City Belt

BUT I DIGEST ... NORTH JERSEY VIETNAMESE SHOWDOWN

Round Four: Two Great Restaurants, Only One Crown
By Kimberly Kaye

For those of you who are just tuning in, “But I Digest…” has spent the last two months pitting North Jersey’s best Vietnamese restaurants against each other in order to crown a champion deserving of your warm weather obsession. We’ve trawled the length of the Northeast Garden State Parkway seeking out competitors, singling out talent from a list of enthusiastic recommendations and documented champions before choosing our gladiators. While by no means inclusive, the list eventually reduced itself to four worthy contenders, including one heavyweight champ, an old-school underdog and a sleeper with a cult following. We’ve sampled soups and salads, noodles and rice, fish and fowl and various cow parts, as well as a small parade of other wonderful Southeast Asian delicacies -- and the results are in.

BUT I DIGEST ... AND THE WINNER IS ...

By Kimberly Kaye

A big thank you to all the dedicated eaters who participated in our "So You Think You Know Food" challenge; you have impressed me with both your imagination and culinary knowledge. While I would love to announce Jess Guyon of NY as our champion (her commitment to wit is unmatched in all capacities – she took the time to list 10 chefs/culinarians with the first name Herbert in response to question 6), we have an indisputable victor: Efrem Oshinsky! A shout out to the wonderful Taqueria, who will be feeding Efrem in celebration of his culinary prowess.

We would like to remind all contestants that the answers given must have been closest to those published in 1935 – meaning that some perfectly correct answers were not quite correct in the context of this quiz (which is wildly dated and often vague – see the author’s explanation of tempura if you don’t believe us).

Stay tuned for more interactive goodness like this in the future, and in the meantime – go eat something wonderful. Answers after the jump:

BUT I DIGEST ... NORTH JERSEY VIETNAMESE SHOWDOWN

Round Three: Can Jersey City’s Pho Thang Long Match Little Saigon?
By Kimberly Kaye

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After a brief and informative hiatus spent pitting you dedicated foodies against one another, we return to the North Jersey Vietnamese Showdown (a big thank you to all the “So You Think You Know Food” challengers who not only impressed me with your food knowledge but with your delicious humor as well -- the winner of a free meal at Jersey City’s Taqueria will be announced in the next column).

We bring to you this week a battle featuring last week’s champion, Montclair’s Little Saigon (who trumped Bloomfield’s Binh Duong with a knockout combination of great food and killer service), and New Jersey titleholder Pho Thang Long of Jersey City (recently featured in NJ Monthly’s 2007 Best Cheap Eats issue). I was amped about this fight and had high expectations for Pho Thang Long – it takes a solid restaurant to put out notably good food at even more notably low prices, and in an area as densely populated with great cheap eats as Jersey City you’ve got to be good to stand out, right? Well, mostly.

BUT I DIGEST ... SO YOU THINK YOU KNOW FOOD?

Here’s a chance to prove it (and win a prize too!)
By Kimberly Kaye

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Though I’m sure all of you are waiting with bated breath for another installment of the North Jersey Vietnamese Showdown, even I can only read about summer rolls and beef soup so many times in a row before I completely shut down and nuke a package of Easy-Mac’n’Cheez in retaliation. So I’d like to offer a bit of an intermission this week - call this the sorbet palate cleanser in between courses – before we proceed on to crown our champion.

I recently came across a phenomenally amusing (and yes, even educational) article in the January 1935 issue of Vanity Fair.  Penned by Elizabeth D. Hart, it is a simple quiz for housewives and distinguished gentlemen alike entitled "How much do you know about food?" A combination of (now) outdated food statistics, tasting trivia and culinary history, the lengthy quiz demands something of its readers that the restaurant industry rarely requires of many “foodies” now – know your addiction, and know it well.

BUT I DIGEST ... NORTH JERSEY VIETNAMESE SHOWDOWN

Round Two: Little Saigon’s Binh Duong Beatdown
By Kimberly Kaye

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Refresh yourself: Check out Round One

Oh sweet lord, the cold; that miserable, merciless, piercing cold, whipping around corners and down city streets in search of any millimeter of vulnerable exposed skin on which to perform its dance. I hate it.

To say that we needed our Round Two meal at Montclair’s Little Saigon to be a good one is an understatement. After three straight days of negative-five degree wind-chills and the onset of a mild case of Seasonal Affective Disorder (which I suppose I brought upon myself with that unnecessary comment about global warming in the Round One write up), the need for a piping hot bowl of pho and a nice pot of tea was downright palpable en route to Elm Street; I believe that the last words uttered by Ramon or myself before we left the vehicle were “Jesus, please don’t let dinner suck.” For the record, it most certainly did not.

BUT I DIGEST ... NORTH JERSEY VIETNAMESE SHOWDOWN

In this corner: Bing Duong (Bloomfield)
By Kimberly Kaye

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By February I’m usually exhausted with typically heavy winter fare. Roasts, cream-based soups and sauces, potatoes, turnips, parsnips, stews – you can’t help but feel like a glorified paperweight after two solid months of cold-weather cookery. So to counteract the sluggish effects of the present snow-food movement, I’d like to warm things up by announcing City Belt's first culinary showdown, a no-holds-barred battle in which several restaurants will compete for the title of best restaurant in a specific cuisine. With the cold weather (well ... as cold as it’s going to get until the current administration discovers there’s no place left to go skiing and starts panicking), the seasonal prevalence of root vegetables on every menu, and the aesthetic monotony of leafless trees and dead shrubs, we’re feeling that the winter needs a little kick – think warm, colorful, exotic, fresh ... think Vietnamese.

BUT I DIGEST ... DEAR SANTA, EAT YOUR HEART OUT

By Kimberly Kaye

In the name of composing a seasonally appropriate “food piece” which, ideally, avoids clichéd lauding of family fruitcake recipes or life latke lessons, I’d like to share something somewhat different with this worldly community of artists. I stumbled recently across a food related tradition practiced in Thailand, an exercise in giving that I feel is certainly notable at this time of year -- without dripping the gooey and forced sentimentality featured in the mainstream media.

Several weeks ago I learned that before their deaths many Thai natives prepare handcrafted miniature cookbooks -- tiny notebook collections of personal and favorite recipes, food related anecdotes, and personal tips for mealtime success, compiled over years of serving family and friends. These books, often ornate in design and accented by the uniqueness of homemade craftsmanship, are then distributed to friends and family -- at the author’s funeral.

BUT I DIGEST ... RINGING TACO'S BELL

By Kimberly Kaye

There is something unbelievably comforting about the heat of a fresh warm tortilla radiating across chilled fingertips on a cold night. And when said tortilla is filled with tender steak or seasoned pork and accompanied by savory salsa verde the effect is all the more soothing. I know this because I had the luck to spend our first truly wintry night of the season seated happily at one of the backyard-chic tables in Jersey City’s inspired little Mexican spot, Taqueria.

BUT I DIGEST ... LET THEM EAT PIE

By Kimberly Kaye

I am not much of a cake eater - never have been. Sure, the Pillsbury FunFetti cupcakes of my childhood were appreciated when they appeared, but I was generally more interested in eating the frosting off the top and throwing the rest away. I insisted on Snicker’s cheesecake instead of birthday cake as a child, and switched over to my father’s peanut-butter pie (which will, no doubt, also be the top tier of my wedding cake someday) at 16 without looking back. So it stands to reason I’m a pie person. Which is why the news that Grace Van Vorst Church in Jersey City was both hosting an old-school Pie Bake-Off/fund raiser, and asking me to fill in as a judge was nothing short of squeal inducing.

BUT I DIGEST ... (CLAM) SOUP FOR THE SOUL

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By Kimberly Kaye

There is a prelude to autumn in the air this morning, a slight chill at the edge of the breeze. It is not yet the characteristic fall bite that pierces flimsy clothing, just the exuberant front end of a post-summer gust which travels freely now that the oppressive humidity has lifted. It is accompanying the muted light of a rainy dawn, scooting through the cracked window and energizing my companion and I at this ungodly, unreasonable hour of the morning. The rain itself is lifting as the sky lightens, revealing a promise of sun, a tease of pure blue sky.

I do not have the presence of mind to celebrate this potential blessing, or to take in the changing scenery as we glide off the Parkway. Today I am consumed by something greater. Today, I have clams on the brain.

BUT I DIGEST … IN SEARCH OF SKORTHALIA

By Kimberly Kaye

Alright. I am going to begin by throwing down the gauntlet. Because my life is missing something, and I am growing concerned that I will not be able to fill this void anytime soon … at least not without taking the short but irritating trek into NYC. And it’s not that I don’t enjoy NYC, the nearest Mecca of world cookery, or even a good old-fashioned train ride. It’s just that I want some phenomenally good Greek food right away, and I want it in New Jersey. A region with as much cultural diversity and outstanding ethnic cuisine as NJ should have a great Greek food place. But I’m starting to worry that one might not exist. So here’s where the gauntlet throwing comes in.

BUT I DIGEST … A CUBAN CURE-ALL

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By Kimberly Kaye   

To some, it would seem that fate had set out to prevent me from eating the breathtakingly good, soulful cuisine slung at Hoboken’s Cuban masterwork, La Isla.

It was fate that had sent Hurricane Ernesto two weeks earlier to force my ever-present dining partner, Ramon, and I off the road en route to La Isla with flooding and a flourish of fallen tree branches.

And it was fate that again thwarted our journey the following weekend with an even greater and more sinister obstacle – recreational men’s-league softball.

BUT I DIGEST ... A THAI GEM

By Kimberly Kaye

Editors’ note: Today marks the launch of our newest City Belt column, But I Digest…, which will feature restaurant reviews and food features from Kimberly Kaye. We’re very happy to have such a well-versed and inquisitive food writer on board – enjoy!

Let me begin by explaining that I happened upon Thai cuisine completely by accident several years ago. I had stumbled out of bed at noon, like most college students, bleary eyed, smelling faintly of cheap beer, and hungry. Having long before sworn off any of the “food” in the dining hall -- hangover munchies only once justified consumption such culinary travesties -- I made my way to the pile of delivery menus stationed at the entrance of our dorm for such occasions.