New York Dining: Fire + Ice

Fire + Ice
Level 4, Palisades Center Mall, West Nyack NY

Web Site: http://www.fire-ice.com

I usually go out of my way to avoid mall food — this goes without saying in that I go out of my way to avoid malls in general, because I hate the entire experience of having to fight for parking spaces and then schlepping around and being exposed to screaming kids and families that look and behave more like throwbacks to their Cro-Magnon ancestors rather than modern humans.

More often than not, the food in most shopping malls is more expensive than what you can get at a regular local restaurant or diner and of considerably less quality. I also hate the gimmicky-ness of most mall restaurants.

But sometimes it’s unavoidable that you have to eat in a mall, particularly if it’s a timing issue, such as when you want to go see a movie, which are increasingly becoming attached to large shopping complexes.

Recently I had a chance to eat at Fire + Ice, one of the newest additions to the Palisades Center Mall in West Nyack, which sports an AMC theater multiplex as well as a SONY IMAX.  While I wouldn’t call Fire & Ice a destination dining location, if you’re going to be heading out to a movie, it’s not only one of the most reasonably priced venues at the mall but it can also be a relatively healthy place to eat, as well as an entertaining experience.

Get your pan-cultural Teppanyaki here. Click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below for more.

A Visit to D’Artagnan

D’Artagnan is one of the most important suppliers of luxury proteins and ingredients to many of the nation’s top restaurants.

My chef friend Christine Nunn, of Picnic Caterers in Emerson, was recently invited over to visit the D’Artagnan facility in Newark. For those of you not familiar with D’Artagnan, it is the premier supplier of luxury ingredients to many of New York City’s top restaurants. What D’Artagnan is most famous for, however, is that it is one of the largest (if not the largest) distributors of domestically produced Foie Gras in the United States. Rachel and I decided to come along and take some photos, so we could show you what this very impressive operation is all about.

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

Kosher for Passover Coke: It’s the Real Thing Baby

It’s that time of the year again folks — Passover season approaches, and with that comes the annual stocking of the KFP Coca-Cola, the “Real Thing”. I’ve resurrected and updated this post from last year so you can get the jump on it early. Both Coca-Cola of New York and Chicago have just started their production runs, so be vigilant!

- Jason

(Originally posted on March 25, 2006)

In April of 1985, the Coca-Cola company announced that it was re-formulating its flagship carbonated drink, which to the horror of Coke fans everywhere, included a switchover to high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Soon, the rest of the soft drink industry followed suit, and the classic taste of cane sugar-based sodas became practically extinct. Today, only a few small boutique soft drink companies still make sodas with refined cane sugar (or sucrose, made from sugar beets) a costly ingredient when compared with HFCS — but true carbonated beverage connoisseurs know and can tell the difference, as corn syrup has a characteristically cloying sweetness when compared to refined sugar. For nostalgic Coca-Cola lovers, unless you live in a foreign country that classic taste is but a distant memory.

Every late March and early April, for the two to three weeks leading up to the celebration of the Jewish Passover holiday season in the United States, Coke fans living in major metropolitan areas with large Jewish populations get their Real Thing, if only for that brief fleeting period. According to Jewish law, nothing made with chametz (any of a number of proscribed cereals and grains, including corn) during passover may be consumed — so in order not to lose sales from observant Jews during that eight day period, a small number of Coca-Cola bottlers make a limited batch of the original Coke formulation, using refined sugar. Needless to say, stocks run out quickly and fans of Passover Coke have been known to travel many miles seeking out supermarkets with remaining caches.

Passover Coke products (and Passover Pepsi) in 2-Liter bottles can be distinguished by their yellow caps, inscribed either with just the “OU-P” symbol and/or the words Kosher L’Pesach in Hebrew. The canned variety is rare and is known to be produced only by a scant few bottling companies in the United States – if you can find any, be sure to snap it up.

Here’s the official word from the OU Passover Web Site for 2009:

Coca Cola will again be available with an OU-P for Pesach. Aside from the New York metropolitan area, Coke will be available in Boston, Baltimore-Washington, Miami, Atlanta, Houston, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles. This year, in New York, Coca Cola items will be made with an OU-P in 2 liter bottles and in cans. Other locations will have more limited Coke items made in different sizes. All these items, of course, require the OU-P symbol. Most of the bottling plants servicing these markets will designate the Passover Coke items with a distinctive yellow cap in addition to the OU-P symbol on the cap or shoulder of the bottle.

Chicago Coke fans need not worry — this year, the Chicago Rabbinical Council is having Passover Coke made with the cRc P-09 logo on the cap using local bottlers. cRc also has Passover Coke in cans, which is nearly impossible to find anywhere else in the country.

If you live in Cleveland, I also heard this recently from one of our readers:

“As an employee of the Cleveland Coca-Cola Bottling Company I can confirm that the plant does use sugar cane as a sweetener year round. Cleveland Coca-Cola is the exclusive Coke supplier of all of Cuyahoga County, however, not everything available in Cuyahoga County is actually produced in Cleveland. Look at the label and check the ingredients for “Sucrose.”"

In addition to Coke and Pepsi products made with real sugar, you should also be able to find nationally Dr. Brown’s, perhaps the best black cherry soda on the planet in Kosher for Passover form. And to further improve your Passover Coke, hit it with a shot of Passover formulated Fox’s U-Bet chocolate syrup.

For more on Passover Coke, be sure to listen to this interesting NPR broadcast from 2004.

For more on Mexican Coke, KFP Coke’s south of the border cousin, have a look at what Kate at Accidental Hedonist has to say.

NJ Dining: Penang

Penang Restaurant

Web Site: http://www.penangcuisine.com

Locations Shown:

200 Route 10 West, East Hanover NJ
(973)887-6989

334 N. Main Street, Lodi, NJ
(973)779-1128

Malaysian food is one of my favorite cuisines of Asia. There are only a few Malaysian restaurants in New Jersey, and virtually all of them are owned by the Penang Restaurant Group, which operates five locations, two of which are in Northern New Jersey. Penang also has branches in New York, Maryland, as well as in the Raleigh/RTP area, although I haven’t been to any of the others.

Malaysian food is a melting pot cuisine of sorts, in that it incorporates elements of Native Malay, Chinese and Indian cuisines.  However, it should be noted that most of the Malaysian restaurants in the United States are owned by  Chinese Malaysians, which come from several distinct ethnic sub-groups. The Chinese represent the second largest ethnic group in Malaysia, approximately 23 percent of the population.

Many Chinese Malaysians have emigrated to the United States due to the fact that they are subject to persecution and quotas (such as not being able to enter institutes of higher education).  As with any group of immigrants, some of these people open restaurants. Penang is one of those businesses owned by Chinese Malaysians, so the cuisine is highly representative of those groups, which include the Cantonese, Fujian, Teochew and Hakka peoples, among others.

Here’s the dining room in the East Hanover location. It has kind of a “EPCOT Malaysia” look to it, with bamboo decorative accents and such. I happen to really like this location because it’s in the same shopping center as Kam Man Food, which is a HUGE Chinese supermarket with lots of fantastic Asian produce and everything you could possibly need to cook just about any kind of Asian cuisine.

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

The Great Off The Broiler Hot Dog Tasting of 2007

Spread the word: digg this story

In our previous hot dog tasting, in the summer of 2004, we evaluated 14 brands of hot dogs which could easily be purchased at supermarket chains in the New York Metropolitan area. Three years later, Consumer Reports released a similar study where the hot dogs from Hebrew National, owned by industrial foods giant ConAgra rose to the top — a result which ruffled the feathers of many seasoned hot dog experts, myself included. The gauntlet (or in this case, the bun) had been thrown down, and it was time for Off The Broiler to dust off its scoring sheets.

Click Here for Hi-Res Slide Show of the tasting day.

Click Here to view the Tasting Results data sheet (Adobe Acrobat Reader required)

Click Here to listen to the Hot Dog Tasting Podcast (34 minutes) with Jason Perlow, Rachel Perlow, Brandon Perlow, John Fox, Eric Eisenbud, Jonathan Lurie and Jordana Z.

Click Here to listen to the supplementary audio (2 hours and 23 minutes) with all the panelists, where we discuss all the hot dogs we tasted real-tine. Includes hilarious bickering and arguing, and the classic “What @#$%& number is it?” Abbott and Costello sketch.

Click Here to watch some video clips of the tasting day at Google Video.

Click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below to read the results of the survey.

A Peek Inside The Bite Club

New York Bite Club
Location: Undisclosed
web site: http://www.nybiteclub.com

Recently I was privileged enough to be invited into the inner realms of the Bite Club, a super-exclusive NY dining location that is so secret, I was sworn not to reveal to its actual location or the identity of it’s masterful chef, D. However, I was allowed to take photographs and document my meal, and because of my privileged status I was entitled to waive Rule #1 about Bite Club, which is never to talk about Bite Club.

The inner sanctum of the Bite Club.

Bite Club is so secret that I even have to be careful about the angles in which I photographed the environment, as not to give the location away.

Ready for Bite Club? Click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below for more.

NY Dining: Rye Grill and Bar

Rye Grill & Bar
1 Station Plaza, Rye, NY
(914) 967-0332

All too often you have a business lunch meeting and you end up at some Bar & Grill type place that is usually just some glorified (or actual) version of Bennigan’s, TGIF or Ruby Tuesday (the least evil choice of the three) where fried appetizers and soups from frozen bags from institutional suppliers like SYSCO are the norm. I don’t really have anything against these kinds of places, as I have been known to visit them when faced with less attractive options during business travel, but you never walk out of them thinking you’ve had a particularly good meal.

I was pleasantly surprised when my business associates chose to meet at Rye Grill & Bar in Rye, New York. The place exudes a nice colonial and classic tavern feel, and is clearly trying to do something different culinarily than just burgers (which apparently, are quite good) and beers on tap.

A view of the restaurant from the parking lot in Station Plaza. The restaurant is conveniently located near the Rye Metro North station.

A view of the dining room from the bar.

My associates and I decided to grab a seat by the bar.

A look at the lunch specials. My sources tell me that the restaurant’s pizza is quite good, but we didn’t order any that day.

Clam Chowder.

I had the vegetable barley soup, which I thought was really good.

This is a jumbo shrimp and avocado salad that one of my associates ordered. Certainly not your typical bar cuisine.

The bartender recommended the petit filet mignon sandwich with mushroom brandy sauce and melted brie, which is apparently one of their top sellers during lunch. Feeling in a particularly steaky mood, three of us decided to go that route. We were not disappointed. Nice medium rare filet, good french fries and excellent shoestring fried onions as well, I couldn’t be happier. Well, I could be, if I ate two of these sandwiches.

Filet Mignon sandwich closeup.

NYC Dining: Dinosaur Barbecue

Dinosaur Barbecue
646 W 131st St, New York, NY
(212) 694-1777

When we’re out in the city one of my favorite places to stop by on the way back to Jersey and pick up some dinner is Dinosaur Barbecue — it’s conveniently located right off the West Side Highway in Harlem, by the 125th Street exit across the street from Fairway Market. I love the whole biker, badass image of the place — and you could almost say that it was a Disney/Epcot-like portrayal of a biker roadhouse, if it was not for the fact that real badass bikers actually go to eat there and the owner, John Stage, besides being a BBQ genius is a badass biker himself. His original restaurant up in Syracuse (which is still in business) is the real deal. Dinosaur also opened a Rochester location in 1998 as well.

Ever since the New York City branch opened in December 2004 I’ve been a huge fan of the restaurant and its food. Despite the tough biker image, the owners and the people who work there are as nice as can be and the Q itself holds up to some of the best barbecue I’ve had across the country. Stylistically, its hard to tell what BBQ region its emulating — they have both Carolina and Memphis-Style pork and also BBQ chicken and Texas-style Brisket, and have things like Churrasco chicken sandwiches and BBQ Cuban sandwiches on the menu. If pressed, I’d have to say this is really a New York Style of BBQ that is now slowly emerging and becoming its own.

Storefront on West 131st Street in Harlem.

It’s not uncommon to see a lot of these parked outside, given Dinosaur’s biker bad boy image.

I love the bar area at Dinosaur, you really feel like you are in a true roadhouse in the middle of NYC.

Click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below to see more photos and commentary.

NJ Dining: Kiku

Kiku Restaurant
365 N State Rt 17, Paramus, NJ
(201) 265-7200

Certainly I’ve had my share of legitimately Japanese and Korean-style hibachi dishes (1) (2) (3) (4) but sometimes you want to go for the full blown, ersatz Japanese Rocky Aoki Benihana-style experience with all the schtick associated with it (click for Google Video).

One such Teppanyaki/Hibachi chain that I particularly like in the local area is Kiku. Kiku is a Korean-owned, small chain (they own about four restaurants in the NY/NJ metro area) and they have no pretense about being authentic — they proudly display Korean ceramics and artwork all over the restaurant (and even have a room showcasing them where they can be purchased) and have some Korean items on the menu as well. I also find that the quality of the steak and seafood is quite good considering it’s a chain, and the Teppanyaki jockeys are first rate, if not a bit too over the top schticky. But if you’re coming into one of these places in the first place (and you’re paying good money to) by all means, bring on the schtick.

Kiku storefront off Route 17 in Paramus. This is the most recently constructed location, which opened in 2005.

These ceramic vases are all made in Korea.

Click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below to see food photos and commentary.

The $25 Waygu Weiner

The article appeared in Newsday earlier in the summer, but I think its still pretty interesting.

Hamptons $25 Franks Are a ‘Hot Dog’ (Newsday)

$25 Hot Dog Photo Gallery (click)

“The Laundry, one of East Hampton’s toniest eateries, has been offering a foot-long beef frank since the beginning of July. They’re selling like, well, hot dogs. These wieners come complete with a jumbo grilled bun …the hot dog actually costs $32.16 – “It’s a whimsical dish,” This frank is made of gourmet Wagyu beef from California, which comes from individually massaged cattle as well. “We have an eclectic menu,” he said. “Something for everybody.” For the record, the hot dog costs more than the restaurant’s hamburger ($17).”

Would you shell out this kind of money for a Waygu weiner? I’ll just bet that it is well worth the tab …

reported by Melissa Goodman