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NYC's bagel cafes are making pleas for cream cheese amidst a growing supply chain shortage, with many just days away from running out of the classic spread From Zabar's to Pick-a-Bagel, bagel makers citywide say they barely have a few days' supply left, threatening to take a NYC delicacy off the menu indefinitely Absolute Bagels on the Upper West Side currently has enough cream cheese to last them until Thursday Nick Patta of Absolute Bagels said that his Queens-based cream cheese supplier had run out of cream cheese for the first time that in over a decade New York bagel...

The other day, deep in Rego Park, a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens, Stanley Moscowitz and Walter Israel sat down at a Formica table for lunch at Ben's Best Kosher Deli on Queens Boulevard. Moscowitz, who's 53 and grew up in nearby Forest Hills, ordered first: matzo ball, tip of the tongue, roast beef, rye, Russian, onions and Dr. Brown's diet cherry drink. Israel ordered pastrami on rye bread. His son Jason ordered pastrami on white. In his defense, Jason did not ask for mayonnaise, but the combination of pastrami and white bread enjoys a certain...

We'll have what he's having If the idea of a heaping pile of thick, warm pastrami on rye gets you as hot and bothered as the female protagonist of When Harry Met Sally, you may have a problem. Then again, you may just really love smoked meat, like author David Sax. His forthcoming book, SAVE THE DELI: In Search of Perfect Pastrami, Crusty Rye, and the Heart of Jewish Delicatessen, calls for a party of the carnivorous sort. At Deli-licious: A Celebration of the Jewish Deli in New York, garlic-breathed Heebs like Jelvis the Jewish Elvis and Borscht Belt comic...

HOBBY’S DELICATESSEN & RESTAURANT in downtown Newark may have lost much of its more traditional clientele over the years, but it has held on to tradition. The corned beef and the tongue are cured for 14 days in stainless steel bins in the basement. The salamis hanging on the wall look as if they’ve been drying there, their flavor intensifying, since the Brummer family bought the place in 1962. Samuel Brummer and his sons, Michael and Marc, even make their own matzo ball soup and potato pancakes. But in Newark, as in so many cities, holding on has been tough...