Jamaican fish story

I know Jamaicans who smuggle cooked fresh fish, fruit and other items into the U.S. when they return from visiting their beautiful island, and who can blame them? You'd be hard-pressed to find decent breadfruit or custard-like sweet sop or the small, sweet fish they enjoy there in New Jersey or New York markets.

During my visit to Jamaica at the end of August, I stopped at some shacks at the side of the road less than a mile from my hotel, RIU Montego Bay, to see what fishermen were selling. The fish hung from wood slats on the table where they were gutted and cleaned. I was told that around noon, two of the shacks would open to steam fresh fish for customers.

The biggest fish was a barracuda, which I have enjoyed in Cuba at the home of a spear fisherman who rents a room to tourists. Also displayed was king mackerel, a favorite of many Jamaicans that, unfortunately, contains a lot of mercury.

I was told the others, which were much smaller, were jack, doctor fish ("see the needle"), parrot fish and goat fish. All the fish was selling for $200 Jamaican dollars per pound, or about $2.35 U.S. At the hotel, I was served what sounded like banga Mary. One of the fishermen at the side of the road said it was an ocean fish.

I didn't see any ice to keep the fish fresh. The fishermen said they can hang the fish in the August heat and humidity for two to three hours. I have my doubts, and probably would not buy fish there unless I saw it being hauled out of the water minutes before.

Focus on Middle Eastern food

It's not too often I can recommend a food article in The Record of Hackensack, where the 30-year-olds demonstrate their limited knowledge of northern New Jersey every day.

But today, restaurant reviewer Elisa Ung does a decent job on what she now calls the "Middle Eastern market" on and off Main Street in Paterson's South Paterson section -- the bakeries, restaurants and other shops I have been patronizing for decades. She stops at Syrian, Lebanese, Palestinian and Turkish businesses, including a couple of newish ones I'd like to explore. This article comes only a couple of months after she incorrectly described the same area as a "Turkish enclave" and "Little Istanbul."

Unfortunately, she ignores Corrado's Family Affair, the ethnic supermarket with an incredible bread aisle, just over the Paterson border on Main Avenue in Clifton.

Here is the link to the article:

http://www.northjersey.com/food_dining/A_feast_for_the_senses.html

It's one in a series called "Progressive Dining," a phrase that has never been defined by the reporter. As usual, she manages to eat a lot of food in just a couple of hours.

Peruvian fish story

We tried a new restaurant close to home last night -- Uncle Paulie's Puro Sabor in Maywood, a Peruvian rotisserie chicken place with a full menu of beef, fish, rice, beans and root vegetables.

What Uncle Paulie's lacks is wild fish. When I learned the ceviche de pescado was made with farmed tilapia, I ordered another appetizer, boiled potatoes with cheese sauce. Other dishes were made with fillets; no whole fish, such as red snapper, was offered. Portions are generous and prices reasonable.

Don't miss the milky Peruvian hot sauce for the chicken or the homemade chicha morada, a traditional purple-corn punch, garnished here with finely diced apple ($2).

My wife and son both ordered chicken soup ($4) and couldn't finish the two pieces of chicken in the broth. Entrees also were too large to finish. We had the marinated one-quarter rotisserie chicken (dark meat) with rice and beans ($3); lomo saltado, pepper steak strips served over french fries with rice ($12); and tallarin verde con apanado, linguine with pesto and topped with "breaded top brasciole" ($11.50). I have had this dish in other restaurants and it was invariably served with fried fish. It would be great without the beef and topped with a fried egg "a la pobre."

Before we left, I spoke to the owner about the farmed fish. He said he wanted to keep prices low, but if I called ahead, he would get red snapper from the fish market down the street (Seafood Gourmet), make a ceviche for me and charge me accordingly.

My favorite Peruvian restaurants -- Pollos El Chevere in Passaic and Jaimito's in Clifton -- are a lot further from home. So if I get a hankering for an Asian- or Italian-inspired Peruvian dish, Uncle Paulie's is just a few minutes away. Though Uncle Paulie's is good, it can't replace those two winners. (Revised.)

Fairway Market's latest sales circular

Fairway Market in Paramus, grand opening (Wikipedia)

There isn't much of interest to me in the Fairway Market sales circular I got with today's Record. Prices are good from today through Sept. 11 in Paramus.

USDA Choice beef brisket is selling for $2.99 a pound -- no extra charge for the antibiotics, growth hormones and animal by-products that were probably used to raise the animal. Yummy. 

If you want kosher brisket, the price is $9.99 a pound, but there is no mention of whether the animal is raised the same way as for the cheap stuff..

Want some kosher, artificially colored farmed salmon? Only $6.99 a pound, compared with $8.99 for fresh wild sockeye salmon at Costco. Artificially colored, smoked farmed salmon is selling for $16.99 a pound, compared with $13.99 for a pound of Costco's smoked wild salmon.

Refrigerated Sabra hummus is $1.99 for 7 ounces and $3.99 for 17 ounces. I'll stick with the canned Libano Verde brand hummus I get at Fattal's in Paterson, $1.09 for 15 ounces. (You add olive oil, powdered garlic and lemon juice.)

Fairway does have good prices for organic milk: $2.99 for a half-gallon of kosher, grass-fed milk and $5.99 for a gallon of Organic Valley milk.

You'll also get a deal on a Murray's rotisserie chicken for $5.99 (weight not specified). Whole Foods Market in Paramus charges $7.49 for a similar rotisserie chicken, though it is probably larger.

Murray's poultry is hormone- and antibiotic-free and is raised on a vegetarian diet, and takes less time to cook than ordinary chicken. Let's hope the Paramus store doesn't overcook them, as the Harlem store did when I first tried a Murray's rotisserie chicken years ago.

Two thumbs down on Bahama Breeze

If you're looking for an authentic taste of the islands, steer clear of Bahama Breeze, a chain restaurant that was awarded two stars today by The Record of Hackensack.

The dishes described in the review barely resemble the real thing and some of the signature dishes of The Bahamas, Jamaica and other islands don't seem to be served at all.

Where, for example, is the incredible conch salad served at open-air restaurants and everywhere else in Nassau, where the mollusk is chopped finely and served with lime juice and hot peppers that will leave your lips tingling? Where is the wonderful steamed fish with okra you find in Jamaica (and this okra is cooked beautifully, with no slime)? Where is the smoked and chopped jerk chicken and pork?

Bahama Breeze serves beef patties with a fruit salsa (yech). Ribs are bathed in a guava barbecue sauce, not rubbed with a mixture of lip-smacking spices. And there is dulce de leche cheesecake, just what all us weight-watchers need.

If you're looking for good Caribbean food, there are several ethnic places in North Jersey that are far more satisfying. Try Mac West Indian Restaurant on Central Avenue or Casual Habana Cafe on Main Street, both Hackensack; and Ashanti's International Cuisine on Englewood Avenue in Englewood. Ashanti, which is mainly take-out, prepares steamed fish with okra and jerk chicken and pork on some days.

Exploiting the memory of Bob Marley

Update: We weren't exploited during a tour of Montego Bay, Jamaica, in August 2014, above and below, unlike the 2009 Bob Marley tour I wrote about here.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

During our visit last week to the island of Jamaica, we wanted to learn more about the Rastaman and reggae superstar Bob Marley, whose music has long inspired us. 

So one day, we drove to Ocho Rios (Jamaicans say "Ochee"), on the island's north coast, to have lunch at Mama Marley's Bar & Grill, one of the businesses his family has established since his death.

We had a pleasant lunch of bean-and-chicken soup, and steamed red snapper with rice and sauteed cabbage, plus a beer, juice, bottled water and coffee. 

The check, which wasn't itemized, seemed high at $53.17 U.S., because the food we ordered totaled just under $30. After I had paid and was arranging a tour of Bob Marley's boyhood home and tomb, I asked for an itemized bill.

10% service charge

The waitress didn't hesitate to show it to me. In addition to the food and drink we had ordered, there was a 16.5% General Consumption Tax added and a 10% service charge, which the waitress quickly explained went to the restaurant, not to her. 

I had given her an $8 tip on the $53.17, about 15%, so the lunch cost me $61 or so. Seemed high. And why is the restaurant hitting up customers for a 10% service charge?

I paid the Asian Indian restaurant manager $150 for a tour and lunch the next day: a driver would pick up me and my wife at our Montego Bay hotel, about 65 miles from Ochee, drive back to Runaway Bay and then take us on a tortuous, 45-minute trip up into the hills of Saint Ann's Parish to a place known as Nine Mile.

Country roads from hell

The road is narrow and filled with potholes, blind curves, frightening drop-offs, and there were numerous close calls. The driver was rushing and almost always blowing his van's horn to warn other, unseen vehicles around the next curve. But we made it alive.

The hilltop complex we visited included a restaurant serving the same dishes as Mama Marley's in Ochee, a full bar, a gift shop, Bob Marley's small, two-room, boyhood home; a chapel containing an elaborate tomb of Italian marble and Rastafari's Star of David in a stained-glass window through which the rising sun shines.

As a guide showed us around, I realized that Bob Marley is as much a revolutionary figure to Jamaicans as Che Guevara is to Cubans.

Our included lunch was jerk-chicken and mahi-mahi sandwiches, fruit juice and Red Stripe beer. 

$70 DVD

On the way up in the van, we had watched "Rebel Music: The Bob Marley Story," an extraordinary, 89-minute DVD made in 2000 that documented how the guitar player and singer fought against injustice on the island until his death in 1981. 

In the gift shop, I asked the Asian Indian manager for the DVD and the price was $70 U.S., which seemed like a lot, but I bought it anyway. (This DVD also plays non-stop on a flat-screen TV at Mama Marley's in Ochee.)

Three days later, as we were leaving Jamaica, I stopped at an airport shop, which was selling the same DVD For $42 U.S. When I got home, I called the restaurant, but the manager was unmoved.

Below is the link to the Web sites of the Bob Marley Foundation and Mama Marley's (she died in 2008). You can decide whether the family and its Asian Indian managers have added a third "R" to the singer's Rastafari and reggae legend -- rip-off.

http://www.bobmarleyfoundation.org/roots_RNM.html

http://www.bobmarleymovement.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=27&Itemid=72