NJ Dining: Green Door Cafe

Green Door Cafe
1 Highwood Avenue, Tenafly NJ
(201) 567-8226

Green Door Cafe’s Storefront in downtown Tenafly, NJ.

As a few of you may be aware, I am a resident of the sleepy hamlet of Tenafly, which is situated on the northeast side of Bergen County, adjoining the towns of Cresskill, Bergenfield and Englewood. Tenafly, while being a wonderful residential neighborhood, has a bit of an unfortunate reputation of being the town that eats restaurants.

One of the restaurants that recently got the axe was Blockheads, an outpost of a NYC-based burrito chain. So I was rather surprised this week as I was driving by its former location to find Green Door Cafe, a self described “Doorway to real food” which only serves “proteins which are antibiotic and hormone free or organic” and produce that is “organic or locally farmed seasonally. We restrict our purchases to foods raised naturally without the use of chemical pesticides or fertilizers.”

I was expecting the place to be owned by a bunch of hippies wearing hemp clothing. What I wasn’t prepared for was being greeted by the former owner of Blockheads when I went in, Leon Bell. “Hey! Jason! The Off The Broiler Guy!”

Click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below for more.

As it turns out, Leon decided to trade his SYSCO franchise concept for a Sustainable one. He joined forces with a new partner, chef John Marsh, a veteran of the New York City and New Jersey dining scene whose cooking experience includes working at restaurants  such as Tavern on the Green and Arthur’s Landing. The menu is cafe style, focusing on fresh salads, sandwiches, burgers and other comfort food items, with a few different entree dish specials each evening. The restaurant also features an impressive array of homemade desserts which is not to be overlooked.

Cafe Menu (Click on the photo to enlarge)

Dinner Additions (click on the photo to enlarge)

The atmosphere behind the Green Door is cozy and bright. Whether the food is pornographic is yours to decide.

Salmon Entree, ordered by another customer.

Mushroom Soup, accompanied by whole grain Balthazar Bakery Bread. The soup was of the non-creamy, very mushroomy variety. Both Rachel and I enjoyed it a lot.

The roasted vegetable side features cauliflower, turnips, rutabega, mushrooms, onions and brussels sprouts.

Green Door’s Mac and Cheese is amply cheesy and is of the saucepan, rather than the baked variety and is indeed tasty.

Rachel’s roasted chicken entree which was juicy and well seasoned.

A nicoise salad with sashimi-grade tuna. I would have liked a little more tuna in this portion, but otherwise the implementation was excellent.

Chopped Vegetable Salad with herbed vinaigrette dressing.

An order of white beans with sundried tomato and oregano. On this evening the beans had been really undercooked but this may very well be addressed in some kitchen tweaks shortly.

Even the condiments at Green Door are organic and natural. The Heinz Ketchup is the organic variety as well.

Apple Tart Tatin, one of the many in house made desserts.

Ultra-Dense and rich chocolate brownies. I had a tiny taste of one of these and it was definitely rich enough to share.

Rachel and I opted for a seasonal berry cobbler with Haagen-Dasz ice cream.

The next day we came in to try some of their other items. This is a classic Vichy potato and leek soup, served chilled.

A salad destined for one of the other restaurant patrons.

Turkey Fontina sandwich (“The Grandpa”) and a Lobster Roll.

The cold appetizer sampler, which includes Tzatziki, Feta Cheese with Olives, Roasted Tomatoes and Hummus.

A peek at the dessert case.

Rachel went for the ham sandwich with sauerkraut, honey mustard dressing and Gruyere cheese.

I went for the sliced ribeye steak with onions, peppers and melted cheddar cheese.

A peach tart looking lonely in the dessert case.

Rachel and I finished up with a piece of the Apple Tart Tatin.

July 2009 — more stuff.

“Knife and Fork” salad made with perfect beefsteak tomato slices, buttery avocado and bermuda onions.

The same salad can be ordered with jumbo lump Crab Louis in a remoulade sauce.

Cold Tomato Bisque, with Sundried Tomatoes, with a hit of cheese in it. Great summery soup.

Linguine with Shrimp in a Marinara with fresh and canned organic tomatoes. Make sure you request some crusty bread at the end to sop up the sauce.

The “Big Sky” burger, 10 ounces of organic beef. I ordered it perfectly medium rare — you can see the dripping juices, with bacon and Maytag Bleu Cheese. This is served on a brioche bun, which is a great match for this truly awesome burger.

Burger Closeup

“Stacked” view.

Rachel decided to try the veggie burger which uses polenta as a binder. I thought that given all the other excellent items on the menu this was basically put here to appeal to the skinny girls who are grossed out by their boyfriends eating the Big Sky Burger. Eh.

Decaf Cappuccino. I already had too many iced coffees today.

Flourless Dark Chocolate Cake. It’s obscene to call this dessert a cake, because it’s really a giant dense chocolate truffle made to look like a slice of cake, essentially 80 percent chocolate ganache with lots of cream and probably butter. By all means order it, but share it. Dear God, don’t eat this by yourself.

Strawberry Shortcake

Butternut squash soup (Fall 2009)

Tuna Sashimi with Wasabi Aoli, Spicy Squid Salad, Seaweed

Liver, Onions, Bacon tasting portion (Fall 2009)

Lasagne al Forno (Fall 2009)

Grass-fed Veal Scallopine with Herbed Bhutanese Red Rice and Sauteed Spinach (Fall 2009)

Berry/Apple Popover (Fall 2009)

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