One street's rich ethnic stew

Image by juancardenes@verizon.net via Flickr

Bergenline Avenue is lined with a rich variety of ethnic restaurants and markets.

I drove to West New York today to drop off photos I took of Belarmino Rico and his sons at La Pola, where I picked up a traditional Cuban Christmas dinner the day before the holiday.

Rico, a native of Spain who describes himself as "King of the Cuban Sandwich," served soup to me and my wife to ward off the day's chill. My wife had chicken soup and I enjoyed caldo Gallego, the Galician white-bean soup made with potato, collard green, chorizo and ham (I ate around the meat).

First, we visited the West New York Post Office on Bergenline Avenue to see a circa 1930s mural showing eight or nine people enjoying a beautiful day from atop the Palisades, with the Empire State Building and the rest of the Manhattan skyline in the distance.

Then, we walked and drove along Bergenline, which has an incredible variety of ethnic restaurants and markets. At a Latino supermarket, we picked up the root vegetable called yuca, which we'll boil and eat with La Pola's garlic sauce, the one that moistens every Cuban sandwich sold there.

In the space of about 15 blocks in West New York and Guttenberg, we saw Peruvian restaurants and a Cuban seafood place, an Italian trattoria, a Japanese restaurant; Las Palmas, another Cuban restaurant with addictive chicharrones or pork rinds; Pollo Campero, a popular fast-food, fried-chicken restaurant that originated in Guatemala; and Jerusalem Bakery.

We're planning a return visit soon to sample the restaurants we haven't tried yet.  

La Pola, 5400 Palisade Ave., West New York; 201-867-6028.
Las Palmas, 6153 Bergenline Ave., West New York; 201-861-1400.
Pollo Campero, 6425 Bergenline Ave., West New York, 201-662-6190.
Jerusalem Bakery, 6901 Bergenline Ave., Guttenberg; 201-868-2253.

Costco v. ShopRite

My wife picked up four 2-pound packages of salted pollack, the fish we have been using instead of pricier cod for her Jamaican breakfast of ackee and salt fish, in which the bland fruit serves as the  perfect foil for a strong, flaky fish and hot peppers.

Costo's price is $6.39 a package, or about $3.20 a pound, compared to $4.99 a pound for salted pollack at ShopRite. Salted cod at ShopRite is $9.99 a pound. 

More Can Can Sale

I continue to shop the 40th anniversary Can Can Sale at ShopRite, but it is losing its allure now that I've stocked up on Adirondack seltzer, Progresso soup, Air Wick air freshener and White Rain shampoo.

Many things I usually buy are not on sale, including canned Alaskan red salmon and imported olive oil, sparking 100% juice and other items from Italy and Spain sold under the ShopRite name.

At the Palisades Park ShopRite on Wednesday, I bought a package of ShopRite lemon-flavored lady fingers from Italy that go great with espresso for $2.99 (six dozen).

Loose garlic was $3.99 a pound and a net bag of garlic from China was $2.99, but weighed only about 6 ounces. I bought elephant garlic for $3.49. Marked 3 ounces, it weighed twice that.


The best buy I found on extra-virgin olive oil was a three-liter tin from Greece for $15.99 (Kalamata brand). 

Three-culture breakfast

I've been trying to eat filling breakfasts since I cut down drastically on bread, which I once enjoyed three or four times a day.

On Tuesday, I plated leftover ackee and salt fish, stewed tofu in red pepper sauce from H Mart, and homemade fava-bean salad and warmed them in the microwave. Then, I fried an organic brown egg in extra-virgin olive oil, sunny side up, and slid it on top of that trio. It was  just wonderful -- even without bread.

Shopping, dining and cooking notes

Image by myovencanbeabitch via Flickr

I expected the Korean supermarket in Little Ferry to be busier than it was when I visited Sunday afternoon in search of tofu, soy protein and other meat substitutes. There were a half-dozen stations set up to provide free samples of fat udon noodles in broth (photo), Chilean sea bass, cold green tea with ginseng, dumplings, rice-and-pork sausage and mochi ice cream.

I found three kinds of soft or firm fried tofu ideal for stir fries ($1.29 to $1.49), two heads of fresh spinach (79 cents each), 20 pounds of California-grown rice ($17.99), and prepared Alaskan pollack with hot and sweet peppers ($4.99).


For dinner last night, I blanched a head of the spinach from H Mart and cooked it briefly in extra-virgin olive oil with garlic powder, black pepper, and salt. Our main dish was pasta -- big shells from Italy I get at ShopRite with spaghetti sauce from Fairway and added soy meatballs and Tofurky-brand Italian sausage, both from Whole Foods Market. I liked the meatballs better than the sausage, but guests were fooled altogether -- two thought they were eating meat.


On Saturday night, I took my wife and son to La Ziza, the new Lebanese restaurant on Crooks Avenue in Clifton (Crooks divides that city from South Paterson). I had eaten there alone a few weeks ago, and liked the food, despite the presence of hookah smokers in the dining room.

We ordered appetizers and one entree, fried whole whiting with rice. On March 28, my first visit, I received four whole fish for $12.95. The price has stayed the same, but this time, there were only three fish on the platter

We enjoyed the warm grape leaves stuffed with rice, fatoush salad, warm whole and mashed fava beans (ful), arayes (melted cheese in pocket bread)  and curlicue La Ziza french fries. But the muhammara was coarse and bland, missing the essential, zingy Aleppo red pepper. The fruity smoke from water pipes was noticeable but not a problem. The restaurant allows the use of hookahs in an upstairs dining room as well.


I just got off the phone with Tony, an inspector at the Clifton Health Department. He explained La Ziza has a license that allows hookah smoking, because the same owner operated the restaurant  before 2004 (as Al Assayad) -- when a smoking ban went into effect. Tony also noted smoking is allowed if it brings in 15% or more of a restaurant's revenue, as the water pipes evidently do.


This morning, I warned the leftover fava beans, prepared an egg-white omelet with Aleppo pepper and ate them with warm Lebanese pocket bread and hummus. Delicious.

At La Ziza Restaurant in Clifton

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

La Ziza is a Lebanese restaurant near the Paterson Farmers' Market that opened recently in the space once occupied by Al Assayad.

Unfortunately, the use of a hookah (photo) is allowed in the dining room, a concession to smokers that drove me away from the old place.

Luckily, only a few other tables were occupied while I had dinner last night, and I didn't find the fruity smoke a problem. I asked Jamal, the waiter, if smoking the water pipe improved the appetite, and he said he didn't think so.


I watched people at the next table as they ate, then smoked a little and then returned to eating. I still don't get it.


At the old place, to get away from the smoking, we asked to be seated on the second floor. But the service was poor, because the waiter had to run up and down the stairs.


Fortunately, the food at La Ziza is good enough to persuade me to return with my wife and son.


After I placed my order, I got the usual plate of pickles and olives, and warm, chewy pocket bread, which, as is the custom at Arabic restaurants, is microwaved in the plastic bag (with a small opening).


I enjoyed a fatoush salad ($6.95), which combines romaine lettuce with cucumbers, tomato, onion and fried bread chunks in a lemony dressing that includes powdered sumac. I wasn't sure whether it was sumac, because it lacked the sourness of the sumac used in the za'atar thyme mixture.
 
I ordered the fried whiting listed on the menu ($12.95), and received a platter of rice with fried bread sandwiching four whole fish, each about seven to eight inches long. They had been quickly fried, leaving a crunchy tail and head and moist flesh along the bone. Wonderful. I ate two fish there and the rest for dinner tonight at home.


Strong, smooth Arabic coffee came in a small pot ($2), enough for two cups.


This would be a terrific place for maza, the meal of small plates chosen from the appetizers, such as fava beans and spicy potatoes, to name just two of the meatless items. But carnivores will find plenty of meat throughout the menu.

La Ziza Restaurant, 341 Crooks Ave., Clifton
(Crooks Avenue divides Paterson and Clifton);
973-772-2700.

For an update on La Ziza, see North Jersey-style food run

Keeping peace in the kitchen

A couple of spectacular supermarkets opened recently in North Jersey, but they can't replace Fattal's, the pita bakery and so much more on Main Street in Paterson's South Paterson district.

The pita bread, spinach and meat pies, pastries and prepared food are all terrific at this Syrian emporium, but I also rely on it for the red, coarsely ground Aleppo pepper, canned hummus that is far cheaper than the refrigerated kind and other Middle Eastern food.

Last week, while stocking up on fat Moroccan sardines (99 cents a can), I looked for cans of ful medames (fava beans) from Libano Verde in Lebanon. (Ful is pronounced "fool.") I serve the beans as a salad, with the addition of olive oil, lemon juice, allspice, garlic and scallions or parsley, but you can also heat them up and serve them with a hard-boiled egg. Egyptians use fava beans to make their version of falafel, and it's a lot more interesting than the chickpea falafel you see everywhere.

But as I picked up a can or two of the ready-to-eat fava beans, I noticed subtle differences in the labels. One said "Palestinian Recipe," another read "Lebanese Recipe." There was more, a "Kurdistan Recipe" and an "Egyptian Recipe." I didn't know the humble but flavorful fava bean could be so controversial. So I took home all four.

I tried the Kurdistan Recipe first, finding that the beans were in a tahini sauce. Nice. One morning, I warmed pita halves and stuffed them with hummus, fava beans, organic spring mix, tomato with za'atar (a spice mixture), wild smoked salmon and a portion of a simple omelet. It was a great way to start the day.