Reviewer praises boss' old restaurant

Hackensack's Anderson Street rail station in the old days.

In The Record today, Staff Writer Elisa Ung's 3-star review of Village Green Restaurant in Ridgewood doesn't mention that her boss, Food Editor Susan Leigh Sherrill, owned the place from 1989 to 2000.

Sherrill started the business with her husband at the time, a chef, and called it Village Green Cafe and Caterers. 

As usual in her reviews, Ung throws around the word "quality," but rarely backs it up.

She doesn't tell readers whether the third owner/chef's "buttery slow-baked salmon" is artificially colored farmed fish or wild-caught.

Mystery meat she sampled includes "stringy" foie gras, veal short ribs and filet mignon.

$76 dinner for one

Is this restaurant review the first that doesn't include prices for individual dishes in the body of the story? Only a range is given in the data box.

"Prices are among Ridgewood's highest," Ung allows, comfortable in the knowledge that the paper paid for all of the gorging she did, including one five-course dinner that cost $76.

She sets a great example during the obesity epidemic, calling puff pastry "smothered" in Chambord cream a "striking" dish.

It certainly is -- guaranteed to strike anyone who tries it right in the heart.

Weekly scoops daily

NJ Transit says it will build a new Anderson Street train station in Hackensack, according to the weekly Hackensack Chronicle.

The station was destroyed by a fire in 2009, the paper said.

Less than a block from the interim station -- a glorified bus shelter -- a new multi-story residential building is nearing completion. 

Rebuilding of the station was announced at the April 18 City Council meeting.