Tito's Burritos and Beyzaleda Turkish Food

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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.

My son screams for his corn cake

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My 12-year-old son often decides what he is going to have for breakfast the night before, announces it and gets me or my wife to agree to prepare the meal. Last night, he said he wanted a corn cake topped with melted cheese and eggs.

He was referring to the Colombian arepas I bought recently at Hackensack Market. They are about 5 inches across and it's quick and easy to heat one up on our griddle, top it with a slice or two of cheese and, when the cheese melts, add an egg-white omelet with Aleppo red pepper made in a frying pan. My son likes to pour maple syrup over everything and drink orange juice with it. (Photo: Maple syrup tap.)

After I drove him to school this morning, I prepared a variation for myself, using three green tortillas instead of an arepa. You may recall my recent post asking why these tortillas are green. There is nothing on the bag, including no green ingredient, such as spinach, listed. Chuck, a reader, said he believes they are tortillas de nopales like the ones he saw in Southern California.

Today, I was able to reach the Puebla Foods factory in Passaic city where these tortillas were ostensibly made under the Mi Pueblito label. Edith, who is in sales, said Puebla Foods does not make a green tortilla with cactus, spinach or anything else. I asked her to call  La Batalla, the Mexican restaurant in Bergenfield where I bought the tortillas, and said I would call her back.

Why are these tortillas green?

Image by Hagens_world via Flickr

I had lunch with a friend yesterday at La Batalla, a small, colorful Mexican restaurant with groceries in Bergenfield. Non-meat offerings were limited, but I enjoyed two soft tacos with small shrimp, served with refried beans and yellow rice.

After we paid, I noticed stacks of tortillas, including green ones I had never seen before (Mi Pueblito brand from Passaic city, where thousands of Mexicans live). A customer and the woman who worked there didn't know why they were green. My friend looked at the label and said "green corn." Was that a statement or a question, because when I got home I saw only "corn flour" listed. (Photo: Produce store in Mexico.)

I wanted to use the tortillas for dinner last night, so I heated three of them on my stove-top griddle, topped them with sliced provolone cheese and stacked them on a plate. I made three sunny-side-up eggs in extra-virgin olive oil with salt and coarse Aleppo red pepper and put them over the tortillas and melted cheese, which were delicious soaked in the broken yolks.


I had mixed vegetables on the side and drank pinot grigio from Italy.


La Batalla, 83 N. Washington Ave., Bergenfield; 
201-385-0303. Credit cards accepted. Web site:
La Batalla