Bergen Restaurants: The Green Olive in HackensackPete’s chicken, flattened chicken breasts with mushrooms and sun-dried tomatoes.
ELISA UNG OF THE RECORD
BERGEN.COM
“My stepfather, Peter Parascand, has been a chef for over 30 years” went the e-mail that Joe Iurato sent me last fall. “He’s not the kind of chef that’s into experimental cuisine, and he’s not trying to reinvent the wheel … His food is fresh, comforting and he tries to appeal to all palates … I can tell you that throughout all the years, I’ve never seen him lose his drive for cooking food, and it reflects in every dish he serves.”
Indeed, if there was an award given out for persistence in local neighborhood cooking, Parascand would be a contender: After getting his start at 17 as a runner in a friend’s restaurant in Cliffside Park, he has spent the rest of his three-decade career at just a handful of local restaurants. He cooked for almost 14 years at Le Bistro in Elmwood Park; he then bought Patsy’s in Fairview, then returned to Elmwood Park with Basil and Vine. In 2008, he opened The Green Olive in Hackensack in the site of a former sizzling steak restaurant in a small strip mall on Passaic Street near the Maywood border.
Parascand is not formally trained but attributes his culinary education to learning on the job, reading and “heart — that’s the key in the food business, is heart.” He’s had the same partners — local pain-management physicians Kristappa Sangavaram and Nirmal Patel — for two decades (his wife and third business partner, Roseann Parascand, works in their Elmwood Park office). Parascand’s stepsons are big parts of The Green Olive: Michael Iurato is the bartender, while you may see Joe working front of the house.
Joe Iurato, a sommelier, is also in charge of the wines. Initially, he built a comprehensive 60-bottle wine list filled with lesser-known boutique wineries. But he quickly learned that wasn’t what the clientele wanted. Eventually, customer demand sent him in a more basic direction, and now The Green Olive sticks to a short list of familiar wines.
The menu went in the same direction — Peter Parascand sought to capture as many palates as possible. Steaks were a must because of the previous restaurant, while customers requested mussels enough times that he now has several variations on the menu. There are also pastas.
The result is a restaurant that is not destination material, but it also doesn’t try to be. What it does do is offer the kind of genuinely warm, neighborly atmosphere that makes you want to pop by for a beer and a burger on a weeknight if you live in the immediate area. Try to get a seat by the faux fireplace and check out the green theme — green tablecloths, little dishes of green olives on the tables and little gold frog statues on the mantle.
Its best dishes were generally the ones indicated as specialties on the menu. First was the $10 burger. “Just the best burger with cheddar you’ve ever had,” boasted the menu; maybe not quite, but it didn’t disappoint — 10 ounces of loosely packed black angus on a bun that stood up to it, with thick-cut steak fries. Next was a generous platter of “famous” tomato bruschetta on thick toast ($5), the tomatoes lightly marinated in red wine vinegar, lemon and extra-virgin olive oil — on a second visit, we found that the restaurant was now giving out a free slice to each customer.
“Pete’s chicken,” a light, tasty dish you may remember from Parascand’s previous restaurants, featured flattened cutlets of chicken topped with shiitake mushrooms, sundried tomatoes and cubes of fresh mozzarella ($16). Pizza here is thin crust, not cracker thin but soft with a little crisp on the bottom, making for a nice bar pie; the margherita included fresh, thinly sliced tomatoes and fresh basil ($10). House-made French onion soup topped with provolone hit the spot on a frigid evening ($6).
We weren’t asked how we wanted the duck breast cooked and would have preferred it a little rarer (it came out with little pink) but it was savory and satisfying, accompanied by polenta slices, garlicky spinach and a burgundy reduction ($21). Fragrant fennel cream mussels had great potential — we could have licked the broth off the plate — but the mussels themselves were overcooked ($16). A shrimp risotto special was a watery mess of mushy, sticky rice ($12).
And then there were the sizzling steak platters, which are not quite as dramatically sizzling here as they are elsewhere. Full disclosure: The charms of these are generally lost on me, and our marinated skirt steak ($20) was no exception — the pieces of beef arrived soaked in a ferociously salty Maggi sauce that I could have done without.
Desserts here aren’t house-made, and you can add our triple-decker red velvet ($7) to the list of restaurant sweets I’ve had that spent too much time in the refrigerator, but a classic pecan pie ($7) improved our mood a little more. (The waiter mistakenly brought us carrot cake and seemed almost pleased when we said that was a mistake, saying “it’s for me.”) As we left, a group at the bar raised a few beers and a boy at another table dug into what appeared to be an enormous brownie sundae, all looking like their day had been made.
Address: 455 Passaic St., Hackensack; 201-487-0759
Website:
www.greenoliverestaurant.comFood: An eclectic mix of pizza, burgers, mussels, steaks, pastas, meat and fish.
Ambience: Friendly neighborhood bar and restaurant near the Maywood border.
Service: Polite and accommodating.
Value: OK for the quality. Appetizers $5 to $12 (platter for two is $14), entrées $10 to $29.
Would be good for: Low-key dinner and drinks if you’re in the immediate neighborhood.
Less appropriate for: Destination dinner.
Recommended dishes: Bruschetta, All-American burger, Pete’s chicken.
Hours: 4 to 10 p.m. Monday, noon to 3 p.m. and 4 to 10 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, noon to 3 p.m. and 4 to 11 p.m. Friday, 4 to 11 p.m. Saturday.
Liquor, wine: Full bar, short, familiar wine list.
Noise level: Depends on the crowd.
Credit cards: AE, D, MC, V.
Reservations: Recommended for dinner Friday and Saturday.
Accommodations for children: Menu, highchairs.
Dress: Casual.
Early-bird specials or deals: $15 deal includes appetizer, salad, entrée and dessert, served between 4 and 6 p.m. Monday through Thursday.
Takeout: Yes.
Parking: Lot.
Reviewed: Feb. 18, 2011.
