Comparing sale prices at the H Marts in Englewood and Little Ferry

I picked up more than 2 pounds of mustard greens, above, and a Kabocha squash, both on sale for 88 cents a pound, at the H Mart in Englewood, but the same store was selling a 15-pound bag of Kokuho Yellow Label White Rice for $2 more than the H Mart in Little Ferry.

This breakfast includes organic brown eggs, organic quinoa and organic fresh salsa, all from Costco Wholesale. Why can't I find a mostly organic breakfast at my local diner?

Editor's note: I continue to be puzzled by varying sale prices at H Marts in Bergen County, and wonder whether I have to start to bring organic food and other items I like to restaurants that don't offer them.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

On the way home from an errand in Cresskill on Saturday, it only made sense to stop at the H Mart in Englewood for fresh greens, produce and a few free food samples.

This Korean supermarket is part of the Hanahreum Group, but you wouldn't know it when you compare it to the larger H Mart in Little Ferry. 

For example, you might find a 5-pound box of Bagu Clementines from Spain on sale for $5.99 at both stores.

Yet, the Englewood H Mart will claim you saved $3 while the Little Ferry store puts your discount at $2.

A 15-pound bag of Kokuho Yellow Label, a white rice grown in California, was on sale for $14.88 in Englewood on Saturday and for $12.88 in Little Ferry on Sunday.

The parking lot at the Little Ferry H Mart on Sunday.

Spinach, red snapper

The Little Ferry store is much larger, but shabbier and sorely in need of a makeover, and employees keep their coats on in the seemingly unheated space.

On Sunday, I saw a few large potholes in the parking lot and a large, frozen pond that blocked access to half of the lot.

The Englewood store, which was renovated a couple of years ago, has a food counter where you can have lunch or buy prepared Korean food to take home.

Little Ferry had a dingy lunchroom, but it is now closed.

Still, Little Ferry offers more free food samples on weekends, and on Sunday, I sampled sushi made with cooked snow crab, broiled eel, seafood dumplings, fresh fruit and sauteed mushrooms.

In addition to the bag of Kokuho rice for $12.88 and clementines for $5.99, I bought two bushels of fresh spinach, on sale for 99 cents instead of $1.49 each.

At the fish counter in Little Ferry, I bought two large, wild-caught red snappers nestled in ice, and had them cut into steaks, including the head and tail ($6.99 a pound).

For dinner, I stir-fried the spinach and prepared the fish with organic diced tomatoes, red wine and fresh lime juice.

Web site: H Mart

Natural sugar oozing from large sweet potatoes I bought at Costco Wholesale and baked at home.

Plenty of restaurants offer baked potatoes, but finding sweet potatoes on the menu is rare.

Even rarer at diners and restaurants are mashed sweet potatoes with garlic, extra-virgin olive oil, salt and other seasoning, including curry powder and cinnamon. Here, I boiled 3 pounds of small sweet potatoes from ShopRite ($2.99) and about a pound of peeled California cloves from Costco.

I've switched to organic whole-wheat pasta instead of the conventional type, and buy imported whole-wheat linguine, spaghetti, capellini, spirals and other shapes from ShopRite, Whole Foods Market and Trader Joe's for $1.49 a pound or less. But the only whole-wheat pasta I've been able to find at restaurants is penne. Do I have to bring my own? Above, organic whole-wheat linguine with sardines and anchovies in a cream-free vodka sauce.

Dinner at Bocconi is another reason I don't have to leave Hackensack

Half of a lobster and shrimp with pasta at Bocconi Restaurant in Hackensack.

A half-portion of a chopped salad with bay scallops and avocado.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

We had another great meal on Saturday night at Bocconi Restaurant in Hackensack.

Best of all, we grabbed a bottle of red wine and only had to drive 5 minutes to get to the moderately priced Italian-American BYO.

Bocconi is on Essex Street, next door to another new favorite, Fire Pit, a Portuguese barbecue restaurant.

They share a small L-shaped parking lot that was full when we arrived, but we found a space across the street in the lot of a medical arts building with Starbucks Coffee and Cosi on the ground floor. 

Seafood, salad and pasta

We ordered a salad to share and two entrees, all with seafood, and my wife took home leftovers from her dish, Half Lobster with Clams, Mussels and Pasta in red or white sauce ($23.95).

She asked the kitchen to hold the clams and mussels in favor of shrimp, and had her spaghetti in a white-wine sauce.

My entree was fork-tender Blackened Tuna with a Cherry Tomato and Cucumber Salad ($19.95). 

The wild-caught tuna was cooked more than I requested, but remained moist and delicious under a coating of black pepper.

We started by sharing a tasty chopped Green Salad with Bay Scallops and Avocado ($12.95).

Despite the slight misstep with the tuna, Chef Mario Amon, a native of Ecuador, does a beautiful job with seafood, pasta and salads.

A blackened ahi tuna steak was served with a crunchy salad of cucumbers and cherry tomatoes.

Bocconi is a BYO that adds balsamic vinegar and grated cheese to the extra-virgin olive oil served with crusty bread.

A mural on one wall of the 50-seat restaurant.

At Bocconi, you can usually find a table for dinner without a reservation on weekends, but may not find one of the six regular and two handicapped spaces in the small parking lot.

Two Hackensack favorites, Fire Pit Barbecue and Bocconi Pasta Pronto & More.

Why leave Hackensack?

Adding Bocconi Restaurant and Fire Pit Barbecue to our list of perennial favorites -- Lotus Cafe, Wondee's Fine Thai Food and Noodles, and Rosa Mexicano -- could mean we might never have to leave Hackensack to dine out.

Bocconi Restaurant, 363 Essex St., Hackensack; 201-342-3888. Web site: bocconifood.com

At Pearl Restaurant in Ridgewood, fish dish is more than meats the eye

Chef Vaughn Crenshaw of Pearl Restaurant in Ridgewood crowns wild fish with a fatty pork cold cut in Capicola Crusted Red Snapper swimming in a Chablis Beurre Blanc. On Thursday, the entree came with seasonal vegetables and mashed potatoes.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Ridgewood probably has more fine-dining restaurants than any other town in Bergen County, but parking is a headache and a couple can easily spend $100 on a modest dinner.

So, not long after I read an inspirational newspaper story about the chef at Pearl Restaurant, LivingSocial offered a deal on dinner for two there.

We drove to Ridgewood on Thursday from Teaneck after we saw "Selma," the disturbing film that revisits the black struggle for the right to vote in the brutal South of the early 1960s.

We arrived a few minutes before the restaurant opened for dinner, but walked in and were shown to a table for four in the window.

Pearl is a seafood and new American restaurant with a regular menu that offers four fish entrees from a local market.

Chef Vaughn Crenshaw also prepares Goffle Road Poultry Farm chicken, pork chops, steak, lobster ravioli and homemade pasta.

Our $40 voucher entitled us to two house salads at $7.95 each, a shared appetizer up to $14.95 and entrees up to $24.95 each.

Our entrees were red snapper ($25.95) and black sea bass ($27.95), two wild-caught fish, and my wife didn't blink when the waiter set down her fillet covered with slices of capicola, a cured pork cold cut.

She dug in. (She eats meat, I don't).

Good food, good service

We loved our food, including the simple salads and a shared appetizer of large Shrimp Dumplings with mushrooms, tomato and ginger ($12.95).

When I asked the waiter what kind of meat topped my wife's snapper, he said it was the more expensive prosciutto, not capicola.

With only a few other tables occupied, the service was efficient, but I didn't care for the waiter's familiarity when he addressed me as "Buddy."

That's right up there on my list of pet peeves with waiters who refer to you as "Boss."

Savings of about $40

The check came to $88.60, including tax of $5.85, and with a $12 tip, would have topped $100.

But in addition to $40 for the LivingSocial voucher, I paid $9.85 (tax and a $4 food supplement), plus the $12 tip, a total of $61.85.

Winter-weather advisory

We parked in a metered lot next to the restaurant, but wealthy Ridgewood doesn't do any better in clearing snow than other communities, so we found buried spaces, uneven footing on ice and puddles of water.

Also, this lot's entrances and exits are on a one-way street. If you don't find a space in one of the rows, you can't always turn around that row and are forced to exit and drive around the block.

Meters are enforced until 6 p.m., and each quarter gets you 30 minutes.

A Shrimp Dumpling in Mushroom Ginger Broth.

Our small House Salads were dressed perfectly in a tasty vinaigrette.

My Pan Seared Wild Black Sea Bass swimming in a delicious Soy Teriyaki Sauce.

Right under my eyes, my wife managed to eat three of the five shrimp dumplings in our shared appetizer.

Extra-virgin olive oil and a creamy, white-bean hummus were served with crusty dinner rolls.

Pearl Restaurant is a BYO with two simply decorated dining rooms.

Pearl Restaurant, 17 S. Broad St., Ridgewood; 201-857-5100. BYO. Open 7 days for dinner only. Parking in lot with meters enforced until 6 p.m., except on Sundays.


Web site: 'As unique as the pearl'

Takeout dinners from Jerry's, more Portuguese-style food delivery

Two of the three Smoked Chicken Sausages in a restaurant-quality takeout dinner from Jerry's Gourmet & More in Englewood with two of the sides, Steamed Broccoli and Avocado Salad.

The complete Smoked Chicken Sausage dinner, including a delicious Artichoke Fennel Salad, was reduced to $5.99 from $7.99 after 4 p.m. on Wednesday, when I stopped at Jerry's, 410 S. Dean St., Englewood.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The $7.99 takeout dinners at Jerry's Gourmet & More in Englewood are more proof that there is life after you've sworn off calling for the delivery of Chinese food.

On Wednesday afternoon, I stopped for two Meals To Go, finding Smoked Chicken Sausage and Roasted Chicken for the meat eaters in the family, and because it was after 4 p.m., they were reduced to $5.99 each from $7.99.

Both dinners included Steamed Broccoli and Artichoke Fennel Salad.

The sausages also came with an avocado salad, and the other dinner included a Ham and Cheese Monte Cristo, a fried sandwich.

To complete the meal, all you need to do is to pour yourself a glass of red wine.

A portion of the Grilled Cod Dinner from Fire Pit Barbecue in Hackensack. A large fillet of Portuguese-style salted cod is smothered in onions, green pepper, garlic and olives, and comes with potatoes, broccoli and carrot slices.

For our second delivery from Fire Pit Barbecue, we tried three Cod Cakes and two Shrimp Cakes. Both were tasty. The Portuguese restaurant also offers Meat Cakes.

Fire Pit Barbecue

We didn't feel like going out for dinner last Saturday night, and figured it was as good a time as any to order a delivery of Portuguese food from Fire Pit Barbecue on Essex Street in Hackensack.

We stuck with the same dishes we ordered the first time, a whole Barbecued Chicken with yellow rice and black beans ($14) and Grilled Codfish with vegetables and potato ($19), each of which can serve three.

This time, we also sampled tasty Cod Cakes ($1.25 each) and Shrimp Cakes ($1.50 each).

The first time I ordered the salted codfish -- a dish you'd find throughout Portugal -- the skin side of the fillet had nice grill marks on it. 

This time, the skin was completely scorched, and I avoided eating it, but the fish itself was deliciously smoky and pleasantly salty.

The vegetables and a generous amount of extra-virgin olive oil are other highlights of the dish.

Fire Pit Barbecue, 357 Essex St., Hackensack; 201-489-3473. Eat in, takeout and delivery. No delivery charge.

Web site: Authentic Portuguese Barbecue

Bad weather can mean pleasant shopping at Costco Wholesale

Some Costco Wholesale members expend so much energy pushing carts overflowing with food and other merchandise they don't bother returning unwanted items to where they found them, such as this gallon of milk left opposite the registers in Hackensack. In other words, they're just lazy.

Media warnings of icy roads apparently kept many shoppers away from the Hackensack warehouse store on Tuesday afternoon.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

When you're a member of Costco Wholesale in Hackensack, you hope for bad weather to thin the bargain-hunting crowd inside the cavernous warehouse store.

On Tuesday afternoon, I walked casually through the aisles looking for items on my list, and didn't have to fight others for free food samples.

I liked one of them enough -- prepared Organic Quinoa &Kale with seasonings, rosemary, lime juice and extra-virgin olive oil -- to purchase it.

In the freezer, I found a package containing four 10-ounce pouches -- a total of 2.5 pounds -- for $9.99.

I also purchased a 6.5-pound net bag of large sweet potatoes for $5.79, three half-gallons of low-fat Organic Milk for $10.99 and six 32-ounce cartons of Organic Chicken Broth for $11.59 -- not four liters, as I wrote earlier.

Also, 3 pounds of raw, salt-free U.S. almonds for roasting at home were $15.99 and a wedge of aged Parmigiano Reggiano Cheese from Italy was $10.59 a pound.

Honeycrisp Apples from Washington State were $13.99 for 5.5 pounds, compared to $10.99 in early December and less for the same apples from New York State.

Organic Quinoa & Kale is made with the elusive red quinoa.

I passed on Olive Garden Italian Dressing after I saw that the second ingredient listed is high-fructose corn syrup. Yuck.

In the Hackensack store's Kosher aisle, I found Mon Cuisine Turkey Breasts stuffed with quinoa, pine nuts and carrots in mushroom gravy. The poultry is naturally raised and free of antibiotics. 

Some of the kosher offerings in Hackensack.

Cello-brand Grated Pecorino Romano, a sheep's milk cheese imported from Italy, is wonderful sprinkled over pasta, soup or salads, and it adds a distinctive flavor to egg-white omelets. The cheese also is available in wedges, but the Hackensack store has stopped carrying wedges of Grana Padano, a cow's milk cheese from Italy.

An omelet with grated Pecorino Romano and Aleppo pepper made with Kirkland Signature 100% Egg Whites from Costco. I served it with a homemade combination of organic quinoa and organic brown rice, and Sunbelt Organic Fresh Salsa, which I picked up last week when I shopped at Costco for a Super Bowl Party.

Grated Pecorino Romano over two organic brown eggs from Costco.

Five 3.75-ounce cans of Season-brand Skinless and Boneless Sardines were $5.99 at Costco on Tuesday with an instant $2.50 rebate, available through Feb. 22. At home, I prepared 1 pound of organic 100% whole wheat linguine in Victoria Vodka Sauce, one of the few made without heavy cream. To the 40 ounces of sauce, I added red wine, drained anchovies, three cans of sardines, extra-virgin olive oil, red-pepper flakes and other seasonings.

An oval pan accommodates the full length of the linguine and allows me to use less water. I never add salt to the water; there is plenty of sodium in the sauce, sardines and so forth. The linguine was cooked al dente in 7 minutes.

Fat chickens raised for Perdue spend brief lives sitting in feces

Editor's note: Two magazine articles caught my eye, one from Consumer Reports on whether Perdue chickens are raised humanely, and the other from AARP The Magazine, which recommends seniors gorge on ham, cheese, fried eggs and beef meatballs on vacation in Holland.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

One of the most shocking images in a YouTube farm video are overweight chickens that have grown too big to stand and spend much of their brief lives sitting in feces, rubbing themselves raw in some cases.

The March 2015 issue of Consumer Reports says Craig Watts, a chicken farmer in Fairmount, N.C., objected to Perdue's claims of humane treatment, and invited an animal welfare group to film inside his chicken house.

"Watts is familiar with the standards of the country's fourth-largest chicken producer," the magazine reports. "He raises about 720,000 birds for it each year in facilities approved by Perdue and the USDA Processing Verified program.

"The result is a video that shows what appear to be thousands of birds crammed in the dark, gasping for air and weighed down by unnaturally large breasts [from the antibiotics administered to the chicks supplied by Perdue, this after only 37 days]."

The litter they sit in, according to the video, contains the accumulated feces of tens of thousands of chickens, and isn't changed between flocks.

The video went live on Dec. 3, and has reached more than 1.5 million viewers.

Eating your way to poor health

The December 2014/January 2015 issue of AARP The Magazine has an upbeat feature on a young couple who produce EatYourWorld.com, a guide to eating around the world.

But the Dutch food the couple sample in Amsterdam is filled with the calories and artery clogging cholesterol many of the seniors who read the magazine are trying mightily to avoid.

They might want to rename their Web site, Eat Your Way Into a Hospital.

First, Laura Siciliano-Rosen and photographer Scott B. Rosen recommend a cure for jet lag: A "massive open-face ham, cheese and fried-egg sandwich."   

Then, they suggest a Gouda cheese sandwich on crusty bread "slathered in butter."

They finally sample some healthy herring, but then finish with "gravy-doused beef meatballs."

The headline for the article on Page 68 is "Our Dutch Treat."

It could be, "Trick or Treat."

I can't imagine what the editors were thinking when they picked this article for AARP The Magazine.

Certainly, not the health of their aging readers.