When I’ve been eating hardcore pizza and hamburgers and meats for a couple of days, I crave refreshing Mediterranean cuisine that is dominated by vegetarian dishes. My favorite place to indulge in this is Bennies, a family-run Lebanese restaurant on Palisade Avenue in Englewood.
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I recently had the opportunity to be the invited guest of the president of the New Jersey chapter of Les Marmitons, an international social cooking club for male epicureans that has been in existence in North America for 32 years.
The October 12th dinner, which was held at the Don Bosco Knights of Columbus Hall in Port Reading, was a Beer-themed event in the spirit of Ocktoberfest, but with an Italian twist. The chef who prepared the menu for the evening was the young and energetic Dan Richer, proprietor of Arturo’s Osteria in Maplewood. Dan is something of a beer fanatic and was the perfect choice to select the dishes for the Marmitons to prepare.
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Taverna Kyclades in Astoria, Queens has a nice outdoor dining area and specializes in fresh seafood cooked in Mediterranean/Greek style.
As I have written in my previous posts about Telly’s Taverna and Kabab Cafe, Astoria, Queens has now become my go-to place to eat lunch or dinner before heading out on a trip, given that LaGuardia has now become my preferred airport to travel from.
Astoria has many, many Greekrestaurants, some of which are old established restaurants such as Telly’s Taverna, Uncle George’s (Papa Georgi) or Stamatis, and others are newer. One of the “newer” ones is Kyclades, a seafood specialist cafe which I had gotten a few nice recommendations about from Greek friends that really know their food.
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Every year, at the time during the late summer when the stars align in the shape of a medium rare hamburger, the foodie elite of the world converge on a single place, much as in ancient times when the Pagans converged on the Stone Henge to celebrate the solstice.
But instead of dancing around naked and eating questionable vittles around giant stone monoliths, we converge (mostly) clothed upon Water Taxi Beach to celebrate the birthday of one of our own, Citysearch.com food editor, notorious carnivore Feedbag food blogger Josh Ozersky, aka Mr. Cutlets, also known as the devourer of worlds.
Each year, it’s been a different themed creature that is sacrificed and prepared a multiple of ways in order to feed the hunger of the Beast from Brooklyn. This time, it was a whole flock of lamb.
Here’s one of the cute little animals being cooked over hot coals on a rotating spit. Wanna see it on video? Yes, of course you do.
The smell that was permeating Water Taxi Beach was absolutely seductive. With all this Lamb, shouldn’t we be celebrating the re-birth of our lord and savior?
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In August of 2006, Babylon, one of our favorite Turkish/Middle Eastern restaurants was forced to close when its lease was not renewed along with several other stores in the ill-fated Huffman-Koos shopping center in River Edge. Needless to say, I was totally bummed out by this development — not only was Babylon a great dining value but it also made some of the best Turkish and Middle-Eastern food that you could find in Bergen County. To get anything comparable, you had to go to Patterson or Union City. While we still had Kervan in Cliffside Park (a restaurant that has seen better days, its hardcore Turkish crowd long gone) and Samdan in Cresskill (admittedly solid Turkish place, but just didn’t have the precise atmosphere or taste I was looking for) they just weren’t the same — Babylon’s doner and other kebabs were made fresh from scratch daily, and had a definitively home made flavor that couldn’t easily be duplicated.
However, all was not lost. In Late March of 2007, Babylon re-opened only about a mile away from its original location, on Kinderkamack Road on the site of Shanghai Restaurant, which had closed six months before. The owners completely renovated the interior, and now Babylon, menu unchanged, with prices more or less the same, is back and better than ever.
Babylon storefront on Kinderkamack Road in River Edge
New York City gets the lion’s share of adoration from pizza fans, but those of us who live in the Garden State know that when it comes to pizza, we have some of the oldest continuing operating pizzerias serving traditional American pies anywhere in the country, particularly in areas like Trenton and Elizabeth, where we have legendary places like Delorenzo’s and Santillo’s that have been in operation for several decades. One of these top Jersey pizzerias is Reservoir Tavern in Parsippany, which opened its doors in 1936.
Reservoir Tavern isn’t just a pizzeria, it’s also a full service Italian restaurant and also has a full bar. While I would qualify their Italian offerings as solid Ital-Am red sauce fare, it’s the pizza that keeps me and many other locals coming back again and again. During prime dinner hours it’s not unusual to see the Tavern’s huge parking lot filled with cars and no spaces to be found, and a 45 minute to one hour wait at the front door for seating. My best advice is to come early, if you can.
Main Dining Room
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Horton’s Seafood
809 Broadway, East Providence, RI 02914
(401) 434-3116
Okay, let’s face it — no matter how hard you try to eat healthy when on vacation, you are going to fall off the wagon. For me, this would be fried seafood. But if you are going to fall off the wagon, then it better be worth the fall.
Horton’s Seafood, in East Providence, Rhode Island. Considered by many locals to be the best fried seafood restaurant in the entire city, and by far the best place I have found to sample the main varieties of New England-style clam chowders.
You want Fried Seafood? You want Chowdah? You makin’ your way thru Providence? Then head to Horton’s. Click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below for more.
I feel very, very queasy. And I know that God is punishing me. I have proof of this, because the act of punishment, served in Biblical fashion with ketchup, mayonnaise and and pickle slices was witnessed by hundreds of people.
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In the past, I’ve written about other Asian-style buffet restaurants in New Jersey, such as Minado, in Little Ferry. Recently a new Asian buffet and hibachi restaurant — the similarly named Mikado 23 — has opened in Wayne, near the Willowbrook Mall and the recently closed Wayne Town Center, which may or may not open in the future if the economy pulls out of its current recession.
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Posted by offthebroiler 
Posted by offthebroiler 
Posted by offthebroiler 
