NJ Dining: Honey

Honey Mediterranean Gourmet & Market
1150 Teaneck Road, Teaneck NJ
(201) 530-5083

Restaurants sometimes have good reasons for calling themselves something they are not. In the case of Honey in Teaneck, it’s because that marketing is often more effective than full-monty disclosure. Which is very, very sad, because I think Honey is one of the most interesting ethnic restaurants to open in our area in a very long time.

Why the deception? Honey’s cuisine is Persian — which originates from the country that in the modern day is called Iran.

While the restaurant bills itself as Mediterranean, modern day Iran is nowhere near the Mediterranean Sea. Iran borders the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf, and cuisine-wise bears only a passing resemblance to most Mediterranean food.

Sure, Persia once controlled the territory which is now modern day Turkey, which does border the Mediterranean, but that was between 550 and 330 BCE , when the Achaemenid Empire controlled most of the civilized world.

The history of Persia is complex and one of the most fascinating in ancient history. Its cuisine is unique, delicious, and exotic. And in this part of Northern New Jersey we’ve had the unfortunate situation of previous Persian restaurants failing, such as Shiraz in Edgewater.

Up until Honey’s opening, we’ve only had access to Afghani food at the very excellent  Teaneck Kebab House,  Pamir in Morristown and Kabab Paradise in Lake Hiawatha. While sharing a similar cultural history as well as a similar language with Iran, Afghan food is very different in terms of their cuisine. Aside from Honey, Negeen in Summit is one of the few other legit Persian restaurants in the area.

[Editor’s Note: Shahrzad in Edgewater, which took over Shiraz’s space, also opened in June of 2010, after this post was originally written]

Like other Muslims residing in this country Iranian-Americans are often the unfortunate recipients of bad behavior and harassment from ignorant people who vandalize restaurants and businesses as a result of misdirected anger and hatred.

Because of this Persian cuisine in this part of the country frequently goes unappreciated. Los Angeles by comparison has a thriving Persian community, but in New Jersey not so much.

Teaneck just got its Persian on. Click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below for more.

NJ Dining: Bennies

Note: with the recent review of Bennies in the New York Times, I decided to feature one of my favorite local restaurants. I’ve updated the post with a bunch of new photos from a recent meal.

Bennies Englewood
54 E Palisade Ave, Englewood, NJ
(201) 894-5700

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

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.

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

OTB Economic Stimulus Outing with Victor Sasson, Saturday September 26, 2009

PLEASE NOTE RECENT VENUE CHANGE! — Jason

For our second event in our series of OTB Economic Stimuli, I’ve enlisted former Bergen Record restaurant writer and fellow food blogger Victor Sasson to bring us on a tour of the “Little Damascus/Little Ramallah/Little Arabia” section of South Paterson, NJ. On Saturday, September 26th, we will meet and have lunch at 12 noon at a local Middle Eastern restaurant in Paterson and then go on a shopping tour of the local area which will include markets and local bakeries.

When: Saturday, September 26, 2009, 12 Noon

Where: Aleppo Restaurant, 939 Main Street (at Thomas), Paterson NJ

Estimated Cost: Approx $30.00 per person for Lunch

What we will be doing: Eating great Middle Eastern food and Shopping with Victor Sasson

For those of you who have already reserved a spot: Due to maintenance issues at the original restaurant, please note Victor Sasson has changed the venue for this event. He has arranged for a classic Syrian meal of small plates called maza, followed by several entrees, such as stuffed vegetables, kibbe with cherries and a mixed grill, for Saturday at Aleppo Restaurant, 939 Main St. (Thomas Street) in Paterson; 1-973-977-2244. There will be some parking on the side street, Thomas Street, but others won’t have a problem.

The meal will be $30 per person, including tip and tax. The appetizers will be on the table at 12:15. Please allow yourself plenty of time to find parking. :)

We expect that we will only be able to accommodate about a dozen people total, so please reserve on our facebook page or contact rperlow AT gmail.com if you would like to attend.

NJ Dining: Nouri Market and Fattal’s Bakery

Nouri Brothers Market & Syrian Bakery
999 Main Street, Paterson NJ

Fattal’s Bakery
975 Main Street, Paterson NJ

As I mentioned in my posts about Al-Basha and Al-Safa, the strip of Main Street in South Paterson known as “Little Arabia” or “Little Damascus” is filled with many restaurants and businesses that cater to Syrians, Lebanese, Palestinians and other ethnic groups from the Middle East that call Northern New Jersey home. Two of the best grocery stores on that street are Nouri Brothers and Fattal’s Bakery.

Nouri Brothers Storefront on Main Street in Paterson

Looking for Middle Eastern goodies? Click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below for more.

NJ Dining: Al-Safa (Bab Al-hara)

Al-Safa (Bab Al-hara) Restaurant
960 Main Street, Paterson NJ 07503
(973)569-4545

Web Site: http://babalharapaterson.com/

In a previous post about the very excellent Al Basha Palestinian restaurant, I spoke a bit about the Middle-Eastern community on Main Street in South Paterson, which my friend Victor Sasson likes to refer to as “Little Damascus”, due to the large population of Syrian-owned businesses there.

My forays into South Paterson have been limited, mainly due to my general lack of familiarity with the Arabic language. I’ve certainly eaten a ton of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean food, primarily Israeli, Greek, Lebanese and Turkish, but in the Bergen County area. For lack of a politically correct way of saying it, being a Jew and someone of clear Semitic ethnic origin by general physical appearance and given the current geopolitical climate, historically I would tend to not venture into a predominantly Arabic-speaking area of New Jersey for shopping and eating purposes.

However, I’ve been exploring the area much more lately — for reasons entirely unrelated to food. Paterson is also home to a large retail outlet of Micro Center, a gigantic computer parts store, one of the few places in New Jersey you can still walk in and buy actual PC components. It used to be that we had CompUSA and many independent retail computer shops, but now they are mostly extinct, destroyed by companies such as Amazon and Tigerdirect who can undercut them on price and volume. Such is the way of the new economy.

So if I’m going to schlep down to Paterson (actually, it’s really only about 30 minutes from where I live, as long as traffic cooperates) I might as well get some stuff to eat. I brushed up on my basic Arabic and went exploring. After living in the Northern NJ area for nearly 20 years, I now wish I had done this years ago.

Al-Safa Storefront on Main Street in Paterson.

Looking for Kebabs and Schwarma? Eat like a Sheikh in Paterson.

NJ Dining: Babylon (UPDATED)

Babylon Mediterranean Restaurant
606 Kinderkamack Road
River Edge, NJ

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

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

Bacardi, WTF?

Bacardi’s misogynistic Israeli Internet advertising campaign will only get them scores of disdain from American consumers. What the hell was Bacardi thinking?

I had to see it to believe it. Bermuda-headquartered Bacardi, the world’s largest spirits distiller, decided to launch a English and Hebrew language Internet ad campaign for Bacardi Breezers in Israel and on FaceBook (see cached link, original site seems to have been pulled) with online agency McCann Digital.

Click to read the rest of this article at ZDNet Tech Broiler.

NJ Dining: Joeyness (UPDATED)

Click here for a Hi-Res Slideshow of Joeyness!

Joeyness
515 Main Street
Fort Lee, NJ
(201) 461-2700

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

Sometimes I get the best recommendations from my readers — just yesterday, local OTB fan Sarah emailed me about Joeyness, a five month old Lebanese take-out on the far end of Main Street in Fort Lee. Despite the fact that I head that far down that street occasionally to stop at Boom Boom Chicken, it’s a generally ignored part of town, which hosts a couple of professional buildings, auto repair shops and the local police and fire department. So Joeyness totally escaped my notice, and I am really glad Sarah told me about it — and so will you.

Joeyness, named after the childhood nickname of proprietor and Culinary Institute of America graduate Joey Ghazal, is a tiny Middle Eastern cafe (with one decent-sized table and a two-top, with some outdoor seating) which serves primarily as the base of operations for Joey’s retail brand of Hummus and other Mediterranean salads, which he sells to gourmet stores in the NY metro area. He’s also producing what Rachel and I now consider to be the best Falafel balls in the entire area, even rivaling our other Lebanese favorite, Bennies in Englewood.

Joeyness storefront on Main Street in Fort Lee.

Prepare to achieve a higher level of Joeyness. Click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below for more.