Rockland County isn’t exactly a hotbed of South Asian cuisine, but quirky little Swad is doing its best to educate us one creamy curry at a time. Or, at least, to win us over with home style Indian classics as interpreted by owner and head cook, Ashwani Chirimunj. The results are mixed, and as in a family kitchen, there’s heart in what’s good and carelessness in what’s not.

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When Roost Restaurant opened in the summer of 2013, it was one of a handful of Rockland eateries serving seasonal ingredients prepared with imagination and flair. Commuters and locals flocked to the Sparkill restaurant’s long granite bar and cozy tables for drinks, dinner, and an easy end to a long day.

Every October, hunters descend on our town. Some are novices and some are professionals, but everyone comes prepared with boots and a knife. Fortunately for everyone, this group is only hunting for mushrooms. Organized by the New York Mycological Society (NYMS), experts in the field of mycology lead a mushroom foray into Tallman Park to study, document, and catalogue the species found in our extremely fungi-fertile area.

Giostra
65 Old Tappan Road
Tappan, NY
845 848-2575
www.giostrany.com

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If restaurant success is measured in decibels, then Tappan’s Giostra is doing well, but the simple Italian fare on offer doesn’t often hit the same peaks as the noise level.

Hip. Cosmopolitan. Casually elegant…not the usual words attached to a suburban restaurant, but Joe Printz’s DVine Bar in Sparkill earns the adjectives. This place is aesthetically a winner – and even better, it’s full out Fun.

Why would Alsatian-born Alain Eigenmann, successful chef and owner of Alain’s Bistro in Central Nyack, want to open a tiny tapas place on Nyack’s Main Street, a destination known more for its rowdy bar scene than for dining sophistication?

There are many opportunities either to ruin or be enraptured by our beloved coffee beverage. When it comes to making your own coffee I will not insult you by insisting it be a certain roast, or strength, or variety, and I will not judge your use of creams and sweeteners. While wars have been fought to control coffee economies, they should not be fought over the use of condiments. That being said, there are recommended methods of handling this perishable ingredient that can improve your coffee routine and make even that day-old coffee taste better.

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“Salumeria” is Italian for a cured meat shop and they may be found in larger cities but we are lucky enough to have one close by in a small town. La Casa Formoso, a New York City style deli in Northvale, is such a place. Here, customers can find quality meats, cheeses, pastas and olive oils not available in local supermarkets. They use old pasta recipes from Brooklyn and get the best sausages from Arthur Avenue in the Bronx. Fresh ravioli (never frozen) is delivered a couple of times a week from Pastosa Ravioli, a franchise with seventeen stores in New York City and the bread is delivered fresh from the Bronx, Manhattan and Queens. The store also has a bakery feel to it with cannolis and cookies made to order moments before you get them.

Michael Phelps, Misty May-Treanor, Serena Williams – move over. There was one Olympic sport left out of the London festivities this summer that makes these kids look like slackers…ok, slackers with really toned abs. What sport am I referring to? Grocery shopping in Rockland. That’s right, I hereby propose that the two hour suburban steeplechase required to pull together a few bags of moderate to high-end groceries is the local challenge of champions.

Foodie alert - there’s a new catering company in town. Palisades resident Stephanie Cardenas has fused her Mexican heritage and Texas upbringing into Blue Taco, a homegrown operation featuring healthy farm-to-table Mexican classics with a Texan twist. While her ultimate goal is to create a wholesale line of Tex-Mex products for grocery stores, she currently caters everything from small family dinners to parties for 100 guests. Blue Taco’s complete list of products is on its website, but Cardenas is happy to work with you on whatever menu you may need. On most weekends she also sells a selection of soups, tacos and salsas at the Palisades Indoor Farmer’s Market.

You’ll find Stokes Farm tucked into a suburban neighborhood on DeWolf Road in Old Tappan just off Tappan Road. It was one of the original twelve farms that participated in New York City’s first Greenmarket in 1976, a concept of urban planners Barry Benepe and Bob Lewis. Their mission was to provide a vehicle for small family farms to sell their products directly to consumers and present New Yorkers with access to the freshest, most nutritious locally grown food the region has to offer.

For those of you who don’t smoke however, there’s post-insulation pleasure to be had in Piermont at a new restaurant called o lar, a tiny gem of creatively combined Mediterranean, Italian and Spanish food traditions. O lar means hearth or home in the Galician dialect of northwest Spain and partners Miguel Dominguez and James Corona have basically pulled a few tables and chairs around their magnificent mound of a pizza oven, carefully edited the menu, and opened one of the best eating establishments to hit Rockland in years.

Murasaki

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I have to confess; eating out in Nyack is something I generally avoid – especially on weekends. But thatʼs changed since the opening of Murasaki, a modest home-style Japanese restaurant where everything, if not always artfully served, is fresh, fresh and fresh. The décor is simple, almost non-existent in fact, with a small sushi bar and about ten tables. No hi-tech lighting or fussy tablescapes here, just tasty and sometimes vaguely Americanized food. In fact, the relaxed simplicity makes me wonder if this is how a mom & pop place in Kyoto might feel - that is, if mom or pop had spent some time in the States and werenʼt sticklers about authenticity… or aesthetics… or doing anything more than serving really good food at fair prices.

There was a quiet culinary happening back in early summer that offers hope to Rockland foodies desperate for a little more dining sophistication. Chef and owner of the Commissary restaurant, Daniel Foti, and Joe Printz, owner of the Grape D’Vine wine shop, joined forces to pair a wine tasting with a fivecourse prix fixe meal. Foti and Printz first selected the wines, then Foti designed a seasonally inspired menu to highlight the food and drink equally. Invitations were sent and responded to via email, and at $60 a head, the event was fully booked within a couple of weeks.

Coppola’s Sparkill
500 Route 340
Sparkill, NY 10976
(845) 680-2626

Coppola’s, the Italian American restaurant built on the site of Tony’s Lobster House in Sparkill, has been a longtime coming, but it has finally opened its imposing doors to the public. The restaurant’s size and scale suggest grand aspirations for our little corner of the world, but a sleek interior of honey beige banquets, muted modernist lighting and a chic mix of wood, leather and stone deliver a room that Dean, Sammy, Peter and Frank (that’s the 60’s hipster “Rat Pack” for you youngsters out there) would have felt right at home in.

Bamboo

271 Livingston Street, (Route 303), Northvale, NJ

Billed as a contemporary Japanese and Thai cuisine sushi bar, Bamboo appears anxious to please a few too many people to be any good. Happily, this calm little hideaway does pretty well with most of its pan-Asian fare and in spite of a practically in-the-parking-lot location, delivers a pleasant dining experience.

I think, I hope, I think, I hope our little area of Rockland is becoming a restaurant destination! We are seeing several new quality dining options spring up almost within walking distance, and one of these is Danny Foti’s new venture, The Commisary.

Im going to let you in on two not-very-secret secrets for excellent family dining at reasonable prices: Cassie's Pizzeria in Orangeburg and The Greek Village in Northvale, NJ.

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When a neighbor described the recently opened LILO Pizza & Bistro in the Tappan Plaza as a little piece of Manhattan, my interest was piqued. I mean, let’s face it, shoehorned in between a dusty train store and the fabulously tacky V&S Variety, the glam factor is zero. And when I learned that this is where owner Rick Pellegrino (former owner of Babbo Pizza in Piermont) “wants to make pizza sexy again,” I knew I had to go.

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Saturday night at the newly opened Oak Tree Inn. It’s just after 6:30pm and the end of Happy Hour. Carpenters are putting the finishing touches on a roof over a portion of a back deck that’s sure to be a popular spot as the weather warms. Inside, a lively crowd in the bar seems to be ignoring the men’s semi-final basketball game blaring from three large TV screens.