I love meat. I feel about meat the same way that born-again Christians feel about Jesus. I just can't believe that there ever was a time that I didn't accept it into my heart (or my stomach, in my case). Lately, I've been thinking a lot about corned beef sandwiches. I've recently come around to accepting rye bread (I used to hate the taste), so it's opened up a lot of metaphorical sandwich doors. So far, the quintessential corned beef sandwich comes from Katz's Delicatessen (at least, that's my opinion....which is pretty much all you get reading this blog), but I wanted to give the new 2nd Avenue Deli a try. I hadn't been there since my dad took me and my crazy college roommate (who eventually tried to stab me with a butter knife - true story) several years ago. We sat in the Molly Picon room and thought about how Jewish we felt (which is what people do when they find themselves in rooms named after Molly Picon). I thought it was time to give it another try.
Rita and I, after a few failed attempts, finally made it over to 33rd St between Lexington and 3rd Ave (no, the 2nd Avenue Deli is not on 2nd Avenue anymore. It's weird). We both ordered the corned beef sandwich on rye with mustard. It comes with these neat little packages of Russian dressing and mustard and of course, pickles.
Personally, I don't like anything but mustard on my corned beef. I'm a purist. So I skipped the Russian dressing. I liked the pickles a lot. They were good and crunchy. Here's the beautiful sandwich.
Yum. The bread was a little soggy for me, but what can you do. It's a take out sandwich. Can't expect perfection. It didn't beat Katz's, but it was still very good and it has the benefit (for me) of being around the corner from my office - unlike Katz's which is way downtown.
A side note - Rita thought it was too much meat - she actually picked out half the meat and then ate the whole sandwich, which to me seemed crazy. I'd rather eat half the sandwich piled high and then save the other half for later. Then she complained that it was too much meat for her and she was breaking out in meat sweats. So, a warning - this is not a sandwich for the faint of heart. If you're not used to eating huge stacks of meat, maybe you should steer clear. Or work your way up to it with smaller sandwiches first.
1 comment:
MMMmmm meat. I didn't know there was such a thing as too much. Okay, I did, but I don't like to think about it.
I'd like to make a confession here on this comments page. I like pastrami more than corned beef. There I said it. And I'm not going to take it back. I love the peppery contrast to the sweet, salty meat. So there you go. I also happen to love it on my all time favorite sandwich, the Reuben, which happens to have russian dressing- so I like that too, I guess, but only in its rightful place, in toasted rye bread nestled up against crisp sour kraut and swiss cheese. Okay, it doesn't sound that great, but I think it's heavenly.
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