Posted on 04/15/2010 2:17:47 PM PDT by nickcarraway
WHEN a Jewish deli decides to stop serving salami, something is wrong in the cosmos.
At Saul’s Restaurant and Deli in Berkeley, Calif., the eggs are organic and cage free, and the ground beef in the stuffed cabbage is grass fed. Its owners, Karen Adelman and Peter Levitt, yanked salami from the menu in November, saying that they could no longer in good conscience serve commercial kosher salami.
“It’s industrially produced meat that gets blessed by a rabbi,” said Mr. Levitt, who came to Saul’s two decades ago from Chez Panisse, just down the street. “We all know that isn’t good enough.”
The two are still trying to find, or make, salami that will align with their vision of the deli of the future: individual, sustainable, affordable and ethical.
New delis, with small menus, passionate owners and excellent pickles and pastrami, are rising up and rewriting the menu of the traditional Jewish deli, saying that it must change, or die. For some of them, the main drawback is the food itself, not its ideological underpinnings.
So, places like the three-month-old Mile End in Brooklyn; Caplansky’s in Toronto; Kenny & Zuke’s in Portland, Ore.; and Neal’s Deli in Carrboro, N.C., have responded to the low standard of most deli food — huge sandwiches of indifferent meat, watery chicken soup and menus thick with shtick — by moving toward delicious handmade food with good ingredients served with respect for past and present.
“I have a dream of a multiplicity of pastramis,” said Ken Gordon, a co-owner of Kenny & Zuke’s, one of a handful of delis in the country where the pastrami is smoked over hardwood. It opened in 2007, an outgrowth of the
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The sign is still there. But they are not as good as they used to be. I bought a corned beef sandwich and a Dr. Brown cream soda a few months ago. It was not nearly as good as when I had one there last, about 15 years ago. I handed the cashier a $20.00 bill and she gave me back 50 cents!
I shipped a bunch of stuff from there; they add probably $100 to your bill for shipping (dry ice, FedEx, etc., so it’s legit, but surprising).
Having eaten at Katz’, I can say the food is excellent, “forget diets” memorable.
Maybe it just wasn’t as-good as I remembered when I lived there 40 years ago.
There is also a new crop of people preparing the food there who may not know as much as the earlier people. The corned beef sandwich I had a few months ago just didn’t seen nowhere near as good as I remembered from the time I lived in the neighborhood.
Katz ping! My treat!
Thanks! I’ll have a pastrami on club this time with a Dr. Brown’s celery soda...and of course a pickle!
Egan and Sons, owned and run by a family who’s son ran 2 of the finer “gastro Irish” restaurant/pubs in Dublin Ireland, the corned beef is made on premise, unbelievablly melt in the mouth succulent most often, also the bangers and mash is about perfected for such a simple meal. And it’s a microbrewery.
In no way Kosher.
There are still Italian salumeria here and there in the outer boroughs, but the folks behind the counter are often Latino or Middle Eastern (in one case in Bensonhurst, the owners were Chinese!).
The Lower East Side has become heavily gentrified over the past decade, with that stretch of Houston having lots of clubs. Katz’s still serves many of the club kids in the overnight.
I do know lots of artisanal meat places in the NYC area, but none of them are Kosher.
Iavarone Brothers, Grand Avenue Maspeth: good but pricey.
Mike's Deli in the Bronx remains my fave salumeria, although it is ruined by the tourons who pack it on Saturdays.
I’m not opposed to Empire National, or to Toojay’s, I spent half of 2009 living in Orlando, (yes I remember your opinion of the city, and have come to share it), and was literally eating 4 to 6 meals a week at the local TooJay’s, so much so they offered me a job.
However, in the 5 hour drive between Boca and Orlando, there should be some sort of regional difference in the flavor of the meat.
Cheers,
Noted and thank you for the suggestions.
Maspeth (in Queens, NY) is still a beautiful neighborhood. I saw the 50s doo-wop group, The Duprees, there some months ago and will be returning for a hot rod show on April 18th, both events being in the Federal Savings Bank parking lot on 69th Street. It’s like going back in time being there. Pizza at one store being the best I’ve had in my life. Sesame seeds on the crust, delicious sauce. Everything done perfectly. It wasn’t that huge modern pizzeria directly across from the FSB parking lot, but the smaller one on the corner near the expressway. I would love to move there one day.
I will agree to disagree with you. Its a ho hum blue collar place with lots of senior citizens and a depressing retail strip. "Beautiful" would not be the word I would use to describe it.
Park Slope above 5th is a beautiful neighborhood, as is the West Village (west of 7th especially), per Clemenza's understanding of the term.
Nice to see the Duprees are still performing. My dad's secretary was the daughter of the original lead singer (the guy who sang "You Belong to Me.".
The West Village is filled with liberals, lefties, yuppies and gays. I try to avoid places like that if I can help it.
Admittedly, it’s been a while but then again nothing is as good as I remember it.
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