, revisited a popular fish market and watched in fascination as passenger jets passed low over the neighborhood as they approached Newark Liberty International Airport.

The Ironbound is filled mostly with Portuguese, Brazilian and Spanish residents, and the selection of ethnic restaurants and bakeries is one of the best in the state.

Driving under Newark Penn Station onto Ferry Street, Fornos of Spain is the first major restaurant you encounter, but after that, you'll find many Portuguese and Brazilian places, including Iberia Peninsula, Adega Grill and Casa Nova.

The best Portuguese restaurant, Tony Da Caneca, is far from Ferry Street, in what is called Five Corners.

The small, white-tablecloth restaurant offers Old World service and some of the best seafood in Newark, including enormous prawns from Africa. 

Tony Da Caneca Restaurant, 72 Elm Road, Newark; 973-589-6882.

Cafes and restaurants have plenty of outdoor seating.
 

A $1 cup of coffee at the cash-only Teixeira's Bakery on Ferry Street.
 

At the Popular Fish Market, dried, salted cod is a staple of the Iberian diet.

Red snapper swim in plenty of ice.

Squid.

Whole, farmed Atlantic salmon.

Portuguese lesson: Shrimp are called camarao.

Seabra Foods, a small market on Ferry Street, offers salted pork and Portuguese blood sausage. Fresh leeks keep their cool in the produce section, above.

A tough place to park

Parking is tough in the Ironbound.

Iberia Peninsula validates parking in a lot on the other side of Ferry Street, and many blocks away, Sol-Mar has free spaces in a shopping center parking lot opposite the restaurant. 

There is metered parking on Ferry, and alternate-side parking on the side streets on Wednesdays and Thursdays, halving free spaces on those days.

What a pisser!

What is the purpose of this sign in a restaurant bathroom?

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

As I walked past them, I assured the people waiting on line this afternoon for a table at Lan Sheng Szechuan Restaurant in Manhattan that I just wanted to use the bathroom.

A waiter motioned to the back of the restaurant, and said the bathrooms were on the left.

They weren't marked "Men" and "Women," but as I stood facing the toilet and wall in one of them, I saw an anatomically suggestive sign of a man urinating.

The outline of the figure and the stream (of urine) would light up, go off, then light up again.

I'm not sure what the restaurant is saying with the sign. 

Could it be, Don't miss? Or, Please don't urinate on the floor?

On the way out, I grabbed a takeout menu and a business card. This sounds like a place I would return to for lunch or dinner.

Unusual selections include duck tongue, Arctic surf clam, ox tongue and tripe, diced rabbit and streaky pork. 

And those are only the cold appetizers.

Lan Sheng Szechuan Restaurant, 60 W. 39th St. (between Fifth and Sixth avenues), Manhattan; 212-575-8899.

Open 7 days. Free delivery, and a complimentary appetizer with any takeout dinner order of more than $20.