Is Katz pastrami the best?
Yes.
One reason is because, unlike most other delicatessens, Katz’s cures their own pastrami and corned beef.
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">We select the best cuts of beef for our corned beef, pastrami, brisket and other fine foods. Our corned beef is cured using the method which best flavors the meat, without injecting chemicals, water or other additives to speed the process. The finished product may take a full 30 days to cure, while commercially prepared corned beef is often pressure injected (or “pumped”) to cure in 36 hours.</font>
Whenever I am back in New York, just before my flight, I will actually make a special trip into Manhattan (by car!), park at one of the meters outside the delicatessen, and place an order for several hot pastrami sandwiches on rye bread with mustard and sour pickles. While tasting several pieces of that heavenly pastrami (which I prefer lean, not fatty), I inform the counter person that I am taking the pastrami sandwiches home to Atlanta. The guys behind the counter are usually difficult to impress, but they usually engage in a conversation with me at that point, to which customers immediately surrounding me (in the thickest New York accents) join in. It is like being home again.
Anyway, immediately upon hearing that the sandwiches will be transported, they slice up more than enough pastrami and wrap it in several layers of aluminum foil, then several layers of paper. They then put a half loaf of rye bread into a bag and seal it. They throw in a large portion of sour pickles and a couple of cups of real delicatessen spicy brown mustard and, once I arrive home in Marietta, I immediately indulge myself in a feast that temporarily puts me in gastronomic heaven. I then put the rest away in the refrigerator.
I enjoy an overstuffed hot pastrami sandwich on rye bread (usually with caraway seeds), a liberal dollop of spicy brown mustard evenly spread on both slices of bread (leaving no portion of the inner part of the bread untouched by the mustard), a side order of either a potato
latke (pancake) or square potato knish, a sour pickle and a half-sour pickle, and a cold glass of Dr. Brown’s cream soda.
I have eaten many pastrami sandwiches over the years growing up in New York, and
Katz’s Delicatessen definitely and unquestionably has the best pastrami, in my opinion. In fact, it is one of my favorite places to eat in the world.
[This message has been edited by Canarsie (edited Feb 22, 2004).]