Fresh wild-caught shrimp join two canned cousins for dinner

I bought 1.5 pounds of Fresh Wild Gulf Shrimp from the beautiful seafood display at Whole Foods Market in Paramus, above and below. The fishmonger deveined them for me.

Whole Foods also had previously frozen Wild Gulf Shrimp for $18.99 a pound

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

On Wednesday, I need something to lift my spirits after the dismal results of the election the day before, and I found it in fresh wild shrimp.

At Whole Foods Market in Paramus, I splurged on 1.5 pounds of Gulf shrimp at $19.99 a pound (16-20 per pound), enough for four with a side dish of pasta.

That's pretty much what the Paramus ShopRite charges for large wild shrimp, and it's about $5 more a pound than Costco Wholesale's previously frozen farmed shrimp from Vietnam.

I served the Gulf shrimp with Whole Foods' organic whole wheat shells prepared in bottled pasta sauce with added extra-virgin olive oil, red wine, and canned anchovies and sardines.

Whole Foods has raised the price of a 1-pound box of the 365 Everyday Value pasta shells, which are imported from Italy, to $1.49 from $1.39, but they are still a bargain.

After sauteeing chopped garlic and sliced onion in olive oil, I added the shrimp, which were marinated in fresh lime juice, salt and other seasoning. I turned them once, and they cooked in about 5 minutes. They were crunchy and delicious.

I went shopping for naturally raised 2-pound rotisserie chickens while the fishmonger was deveining my shrimp at Whole Foods. At $7.50 per chicken when you buy two, these are a much better choice nutritionally than the bigger and cheaper low-quality birds sold at Costco and ShopRite.

The Paramus Whole Foods is trying a new fast-casual concept with bowls of Korean food, called "Bibimbap," the name of a popular comfort dish made in a stone bowl with rice, seasoned vegetables and ground meat, all topped with a fried or raw egg and eaten with a spicy sauce. What Whole Foods serves couldn't possibly compare to the bibimbap served in Korean restaurants in Fort Lee and Palisades Park.

A filling birthday dinner at Simply Vietnamese in Tenafly

At Simply Vietnamese in Tenafly, a whole fish smothered in fried onions and scallions recalls a time when food was prepared with only fish sauce, below.

Owner and Chef K.T. Tran described this as a ginger fish sauce.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I picked Simply Vietnamese in Tenafly to celebrate my birthday on Tuesday night, enjoying three wonderful seafood dishes and even trying a few spoonfuls of dessert -- warm sticky rice bathed in sweet milk.

Owner and Chef K.T. Tran prepared an off-menu whole fried fish with onions and scallions, a bowl of fish sauce on the side ($19.95).

That followed summer rolls stuffed with carrots, rice and shrimp; an appetizer of broiled mussels and a plate of crunchy cooked vegetables.

Summer Rolls with Shrimp are wonderful when dipped in a peanut sauce ($8.50).

Broiled New Zealand Mussels in a ginger wasabi sauce ($8.50).

A plate of sauteed mixed vegetables.

The restaurant's specialty, Pho, an anise-flavored noodle soup, here with beef ($14). My wife and mother-in-law shared Pho with Seafood ($12).

Garnish for the soup includes fresh cilantro, bean sprouts and jalapeno peppers.

Complimentary desserts: Fried bananas with ice cream and warm sticky rice covered in sweet coconut milk, below.

Simply Vietnamese, 1 Highwood Ave., Tenafly; 201-568-7770. BYO, free street parking.

Web site: Fine Vietnamese Cuisine

Organic Spanish rice, Australian beef, blue-fin tuna boycott

Moist, filling and delicious, and a great bread substitute: Organic brown rice with organic chicken stock, organic diced tomatoes, peeled garlic cloves and saffron.

Editor's note: Today, I discuss an easy recipe for organic Spanish rice, share an e-mail from a woman whose family raises beef in Australia, and urge you to boycott the annual blue-fin-tuna cutting demonstration at a Japanese supermarket.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Here is another easy electric rice-cooker recipe that requires you to do little more than measure, pour the ingredients into the appliance and plug it in.

I used three cups of organic brown rice, twice that in liquid (organic chicken stock or water), a can of organic diced tomatoes with their juices, a lot of peeled garlic cloves, a few ounces of extra-virgin olive oil, sea salt and a few threads of Spanish saffron.

Most of the ingredients came from Costco Wholesale.

Doubling the amount of liquid in relation to the rice results in a moist dish with creamy garlic cloves.

A few days later, after enjoying the rice for breakfast and dinner instead of bread, I prepared pretty much the same dish using organic quinoa and organic lentils, in addition to the liquid, diced tomatoes and garlic cloves.

Organic quinoa with organic diced tomatoes, organic lentils and garlic cloves, all from Costco. I served it for breakfast with a wedge of egg-white frittata made with chopped garlic, black olives and sun-dried tomatoes, and topped with Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto.

Grass-fed Nature's Reserve Australian beef pan fried with cabbage, sweet peppers, onions and garlic.

Australian beef in the U.S.

In recent years, I've noticed a subtle shift in the promotion of Australian beef that no longer mentions whether the cattle were raised without animal antibiotics, which some experts say are harmful to humans.

ShopRite Supermarkets, where I buy Nature's Reserve whole beef tenderloins for filet mignon, also has added another line of Australian beef, Clayton's Organic Beef.

Organic beef can't be raised with antibiotics, growth hormones or feed with GMOs.

Here is a note from Diane Carter, who is in the cattle business in Australia:

"Here are a few thoughts and facts about Australian beef.  

"My family have been in the cattle business in Australia for 100+ years. A lot has changed.  I won’t go into all the history but, over the last 5-10 years there has been a resurgence of grass-fed and finished beef.

"While the domestic market accounts for the largest share of Australia’s beef production, overseas markets are extremely important, often taking beef cuts that are not as popular with Australian consumers.  

"The USA is currently the biggest overseas market, having just overtaken Japan.  

"The USA takes large quantities of 'manufacturing' beef (read hamburgers), whereas Japan and South Korea, the next biggest, import a lot of prime cuts as well as steak for stir fry and hot pots.

"China is now emerging as a rapidly growing market for our beef.

"The question of antibiotics is a bit complicated.  

"Nature’s Reserve is not a single source supplier. They buy their meat from a large number of producers.  It is all grass fed and finished but they cannot always get enough supply to meet their demands by insisting on antibiotic-free meat.  

"Their suppliers generally will not be using antibiotics as growth promotants, but will treat individual animals when necessary.  

"You would have to go organic to be sure of being completely antibiotic free. Clayton’s, being organic, can make this claim.  

"As for kosher and halal, their meats would be like all others, i.e., if they are lot fed they will almost certainly have had antibiotics, grass fed may or may not, organic will not.

"I hope this sheds some light on the subject for you and your readers."

Time to boycott Mitsua tuna cutting

The giant blue-fin tuna is one of the most magnificent creatures in the sea, but it has been over-exploited for sushi and shashimi.

A few years ago, Mitsuwa Marketplace, the big Japanese supermarket in Edgewater was selling the prized belly meat for $60 a pound.

This fast-swimming fish is even being farmed to meet the demand from Japan and other countries.

Every year, Mitsuwa stages a two-day tuna cutting demonstration, where a small army of workers reduce previously frozen blue-fin tunas weighing hundreds of pounds into thousands of packages of raw fish.

The heads of the fish are usually put on display.

I have been boycotting the demonstration since 2010, and urge you to do the same this weekend.

Blue-fin tuna may be delicious, but the red flesh also contains an unusually large amount of harmful mercury.

Consumption by children and women of child-bearing age isn't recommended. 

We give in to primal instincts, gathering around a fire to eat

Bulgogi, thin slices of beef sirloin, grilling on our table at So Moon Nan Jip in Palisades Park, one of the few Korean barbecue restaurants still using charcoal, below.

We ordered one portion of beef and another of shrimp to grill over the charcoal and eat wrapped in lettuce. The grate was changed after the meat eaters in my family finished the beef.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

You can smell the charcoal in the air when you enter the dining room of So Moon Nan Jip in Palisades Park.

Before I stopped eating meat and poultry, we loved going to this popular Korean barbecue restaurant, where you can grill beef, pork, chicken or shrimp on a tabletop grill and eat them wrapped in lettuce.

An array of side dishes, including a fluffy egg souffle, and rice turn this fun meal into a true belly buster.

Late Sunday afternoon, we returned to So Moon Nan Jip, knowing we could order beef for the meat eaters in the family and shrimp for me.

The servers make up one of hardest working restaurant staffs in Palisades Park, and they help you grill the barbecue as well as bring you more kimchi and other side dishes when they run out (you have to ask).

We were in an out of there in under an hour.

A spicy preparation of octopus was one of the half-dozen side dishes that came with our barbecue meal. To grill on the table, the restaurant requires you to order two portions, ranging from $25.99 for chicken breast to $33.99 for ribeye steak.

Vegetable pancakes.

Wilted greens.

Charcoal smoke and mirrors

As I expected, prices have gone up since I wrote a newspaper review of So Moon Nan Jip in 2005, describing it as one of the restaurants in North Jersey where four people could eat for $50, including tip and tax:

"If you eat barbecue the way Koreans do, the fun quotient is high. Just take the red-leaf lettuce and wrap meat dipped in bean paste, shredded scallions, raw garlic, rice and other items into a small ball and pop the whole thing into your mouth. The layers of hot and cold, and the contrasting textures and flavors are hard to beat."

One thing that hasn't changed are waitresses who will try to get you to order more than the minimum two portions of barbecue.

And the number of free side dishes has been cut; we didn't get soup or the whole fried, 6-inch whiting we were served in 2005, when portions of barbecue were under $20 each.

On Sunday, we ordered bulgogi ($31.99) and butterflied raw shrimp ($27.99), and at the insistence of our ravenous teenager, a plate of translucent yam-flour noodles called japchae ($17.99) and another of mixed beef and pork fried dumplings ($14.99).

I had a bottle of OB Beer ($5).

The quality of the beef barbecue is unclear; it is sliced thinly and marinated. But as to quantity, I'm guessing the portion doesn't weigh a half-pound.

A side dish of American-style potato salad.

Cabbage kimchi.

One of the best Korean egg souffles I've ever had.

Raw butterflied shrimp.

Better value elsewhere

In the years we didn't patronize So Moon Nan Jip, we found much better value in a filling Korean dinner at So Gong Dong, a couple of blocks away on the second floor of 118 Broad Ave.

There, you can order a steaming soft-tofu stew with a fresh egg, side dishes and a big stone bowl of white rice for $10, including the tax.

The popular tofu house also serves dumplings, a seafood pancake and barbecue, among other dishes.

At So Moon Nan Jip, a tangle of seasoned scallions and radish to wrap in lettuce with the barbecue. We didn't get the raw garlic served to Korean customers.

So Moon Nan Jip has 7 Grains, a combination of brown rices and beans, if you prefer that to white rice.

A pricey platter of fried dumplings.

No reservations are taken on weekends at So Moon Nan Jip, above and below.

So Moon Nan Jip, 238 Broad Ave., Palisades Park; 201-944-3998. Valet parking in rear lot, but you must tip $1.

Toasting a winning diet with a gooey slice of you know what

Brooklyn's thin-crust pizza -- this one is half pepperoni, half anchovy -- is best when ordered well-done, blistering the underside of the pie and infusing the crust with the unmistakable taste of the coal that fires the restaurant's oven, below.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The full name of Brooklyn's has changed a little since the coal-oven pizzeria first opened in Hackensack more than 21 years ago, but the thin-crust pies taste as great as always.

For the past four years or so, Brooklyn's has been off my dining-out list while I followed a no-bread, no-pizza diet that resulted in a 40-pound weight loss.

But on Saturday night at Brooklyn's, I celebrated the success of that diet and my upcoming birthday with a salad, a glass of red wine and a single slice of anchovy pizza from a small pie with a deliciously blistered crust.

A big tub of sliced fresh mozzarella cheese is ready as the pizza maker or pizzaiolo works frantically to keep up with demand when the restaurant fills up with families and other customers.

Brooklyn's Salad, which comes with marinated mushrooms and two rolls made from pizza dough ($4.95), is big enough to share.

Brooklyn's Caesar Salad is $3.50.

Friends shared a Pepper Salad, which also comes with marinated mushrooms, olives and pizza rolls ($5.50).

From 'Carmen' to Brooklyn's

If I had known we were going to eat at Brooklyn's, I would have chosen an Italian opera.

I met friends at the multiplex movie theater in Clifton Commons on Saturday for a live broadcast of Bizet's "Carmen," a tragedy sung in French, from the Metropolitan Opera in Manhattan.

The 3-hour-and-40-minute production included a sensuous pas de deux before the singing started and again after intermission.

My friends had tried Anthony's Coal Fired Pizza in Clifton a couple of times, but it didn't compare to Brooklyn's, which, they reminded me, I had recommended to them many years ago.

After the opera, we agreed to meet at the Brooklyn's in Hackensack, and when I walked in with my wife, we were told we could sit anywhere. Our friends arrived a few minutes later.

By the time we left a little after 6 p.m., the quonset-hut restaurant was packed and people were waiting for tables in the vestibule.

Serenaded by Sinatra

Even after an absence of several years, everything was instantly familiar:

Red-checked tablecloths, Sinatra on the sound system, the servers bringing your pizza before you finish your antipasto or salads, the scramble to make room on your table and the cash-only policy.

But the wonderful taste of that single slice of well-done anchovy pizza was worth the wait.

I ordered a small, 14-inch pie, half pepperoni for my wife, half anchovy for me, and we took home three of the six slices ($13.75).

Our friends chose a large, 18-inch, eight-slice pie with extra sauce on one half, and they took four slices home ($18).

A large Brooklyn's pizza with extra sauce on one half.

This sign is one of the first things you see when you enter Brooklyn's. No reservations or delivery, either. None of this, or its location next to a large cemetery, seems to discourage loyal customers.

The restaurant not long after we arrived and before it filled up on Saturday evening.

One downside of the no-credit-card policy is a hand-written check that is difficult to read. My $4 glass of wine is listed under the food total. Our friends got a separate check. 

Brooklyn's Coal Brick Oven Pizza, 161 Hackensack Ave., Hackensack; 201-342-2727. Also called Brooklyn's Coal Burning Brick Oven Pizzeria. Small parking lot.

Web site: Great pizza with lots of attitude

Quiet Halloween dinner at Chakra in Paramus is full of treats

Chakra in Paramus specializes in 2-pound lobsters available three ways, and on Friday night, we split one stuffed with jumbo lump crab meat, a $12 supplement.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

We chose a quiet celebratory dinner at Chakra, an oasis of calm on Route 4 in Paramus, over greeting Halloween revelers at our home on Friday night.

The restaurant, which calls itself "Modern American," recently celebrated its 10th anniversary, but this was our first visit.

We were seated in a spacious booth, with large, fluffy pillows supporting our backs, and enjoyed a sumptuous meal of risotto, roasted beet salad, crab meat-stuffed lobster, wine and three great side dishes -- red cabbage, bok choy and pureed sweet potatoes.

The menu offers sushi, lots of other seafood and naturally raised meat and poultry.

A side dish of Braised Red Cabbage with baked Lady apple transformed the familiar vegetable, which melted in our mouths ($8).

Sweet Potato Puree with apple, cashews and yuzu, an East Asian citrus fruit, was truly comforting ($9).

Wilted Bok Choy Chinoise with garlic, ginger and sesame ($8)

I asked the waiter if the kitchen could prepare my food without butter or cream, and when he served us the split lobster, he gave the drawn butter to my wife, who doesn't follow those restrictions, and a lemon half to me. The 2-pound lobster was $54, including the $12 supplement for the jumbo lump crab meat.

I ordered the Roasted Beet Salad for an appetizer and was pleasantly surprised by the small scoop of grapefruit sorbet and the navel orange vinaigrette ($13).

My wife chose an appetizer special of creamy Pumpkin Risotto with Duck Confit and Parmesan, and really loved the lemon-juice accent ($16).

A couple of minor gitches

After we were seated, Patrick, our waiter, came over as we looked over wine and specialty cocktail lists, and I said I would like my food prepared without butter or cream.

He took our order, and another server brought us bread and a large disc of butter, and I started eating the crust of one of the rolls.

Still, I wanted extra-virgin olive oil for my bread, but for several minutes couldn't find anyone except the man who greeted and seated us to bring a small dispenser.

He offered to crack black pepper into the oil, and it was a great combination.

And I thought our entree could have been hotter, but it was beautifully cracked to make the delicious lobster and crab meat easily accessible and good enough to eat some of the shell. 

The dinner at Chakra was a great choice as the first in a series of restaurant meals I have planned to celebrate my birthday.

The lounge, above, and dining room both have comfortable benches and big, fluffy pillows.

I didn't miss windows in the restaurant, and the brick walls completely shut out the roar of Route 4.

Wine by the glass is available from $8. I chose a glass of pinot noir ($12), and my wife drank merlot ($10). Both glasses were poured from the bottle after the waiter showed us the label and offered us a tasting.

A wall relief above one of the booths. In Indian thought, chakra refers to each of the centers of spiritual power in the human body, usually considered to be seven in number.

The restaurant entrance is off of a parking lot at the end of Acadian Avenue in Paramus. 

Chakra, 144 Route 4 east, Paramus; 201-556-1530. Dinner and late-night menu only. Closed Sundays. Reservations recommended.

Web site: 'Embark on a Culinary Journey'