Eating Out: Bargain seafood lunch at Esca, comfort food at Cuban cafe in Hackensack

A humble Porgy was the delicious centerpiece of my $29 three-course meal at Esca in Manhattan, among hundreds of restaurants offering bargain lunches and dinners during the NYC Restaurant Week promotion, which runs through Feb. 9.

The whole, wild-caught Porgy was slightly charred outside, but moist and juicy inside. Esca, which calls itself a southern Italian trattoria, served the fish ("Orata" in Italian) with extra-virgin olive oil and a green salsa.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Exiting the bus terminal on 9th Avenue, my hunger pangs increased as I got closer to Esca Restaurant, a little over two blocks away.

I took the bus into the city from Hackensack on Tuesday, my heart set on a bargain three-course lunch of seafood, extra-virgin olive oil and fresh herbs.

Esca, a southern Italian trattoria known for celebrating fish and other seafood, usually is the first fine-dining place I seek out during the semi-annual NYC Restaurant Week promotion.

Through Feb. 9, hundreds of restaurants, the vast majority of them in Manhattan, offer three-course lunches for $29 and three-course dinners for $42, plus tax, tip and beverages.

Lunch is the better deal, because many of the Restaurant Week dinner menus largely duplicate what is served for lunch.

With tax and a 20% tip, my lunch at Esca totaled $37.37 -- not much more than what the restaurant charges for a lunch entree when ordered a la carte.

Last year, I was able to cut that to around $32 by using a registered American Express card to pay for the meal, but Amex has ended that deal (I got a $5 statement credit).

Lattarini to start

I was by myself at Esca (the Italian word for "bait"), but the woman who greeted me at the door, and took my raincoat and umbrella, seated me at one of the small tables for 2 in the main dining room.

First, I got the chef's complimentary crostini -- with white beans and mackerel -- then a small bowl of tasty olives, then a crusty slice of Italian bread (followed by another of focaccia), and finally a small plate of fruity extra-virgin olive oil for dipping the bread.

Esca's Restaurant Week lunch menu offers four starters, three entrees and two desserts.

I started with Lattarini, a Crispy Rainbow Smelt with a Caper-Tarragon Aioli.

The small fish was butterflied, deboned, fried to a crisp and arranged on a plate with extra-virgin olive oil and fresh herbs -- as if it had been hooked and was leaping out of the water.

Entree, dessert

I moved on to the Orata Americana, a whole wild-caught Porgy that was grilled and served with Salsa Verde, and finished with a refreshing Trio of Sorbets -- Tangerine, Grape and Pear.

That was a substitute for the Tangerine Curd Tart or Chocolate Trifle Cake listed on the menu, desserts that sounded as if they had a lot of sugar and calories. 

Esca's service is top notch: My water glass was filled repeatedly, and my table crumbed before dessert.

And the young woman who took my raincoat and umbrella when I arrived didn't need the claim check she gave me to retrieve them.

Here's to another great Restaurant Week lunch at Esca.

See: NYC Restaurant Week

Side dishes of soupy black beans and white rice at Casual Habana Cafe in Hackensack ($4 each), a combination that is sometimes called Moors and Christians, a reference to Spanish history.

Once a BYO, the popular Cuban restaurant now has a full bar, a liquor license and floor-to-ceiling windows on Main Street. But there are fewer seats for diners than before.

A favorite in Hackensack

We had a delicious dinner of Cuban comfort food at moderate prices on Saturday night at Casual Habana Cafe:

We shared a Baby Spinach Salad with Beets and Blue Cheese ($6), a fried whole Red Snapper with two side dishes ($19), and two more sides ($4 each).

The sides were tostones, twice-smashed and fried green plantains with a dipping sauce; tender yuca con mojo or yuca in a garlic sauce; and white rice and soupy black beans.

I poured some of the garlic sauce over the beautifully fried fish, which seemed to be swimming.

We drank pleasantly sweet Basil Lemonade ($3 each).

Website: Cuban Comfort Food

See a video report on our meal:

A $29 lunch on Manhattan's East Side; recalling cozy home restaurants in Cuba

Ginger & Pepper Crusted Salmon with cauliflower, beets and celery root puree was one of the lunch entrees available on a 3-course Restaurant Week menu for $29 at Tavern 62, a David Burke restaurant on the tony East Side of Manhattan.

I started with a bowl of briny Seafood Chowder (shrimp, clams, leeks and potatoes), one of six appetizers on the price-fixed menu.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I worked up an appetite taking mass transit to the East Side of Manhattan for a bargain $29 lunch at Tavern 62 on Monday. 

I hopped on an express bus from northern New Jersey to the midtown-Manhattan terminal, then hiked through a long pedestrian tunnel and up several flights of stairs to the Q train.

My stop, Lexington Avenue and 63rd Street, is a relatively new subway station with a police booth on the platform, and elevators and an escalator to bring you up to street level.

Hundreds of fine-dining restaurants in Manhattan are offering three-course lunches for $29 and three-course dinners for $42 -- plus tax and tip -- through Friday.

To get a $5 statement credit on a total bill of more than $35, I charged my meal to a pre-registered American Express card.

You can find price-fixed lunches at many Manhattan restaurants, including Tavern 62, after Restaurant Week ends.

The semi-annual promotion returns in July.

2 farmed fish

At Tavern 62, the Restaurant Week menu offered eight entrees, including Roasted Branzino (fillet) and Ginger & Pepper Encrusted Salmon.

All branzino is farmed, so I asked Anthony, my server, about the other choice, and he claimed the fillet was from "wild Atlantic salmon," an oxymoron.

Still, this was one of the best farmed salmon fillets I've had, cooked medium rare, as I requested, and juicy.

I asked my waiter to hold the whipped cream when I ordered Fresh Berries with Passion Fruit Sorbet for dessert.

An unsweetened iced tea was $4 with a refill.

I was seated in what turned out to be the quieter of two dining rooms on the second floor of the restaurant, and walked past Chef/Owner David Burke holding a meeting in an anteroom.

I was disappointed that instead of bread and extra-virgin olive oil, the restaurant serves small muffins and butter, which is presented on a small block of Himalayan Pink Salt (I buy the same salt in a grinder at Costco Wholesale in Teterboro). 

As I was leaving the restaurant, I saw Chef Burke wielding a blow torch over a plate, possibly a dessert. The New Jersey native, who is said to own more than a dozen restaurants, will be 55 on Feb. 27.

DETAILS: Tavern 62 by David Burke is at 135 E. 62nd St., near Lexington Avenue, Manhattan; 1-212-988-9021. Websites: Tavern 62 and NYC Restaurant Week.

I loved the poem by Billy Collins I saw on the Q train: "As you fly swiftly underground ... remember the ones who descended here ... to clear a passage for you where there was only darkness and stone."

Salads at Casual Habana Cafe in Hackensack are a big draw for fans of Cuban food, such as Ensalada de Espinaca y Remolacha or fresh baby spinach tossed with slow-roasted beets and blue cheese, dressed in Spanish Amontillado sherry vinaigrette ($5), above.

Ensalad Aguacate Tropical or ripe avocado, red onion, fresh pineapple and romaine hearts in a cilantro vinaigrette ($6) is chopped into small pieces that make it difficult to eat. We didn't get a serving spoon with the salads, so it was hard to share them.

Cuba's home restaurants

It doesn't take much -- the sound of Cuban salsa music or biting into a tostone -- to remind me of vacations in Cuba, and the cozy home restaurants where I enjoyed so many great meals.

Late Saturday afternoon, we drove over to the closest I can come in the United States, Casual Habana Cafe in Hackensack, for a tasty Cuban dinner.

Me and my wife ordered two salads and shared a Caribbean Paella with two side dishes, and the total was only $28, plus tax and tip, less than I spent for lunch on Monday in Manhattan.

Minor annoyances included my chair, which was too low for the table; a table that rocked; having to ask for a cloth napkin, which aren't put out until 5 p.m.; and no serving spoon with our salads. 

On visits to Cuba, I enjoyed exploring paladares or privately owned 12-seat restaurants in homes or apartments, where I was served moderately priced meals of pork, chicken or seafood, with salad, rice and beans.

I recall me and my wife getting a tip from a taxi driver at my hotel in Santiago, Cuba's second-largest city, and going to a private home for a lunch of some the best lobster we've ever had.

My last trip to Cuba was in 2004, but I've read that many more home restaurants have opened in Havana, Santiago and other cities.

At Casual Habana Cafe, I ordered the Paella Caribena ($17), which was served in a covered pot, but my wife was disappointed to find only two shrimp, and left all of the mussels, clams and squid to me, below.

We loved the long-grain saffron rice.

Two side dishes come with each entree, so we ordered Platanos Maduros or sweet plantains, and Tostones, twice-smashed and fried green plantains, which are sprinkled with a little salt and served with a dipping sauce.

DETAILS: Casual Habana Cafe, at 125 Main St. in Hackensack, is a BYO; 1-201-880-9844. Open 7 days, metered street parking and a small lot in back, enter through unmarked double doors painted orange.  

WEBSITE: Casual Habana Cafe.

MORE ON PALADARES: San Cristobal, a home restaurant in Havana, from a 2012 post on Guardian.com, "Top 10 Paladares in Cuba."