No waiting for $11.95 dinner

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If you go for the early bird dinner at Amici Family Restaurant in Bergenfield, you might find yourself sharing the dining room with the Family in the restaurant's name -- three generations speaking in English and Italian.


For $11.95, you get a chicken, veal, eggplant or fish entree with pasta or vegetables; a cup of soup or a side salad; a soft drink, coffee or tea, and bread.


I dropped in Wednesday about 4:30 in the afternoon and ordered a salad and tilapia in a garlic-and-white wine sauce. 


My diet limits bread or pasta, so I was happy when the waitress offered vegetables with my fish, but the restaurant doesn't have canned seltzer or club soda.


I also liked bringing my own wine to this BYO, and enjoying a couple of glasses with dinner.


The salad was served in a soup bowl -- romaine and iceberg lettuce with tomato, cucumber, red onion and a stuffed olive -- which I dressed with extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar.


The fish was wonderful in a garlicky, light-red tomato sauce with chopped fresh tomato. On the side were bright-green, crunchy cooked broccoli and yellow squash.


I finished with two cups of strong black coffee from a fresh pot. Only one other table was occupied by customers while I was there.


Even without bread and pasta, this was a satisfying meal. My total was $14.78 with tax and tip.


The early bird special is served Mondays to Thursdays from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Dine-in only.


Amici Family Restaurant, 127 S. Washington Ave., 
Bergenfield; 201-374-1996. BYO.


Web site: All in the family

Summer's bounty at the table

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The produce I bought at farmers' markets last week continues to pay dividends.

This morning, I warmed up grilled eggplant and squash left over from Sunday dinner, and assembled a sandwich on fresh, 100% whole-grain bread, with hummus, low-fat cheese, eggplant, squash, sliced heirloom tomato and arugula, and ate grilled green tomatoes and kimchi on the side. Magnificent. 

 

Last night, I made a salad of market arugula and red-leaf lettuce, adding cucumber from the garden. 

I managed to harvest a dozen ripe tomatoes from my garden, and many more cherry tomatoes, but others were eaten by squirrels or a rabbit I see in my yard. I've brought in green tomatoes and the ones that haven't ripened on the counter after a week to 10 days are grilled or breaded and fried.

I've been eating sweet, bicolor Jersey corn, too, right after they are steamed or right out of the fridge the next day. When they are good, they need nothing, not even a sprinkling of salt.

I wonder if a town near me has a farmers' market today?

More good food at Costco
 

I picked up a few things at Costco in Hackensack on Monday -- the same few things I buy consistently because of their quality and price.

Two 28-ounce loaves of 100% whole-grain bread -- wonderful fresh, great toasted -- are only $3.99.

Three quarts of pure, organic carrot juice are $6.99 -- or $2.33 each -- about 50 cents less than when this Bolthouse Farms item first appeared.

Delicious organic spring salad mix from Earthbound Farm contains U.S. lettuce, arugula, radicchio, frissee and other items. A pound is only $4.59, a price you can't beat elsewhere. You can use this in sandwiches or make a week's worth of salads.

I bought blueberries from Michigan for the first time, two pounds for $5.49 ($2.75 a pound). It's hard to compare them to Jersey blueberries in terms of price, because the Garden State fruit is sold by volume (pint, quart) for some reason. How much does a pint weigh? I saw South Jersey blues for $3 or more a pint at farmers' markets last week.



Post script: A pint of blueberries weighs about 12 ounces, according to the Internet research I did this afternoon.

Shopping and tasting notes

Costco continues to be the source of great food, despite the frustrations of shopping there and dealing with the crowds at the Hackensack store near my home. The cash rebates with the Costco American Express card more than pay for my annual membership fee.

On Monday, I picked up Legal Seafoods Alaskan king crab and sweet corn chowder, two containers totaling 40 ounces for $9.99. Two pounds of the reddest strawberries I have ever seen were $6.99. And, of course, I couldn't leave without a one-pound tub of Earthbound Farm organic spring mix for $4.49, the lowest price around. It's prewashed, so you just grab some for sandwiches or a dinner salad.

At H Mart, the Korean supermarket on Bergen Turnpike in Little Ferry, I bought two fresh, wild-caught whole tilapia at $2.99 a pound. The store also sells farmed whole tilapia, but these fish were red (photo), not the dark green of the farmed variety. I poached them Tuesday night in cheap sake, soy and fish sauce, and sweet rice wine for about 20 minutes and served them with yellow rice and leftover canned black beans combined with canned diced tomato.

We had free-range shoulder lamb chops from Australia tonight with potato fritters -- or rosti -- I bought in IKEA, Paramus, and stored in the freezer. Produced in Poland, they made a fine, non-greasy substitute for potato latkes. All we needed was a salad of organic spring mix to complete the meal.

Greek Island Grill in Hackensack

Extra-virgin olive oil.

We lived in Englewood when the first It's Greek To Me chain restaurant opened, and it soon became one of our favorites. 

But as the years passed, its popularity grew, and so did the prices. After we moved to Hackensack, we no longer made the restaurant part of our dining-out routine.

So, last night, we finally tried Greek Island Grill, a BYO on one of Hackensack's quietest stretches of Main Street, a vivid contrast to Englewood's congested Palisade Avenue and the noisy families that flocked to Greek To Me. 

We were the first customers to arrive for the evening, but soon two more of the dozen or so tables were occupied and there were no screaming little kids.

The staff turned on a Greek music soundtrack, but did not  turn off the wall-mounted TV, which showed Spanish-language movies where so many people were shot to death or blown up, I soon lost count.

It was apparently a movie festival called "Kiss of Death."

We liked everything we ordered, but the service was a bit slow and clumsy. 

Why do restaurants bring you a salad or an entree to share without serving utensils? It's an enduring mystery. Still, we'll definitely return.

We ordered a terrific salad ($7.50) -- beets, potatoes, chick peas and red onions -- to share, but it could have used a serving spoon and a lot more dressing.

There was plenty of Greek pita to soak up olive oil and lemon juice.

Our entrees were jumbo shrimp with orzo in tomato sauce ($16) for my wife and a simply grilled, whole fish with rice ($24.95) for me and my 12-year-old son. 

My wife liked her dish, which she had often at Greek To Me, noting the shrimp were crunchy and not overcooked. 

And the fish was great, too, though I don't think it was the red snapper we ordered. The waiter forgot to bring the Greek fries my son asked for, but I caught the error on the bill.

Greek Island Grill, 77 Main St., Hackensack; (201) 489-4733‎.