SIPtember Wine Festival at Brookdale Park this weekend!

SIPtember Wine Festival
Brookdale Park, NJ
www.newjerseywines.com
!!!this weekend!!! (Sept. 26-27)

We picked up this flyer on a visit to Tomasello Winery last weekend. It's for this weekend, from noon to five.


The small print says:

"Sample more than 200 NJ wines!
Sway to live music!
Taste delicious foods!
Discover artisan vendors!"

This looks like a really nice opportunity to sample the local stuff, which even us Jerseyans don't even see in our neighborhood stores. It is also a great way to support our local farmers.

Admission is $25 ($2 discount with the flyer), which is not so bad if you really get to sample 200 hundred wines, no?

Piggin' out at Pandan Village!

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Pandan Village
406 Broad Avenue
Bloomfield, NJ 07003
(973) 748-9997
www.pandanaisiancuisine.com



DJKung and I cannot believe that throughout this time, we have never featured Pandan Village on UFC. Pandan serves great Filipino food in a very cozy corner restaurant in Bloomfield. Over the years, its kitchen has become more adept and has expanded its menu.

Pandan is especially great for certain types of home cooking that you'd just never make at home, either because of the effort involved or the kitchen smells that only industrial-strenghth vents can get rid of.

We were here recently with a big get-together with friends, so I think the pictures that follow are a good representation of the main hit items on Pandan's menu.



For apps, we ordered goi cuon, tom sum salad and savory mussels.

Goi cuon (fresh shrimp roll). It is pretty good, with tender shrimp and lots of rice noodles. I find that I miss the little bit of mint and scallion that comes with the Vietnamese-style goi cuon. The sauce is your basic hoisin sauce, sprinkled with peanuts. Personally, I like having both the peanut sauce and the hoisin sauce, so I can alternate between the two.

Tom sum salad. This comes with shredded green mango, green papaya and carrots. The sauce (lime juice) was bit bland, and not at all spicy. Overall, quite a pale version of the Thai green papaya salad.

Savory mussels. Mussels in the half shell with a black bean sauce. This was pretty hearty, and can be a meal with some white rice.

It was with the main dishes that Pandan Village really shines.

I think this is the Pandan fried rice. The technique is definitely not Filipino-style, and actually comes closer to Thai-style fried rice, which is sweetish and savory. It came with chunks of pork and chicken, and bits of chinese broccoli. Very balanced and deelish.




Kare-kare, or oxtails in coconut milk-and-peanut sauce. It comes with eggplants and bok choy. Typically eaten with rice and sauteed shrimp paste (called bagoong). I love how picture-perfect it came out. This dish is especially time-consuming to prepare at home, and you'd only find it served during special events.

Laing, or taro leaves cooked in coconut milk. Frankly, this dish always seemed quite repellent to me, on par with eating other mushy-type veggies (snake gourds, in particular). The consistency is also very, umm, mushy. I tried it for the first time this day, and it was not bad at all. The taro leaves don't seem to have much of a flavor (DJKung thinks it's bitter), despite its dark goopy appearance.

Grilled pork belly. Served with lechon sauce and a vinegar-and-spice dip. Sighs of rapture were heard all around the table as these babies were devoured.

Yum.

Sizzling pusit (squid). I did not get to try this one, but it smelled divine.

Roast duck with rice and mango-green papaya salad. The duck skin was crispy and the meat quite succulent.

I think this was midway through the meal.

For dessert, DJKung and I got the halo-halo. Halo-halo is shaved ice over fruit preserves, coconut, red bean. . . it literally stands for a mix of different things. This is the all-time summer snack/dessert in Philippine cuisine. This one had some ice cream and flan on top. I think it could've used a greater variety of preserves. But it was ok, nevertheless.

Ube (purple yam) ice cream. I think this is a commercial Philippine brand.

Sansrival. Crispy meringue with a butter cream frosting, topped with toasted cashew nuts. With the right preparation, the meringue comes out very light and wafer-y, and just melts in your mouth. Pandan's version was a bit soggy.


Pandan is really great for small to medium sized groups, because the menu does have a lot to offer. It is open for lunch and dinner and has very reasonable lunch specials. Pandan is also BYOB, which is great for diners on a budget.

Brookside Thai

Under food:



Brookside Thai
Bloomfield, NJ



Brookside Thai is one of the joints that we used to go to back then. We decided to check it out recently. One of the things we noticed is that they have undergone a significant redo of the interior---it looks more polished now.

Illustration of songkran, the water festival. Getting splashed looks like fun!

There was a time we liked coming here a lot. It fell out of our rotation when the food kept turning out too much on the sweet side.

We got a nice selection of apps.

Papaya salad. This was excellent---crunchy green papaya with a salty-spicy-sweet sauce.


Curry puffs. The filling is potato curry. Amazingly, this was very light, despite being deep-fried.

DJKung's poppa got the chicken soup. He was nice and full after this.

Pad ped (duck salad). This is always DJKung's fave. The fried duck slices are crispy on the outside, succulent on the inside. Comes with loads of veggies: carrots, lettuce, onions, scallions, and even some sliced apple.

For our mains, we got seafood fried rice and noodle soup (guay tieu gai). The waitress steered us to the fried snapper, which she said was fresh that day.

The seafood fried rice was excellent, with that nice wok taste.

Noodle soup (guay tieu gai?). I call it "pink soup." It was sweet, spicy and salty, with emphasis on the first element. We did not like it; it tasted very unbalanced and rather harsh. DJKung and his pops actually poured their soup bowls back into the main bowl.

Fried red snapper. It was prepared well--- deep-fried and crispy. However, we all agreed that it was not the fresh; the flesh just did not have that firm, clean taste.

I am quite 50-50 as to whether we should put this back on the rotation. On my more generous moods, there are not really a lot of Thai places around, so it seems that we should. On the other hand, I can count the few dishes here that I actually enjoy. DJKung felt that it doesn't quite make the cut.

Superb fare at Stamna's

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Stamna

1045 Broad Street

Bloomfield, NJ 07003





The UFC Headquarters has officially moved back to Passaic County! We have been very busy with moving out and settling into our new digs. To celebrate, we headed to Stamna in Bloomfield.


Stamna has caught our eye before; it always looks busy and from what NY Times says, it's pretty dang good. Even on a Tuesday night, it was hoppin' in there!





The bar for Greek food for us is Cyclades Restaurant in Astoria, which is the best seafood joint we have ever tried. Seriously, Stamna is up there, too!





We ordered the following:





DJKung's poppa: spaghetti with meat sauce. (I dunno, he was on a pasta kick the past few days. DJKung liked it, said the meat was on the gamy side.








Superfatty: Tzatziki. Yogurt and cucumber dip. Always good; I could eat gallons of this stuff. The bread was also pretty good. Karpathian pasta. Like gnocci. This is a local type of pasta, and one that I never tried before. It was simple boiled buds of pasta, with chalky-type of cheese (goat?) and caramelized onions sprinkled on top. Overall very simple dish. It was a nice side for the seafood that DJKung got. The portion was huge, and the next day tasted reaally good.





DJKung: Chicken soup. This tasted generic to me, but DJKung finished it. Seafood platter. This was no joke. It was phenomenal. The octopus legs and calamari were sweet and super-tender. The prawns were sliced on the bias, and also super fresh. The kitchen obviously mastered how to treat good seafood---- everything had a nice char taste, you could taste the sea and the succulent flesh, and nothing was over- or under-cooked. Deeelish. DJKung got a side of horta (dandelion greens), which went well with the dish. For the price, this platter is a bargain.





We were all very full afterwards. DJKung got the Greek coffee, which tasted a lot like turkish coffee to me (but not good for fortune-telling, however). We also got the fried dough with honey and sesame seeds. They were light and airy.





Stamna felt like a family-owned joint. The service was warm, and the vibe was very festive. You can tell that the locals love this spot. Also, BYOB, and it looks like reservations are recommended. From what the owner/manager tells us, the chef is from Astoria, that's why the kitchen is awesome!

Brookdale Park Dog Run

Under furs:

Brookdale Dog Run
Bloomfield & Montclair, NJ

Whew! Lenape Trail just gets so packed at times, we can't find any parking! Today we headed to the doggie run at Brookdale Park.

Brookdale Park is a pretty big park in the Bloomfield and Montclair Townships. It always has a lot going on, from soccer and archery practice, to kiddie playgrounds and free summer concerts. The doggie run opened sometime around 2007 with great hoopla, as doggie parks in the North Jersey area are very rare (because everybody has a backyard?). Every time we go here, it tends to be crowded.

Doggies this way!

The doggie run has a big dawg (right) and a little dawg (left) area.

Bad dawgs go here for time out.

Brookdale Dog Park gets points for their doggie fountains, on-site pick-up baggies and their little training courses.

Chibby says: "I'm not sure why everybody's following me!"

Doggie pipe.

Doggie hurdle. This is for the birds... look how low it is!

I don't know why Chibby and Babams just get into the pack mentality and start harassing other dawgs. Specially the younger ones. No biting, of course, but they just go bark-bark-bark like it's a full-on brawl goin' on. So we get dirty looks from the good people of Montclair/Bloomfield about this (thanks a lot, furs). But hey, they're just doing what doggies do.

We next headed off to the meadow outside for more running around.

Brookdale Dog Park never made it to our rotation ever, mainly because we find it too crowded. Personally, we find the doggie owners here are not as laid back as those from the other spots we frequent. If you have a very docile low-energy dawg, this might be the place for you.

Back again at Binh Duong

Under food:

Binh Duong

Nothing beats pho after a tiring snowy hike. So we made our way back to Binh Duong for some hot hot soup. We also tried two other dishes: fried sweet potato nests with shrimp and a lunch special, squid in lemongrass sauce over rice.

Sweet potato nests with shrimp. This comes with lettuce and mint leaves (to wrap the sweet potato in),as well as a lime and fish sauce dip. This dish was excellent---the sweet potato was crispy and had very little grease. It was a pretty big serving for an app.

Squid in lemongrass sauce. It was so-so. The squid was very bland and rubbery; I think it is the precut and frozen kind. It also had too much sweet pepper. The sauce was good, with little bits of lemongrass.

Been to Binh Duong Yet?

Under food:

Binh Duong Restaurant
61 1/2 Belleville Ave.
Bloomfield, NJ 07003
(973) 680-8440

Binh Duong has been a mainstay of the Ultimate Fun Club's SUPERROTATION for its tasty and filling pho. The location is excellent too, and you can shop for Asian groceries and produce at nearby East West Supermarket.

On our last visit, DJKung and I got the pho. Ozzie Wan and her posse tried a few dishes too.

Garnishes for pho. Counterclockwise from top: fresh bean sprouts, lime slices, jalapeno slices, basil. Sometimes they also have this long-leaved and serrated herb that tastes like a funkier version of cilantro. I favor a lot of bean sprouts and basil, while DJKung likes lime and a lot of Siricha pepper sauce (in background).


Thai iced tea. Forgot to rotate this picture. I did not get to try this, but everyone agreed it was refreshing.

For apps, we ordered vegetarian goi cuon (fresh spring rolls) and fried squid.

In foreground: crispy squid. It is dipped in batter and fried, and does not come with sauce. It is way lighter and more tender than your average calamari. Sometimes they provide a dry roasted salt-and-pepper dip.
In background: vegetarian goi cuon. This comes with a peanut dip, although I like to spoon hoisin sauce in too.

House special pho. This comes with a variety of cuts of beef and is very filling. We have always been satisfied with the stock that their kitchen makes.

Fish ball soup. The broth is much lighter because you do not get a lot of the beefy heft and flavor with actual meat cuts in the soup. Great for those chilly days, or if you're feeling under the weather!

Ozzie Wan's crew ordered the vegetarian fried rice, string beans in garlic sauce and fried noodles with vegetables. I cannot be too descriptive because I did not get to try them---I was too occupied with my soup. They did say that everything was good.

Vegetarian fried rice. It comes with carrots, peas, broccoli and baby corn.

String beans with garlic sauce.

Mixed veggies over fried noodles.