Sampling a little Turkish delight in Cliffside Park

The gorgeous machine used to brew strong, copper-colored Turkish tea at Istanbul Borek & Kebab in Cliffside Park.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Before Turkish restaurants and pizzerias proliferated in Paterson's Middle Eastern bazaar and spread all over Bergen County, I enjoyed kebabs, refreshing salads and exotic dips closer to home at Kervan in Cliffside Park.

In February 2001, David Corcoran of The New York Times reported Kervan Kebab House had been in business for 16 years "in a big, bright storefront just off the main street of this vibrantly diverse town atop the Palisades two miles south of the George Washington Bridge."

See: Homage to Anatolia

Today, another Turkish restaurant, Istanbul Borek & Kebab, operates in that big, bright storefront, and I stopped in for lunch on Tuesday.

The space has been completely made over in dark wood, tile and stone, and the dining room and bakery cases are flooded with light from big, plate-glass windows overlooking a construction site across the street.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner

The menu is extensive and includes Lahmacun and Pideler, Turkey's spin on pizza, with toppings as diverse as ground lamb, mashed potatoes, pastrami and cheese.

The restaurant opens at 6 a.m., or 7 a.m. on Sundays, and serves a Turkish breakfast of cheese, olives, tomato, cucumber, boiled egg, bread, butter, jam, honey and heavy cream for $9.95.

A premium breakfast includes Turkish sausage and pastrami for $13.95.

Cookies, cakes and pastries fill cases along one wall of the restaurant.

Istanbul specializes in savory pastries filled with spinach or potato, above. Others are stuffed with cheese, ground meat or noodles and cheese.

Friend doesn't show

I had planned to meet a friend there and sample salads and appetizers, but he wasn't feeling well and canceled.

So, I ordered one of the restaurant's specialties, a half-portion of a savory pastry, Kol Boregi, filled with cheese and another half-portion filled with potato ($7.50 for both).

I also tried a bowl of delicious pureed red-lentil soup, Mercimek Corbasi, which was served with a lemon wedge ($4.95), and a large glass of strong, unsweetened Turkish tea ($2.50).

Adding sugar is recommended.

I squeezed the lemon wedge over the wonderful red-lentil soup. The restaurant's name is on bowls, plates, and salt and pepper shakers.

I couldn't resist a couple of bites of Turkish bread.

Baklava, a classic dessert. The best are made with pistachio nuts and honey.

The check comes in a book-like box.

The restaurant opened in June.

Casual service

Despite the oppressive heat and humidity on Tuesday, a couple of customers ate at outside tables. Inside, only a handful of tables were occupied.

But the three employees I saw tended to stay close to the register, and sometimes, it was hard to get their attention.


Istanbul Borek & Kebab, 360 Lawton Ave., Cliffside Park; 201-945-5055. Open 7 days for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Halal meat. BYO, street parking at meters.

Tito's Burritos and Beyzaleda Turkish Food

Image via Wikipedia

I had business in Morristown on Friday and a friend offered to buy me lunch at Tito's Burritos on Washington Street.

I ordered the swordfish taco ($4.25), hold the cabbage. This is a lot of money for one taco, compared with the Mexican joints I used to frequent in Passaic city, but you usually can't get fish of any kind there. However, Tito's does sell Jarritos, the Mexican soda made with sugar.

The swordfish came in a hard taco shell wrapped in a flour tortilla -- not the usual two corn tortillas -- and the chopped fish was in a cilantro-lime sauce. So this is more of a California or Hawaiin version. It was tasty, though.

On Saturday night, we dropped into Beyzaleda Turkish Food in Cliffside Park for dinner, but the vegetarian options were limited, so we ordered lentil soup; a salad of chopped tomato, cucumber and onions in a light dressing; and ezme, the coarse walnut-and-pepper salad. 

This was a properly spicy ezme salad, and the other items were wonderful. Still, the 16-seat, halal  restaurant was out of another salad and of the rice with beans pictured on the menu. The waitress kept pushing the hummus, but we declined.

The soup and chopped salad came with wedges of lemon, and we got small basket after small basket of homemade puffy bread. But the Turkish pizza we wanted isn't prepared on Saturdays and the potato or parsley omelet we asked for is made only in the morning. Our meatless pledge prevented us from trying a special kabob wrapped in bread.

Tito's Burritos, 26 Washington St., Morristown; 
973-267-8486. Open seven days. Second location in Summit.
www.titosburritos.com

BeyzaledaTurkish Food, 633 Anderson Ave., 
Cliffside Park;  201-840-1245. Open seven days.

Frying chicken to an ethnic beat

My mouth is still watering after reading a New York Times piece on Asian- and Dominican-style fried chicken. The good news is you can try excellent Korean fried chicken on this side of the GWB.

The chicken is extra crispy, because Koreans fry the pieces twice. The sweet and spicy sauces are two other bonuses. We drive past the Korean take-out storefronts and head for BBQ Chicken and Beer on Anderson Avenue in Cliffside Park.

The chicken is cooked in extra-virgin olive oil. The beer is some of the coldest I've found. The Korean pop music often is too loud and service can be sluggish. But the chicken is superb. My son loves the wings of fire and challenges the restaurant to make them as spicy as possible. I love the non-spicy broiled thighs. Side dishes include cole salw, mac and cheese and steamed rice. It's at 555 Anderson Ave., Cliffside Park;  201-840-8421.

Here's the link to the Times story:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/07/dining/07chick.html?pagewanted=1

Rise and fall of a good restaurant

I wasn't totally surprised to read in my local newspaper today that the health inspector had ordered the closing of Petite Soo Chow in Cliffside Park for "general unsanitary conditions."

We started going to the Shanghai-style restaurant a couple of years ago after our favorite Chinese restaurant, China 46, closed because of landlord-rent issues. Felix, the proprietor, always served great Shanghai-style food, such as pork shoulder with buns and crispy fried whole fish, and his all-you-can-eat Sunday brunch was unmatched.

The food at Petite Soo Chow, including the soup dumplings, was good but we soon noticed that the lone male waiter was less than meticulous in his personal habits. In other words, me, my wife and our 11-year-old son saw this waiter pick his nose repeatedly, then bring food from the kitchen to customers, including us. How do you handle something like this?

We stopped going there more than a year ago. Then the local paper gave Petite Soo Chow a rave review. But I guess the restaurant reviewer, who visits at least twice, didn't notice the waiter or maybe he no longer worked there. Today's health inspection notice was welcome news. Of course, we don't know the details of what the inspector found, but I hope the waiter, if he is still there, will be more careful. (This post has been revised.)