NYC Dining: Tabla Bread Bar

Tabla has recently announced that it will be closing December 30, 2010. I’ve added some vintage photos here from my Flickr archive of some of Floyd Cardoz’s best dishes.

Thanks for 12 wonderful years, Floyd and Danny.

Original post circa June, 2006, with updated never-seen photos from 2008.

OTB Related Post: The Mango Mafia

Tabla
11 Madison Ave at 25th Street, New York, NY
(212) 889-0667

Tabla is another one of those Danny Meyer restaurants that I had been meaning to go to for several years, but just never had the time to do so. With the opportunity to interview various pitmasters the night before the Big Apple BBQ block party, I thought that a meal right across the street at the Bread Bar was an ideal place to begin an evening of major BBQ rig envy.

The Bread Bar at Tabla is an incredibly attractive space, with a domed ceiling with a modern fresco of Indian food ingredients on it.

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NJ Dining: Asia Time

Update: Asia Time has changed its name to Saigon Bistro, presumably to improve their fortunes in a desperate attempt to fool customers that they are eating at one of K.T. Tranh’s restaurants. They aren’t. I’m not happy about this and neither should anyone in the Northern NJ dining community.

Asia Time Restaurant (Saigon Bistro)
58W Palisade Avenue, Englewood NJ

Retail restaurant spaces are all about the cycle of birth, life, death, and then rebirth, especially in these challenging economic times. Recently, one of my favorite restaurants in Englewood, Saigon R., closed its doors after almost 7 years in business and moved to Tenafly, re-opening as Simply Vietnamese.

In its former space, a new Asian restaurant has opened, Asia Time. Given Saigon R.’s former customer base which are likely to visit the location and that are unaware of their recent move, there will be the inevitable comparison to the previous restaurant, which I think would be unfair, because I think the new place, while sharing some similarities because of the Southeast Asian cuisine style, actually is already producing very interesting and different food, some of which is rare in Bergen County.

Asia Time was originally supposed to be a “fusion” style restaurant but it’s now taken the turn for the Pan-Asian, which I think is the direction they should probably go in.

The owner, Jessie, a young woman of Cantonese descent who grew up in Brazil, has brought along a Malaysian chef, who formerly worked at the Manhattan branch of the famous Penang restaurant chain (New Jersey has two Penang locations, one in Lodi and the other in East Hanover).

As such, he’s been trained in the various Asian cuisine styles that are represented in Malaysia, which includes derivatives of Chinese, Indian, Thai and Vietnamese, all with a distinctly unique Malaysian twist.

Asia Time, formerly the home of Saigon R. on Palisade Avenue in Englewood, is an exciting new Pan-Asian cafe that blends Malaysian, Thai, Chinese and Vietnamese Cuisines.

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NJ Dining: Simply Vietnamese

Simply Vietnamese
1 Highwood Avenue, Tenafly NJ
(201)568-7770

If you’ve been following Off The Broiler and my various on-line projects for the last ten years, you’re probably aware that I’m a big fan of Khanh “K.T.” Tran’s cooking. Simply Vietnamese, which just opened on September 19th, 2010, is KT’s fifth restaurant to hit Bergen County in the last 15 years.

I first encountered KT’s cuisine at a small takeout in Cliffside Park right around the corner from my  apartment shortly after when I changed from New Yorker to permanent New Jersey resident in 1999. In 2002, she outgrew her takeout place and opened Saigon Republic in Englewood, a tiny hole-in-the-wall with tight seating for maybe 20 people but quickly garnered a very loyal following as well as critical acclaim by the local restaurant media.

In October of 2006, KT opened Mo’ Pho’, a much larger restaurant on Main Street in Fort Lee. While both restaurants continued to do well, the original Saigon Republic (which ironically, was forced to change its name to “Saigon R.” due to legal wrangling from a jealous, completely unrelated restaurant with a similar name in NYC) became something of a victim of its own success.

Because the restaurant was so small and patrons were fighting their way to get in, Saigon R. could never turn enough tables or be indefinitely sustainable with the high rents in Englewood and the shrinking local economy.

It also didn’t help that Palisade Avenue in Englewood is an absolute parking nightmare and the restaurant’s weak air conditioning system was constantly fighting to work in the hot summer months, a big issue that I always had with the tiny place and forced me, reluctantly, to become more of a patron of its Fort Lee sibling.

So in August of 2010, KT closed Saigon Republic — a decision which I know weighed on her with a heavy heart — and quickly re-opened in her home town of Tenafly in a much larger space which I think patrons will enjoy much much more.

And if it’s any indication after two days of being open, Simply Vietnamese is already packing the house.

Simply Vietnamese’s storefront on 1 Highwood Avenue in Tenafly, NJ.

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NJ Dining: Mo’ Pho’ (UPDATED)

Mo‘ Pho‘
212 Main St, Fort Lee, NJ
(201) 363-8886

Note: While Mo’ Pho’ in Fort Lee remains open, it’s Englewood sister restaurant, Saigon R. closed on August 30, 2010 and re-opened as Simply Vietnamese in nearby Tenafly. For more information on Simply Vietnamese, click here.

As summer comes to an end and the weather starts getting rainy and a bit chilly, I start getting that craving for Asian noodle soups again. There’s no question in my mind that my all time favorite type of noodle soup has to be Pho, the anise-flavored beef bone broth and the national dish of Vietnam.

Northern New Jersey has a couple of notable Vietnamese restaurants, but there is a special place in my heart for Mo Pho, the flagship restaurant owned and managed by Khan “K.T.” Tran, a talented female chef who is carrying out the culinary traditions of her mother, who once catered embassy functions for Southeast Asian dignitaries and heads of state for the Republic of Vietnam.

I’ve been to Mo Pho (and it’s sister restaurant that recently closed, Saigon R.) so many times and K.T. has become such a close friend that I have to admit I am probably unfairly biased towards her food. Overall, her cuisine is not the kind of hardcore (and less expensive) offal-centric, employing weird cuts of meat, Vietnamese street stall food or authentic in exacting detail like Nha Trang in Jersey City,  Huong Viet in Nutley or even Bloomfield’s Binh Duong — this is a more refined interpretation of Vietnamese food more suited to American customers.

Still, when I have a Pho craving, its K.T.’s that really does the trick for me. Her broth is simmered for an entire day and is far more intensely flavored with beef bones than any other I’ve had in the area, including Pho stalls I’ve visited in NYC. It’s not the super clear Pho broth you see at most places; its got a much darker color and is somewhat cloudier due to the residual gelatin, giving the soup a much more satisfying and comforting mouthfeel.

Mo’ Pho’ storefront on Main Street in Fort Lee. Mo Pho now has a new sister restaurant in Tenafly, Simply Vietnamese.

Mo’ Pho’s dining room.

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Cadillac Culinary Challenge: Horsepower and Haute Cuisine

Saturday’s Cadillac Culinary Challenge at Bridgewater Commons, co-sponsored by Bon Appetit, featured chefs Anthony Bucco from Uproot in Warren and Corey Heyer of the Bernards Inn in Bernardsville.

This weekend I had the unique opportunity to observe the New Jersey Cadillac Culinary Challenge, an interesting event that combines the obsession of foodies and fine cuisine with the luxury and horsepower of America’s finest automobiles.

The event, which is part of a series that is touring the country, was held at Bridgewater Commons Mall on Saturday, September 19th. Two local chefs, Anthony Bucco and Corey Heyer were pitted against each other in a series of cooking demos in which they had to use a focus ingredient — in this case, Apples. For each demo, a panel of judges was chosen from the audience who then tasted each of the chefs’ dishes.

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