My Guts Are Smarter Than Your Guts

Restaurant: Coco's Southern Style Soul Food and Famous Deep Fried Lobster

Intersection: Clark between Congress and Van Buren.

Rating: 1.5/5

February 2^nd, 2010:

My gastrointestinal tract is in danger. I can feel it. I have been cautious up until now; sticking with Burger Joints, Breakfast Places and Civil War Theme Restaurants. It’s time to take a risk. Usually, when describing “risky behavior”, doctors will mention drug use, promiscuous sex and other daredevil antics. They never mentioned deep fried lobster.

There are three types of days during a Chicago winter:

• ·      The Blower’s Daughter: Mild almost warm, gray, wet, sloppy. Named for the Damien Rice song[1].
• ·      Winter Wonderland: Cold but not uncomfortable. Blustery. Snowy.
• ·      Well Worn Hand: Bleak, dark, snowy, unbearably cold and windy. Named for the Editors song[2].

Thank god, today is a Blower’s Daughter. This is my first entry that requires very little travel. No bus, no train, no cab, just some good old fashioned walking. God I hate walking, even around the block, but something about a Blower’s Daughter makes walking a little more bearable. I am answering the siren’s song. The clarion call of Coco’s Famous Deep Fried Lobster.

I see the sign every time I come home on the 22. Deep fried lobster? It sounds terrible. It sounds like a culinary abortion. It sounds, overall, like bad idea jeans. Yet, there is something truly tantalizing about the idea. I’ve always been one for some good soul food. I’ve always known to never judge a hole in the wall by appearances. I’ve also always known that shellfish is extremely easy to fuck up when a fryer is involved. But if you’re willing to take the risk fried shellfish and hole in the wall soul food joints can be amazing[3]. There is no reward without risk.

Walking to Coco’s, I start to truly doubt this idea. I can see the place, nestled between a pawn shop and a liquor store. Yet, despite my gastrointestinal hesitance, I keep walking. I keep repeating Rob Gordon’s words, “My guts have shit for brains”.

I enter the establishment and met by the beautiful smell of fried things. That misty, greasy, salty, warm smell. This is a good smell. This is a good sign. I ask for a small order of deep fried lobster, a side of fries and a drink. They do not serve drinks. I am pointed to an RC Cola[4] vending machine, directly behind me. Then another hitch is thrown in my giddy up, they do not take cash. I run next door to the pawn shop for their ATM and almost buy a drum set. I then run back and pay.

My debts paid and my order placed, I sit down and take in the glorious smell of fried food. I sit for easily 10 minutes and listen to the CTA bus driver in front of me tells the history of the 24 to his female companion, growing restless every minute. The suspense builds as the complexities of bus routes south of Chinatown are explained in explicit detail. I am waiting for, what smells like, an amazing meal. Just as I start to get interested in transit history, I hear my number yelled. I leap to my feet and am handed the bottom of a Styrofoam container filled with golden nuggets of lobster meat and fries that are so seasoned they’re practically orange.

This is it, the moment I have been waiting for, deep fried lobster. I pick up one of the oddly shaped morsels and take a bite into a seemingly flavorless nugget of rubber. Well, it’s not flavorless, mostly I just taste salt with a mild undertone of fish. This is disappointing. If I didn’t write everything in pen, these little babies would make a seriously greasy but effective eraser. The fries are decent but a little flaccid for my taste.

I attempt to salvage this meal by using the various sauces that I was given. The hot sauce is all heat and no flavor, making for a fiery piece of greasy rubber. The mild sauce however is great. Really, the mild sauce was the best part of the meal. It made it easier to eat the rest of the nuggets but didn’t manage to change the fact that those little fuckers were chewy. Despite the revolting nature of the texture and the absence of flavor, I finish all but one of the nuggets. I proceed to take the saved nugget and throw it on the table. Yet another disappointment, while rubbery, these nuggets do not bounce. There is absolutely no fun to be had with deep fried lobster.

If you only learn one thing from this blog, please let it be this: Always go with your gut. Rob Gordon is wrong[5], my guts are brilliant. They knew a bad idea when they heard it.

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[1] Off the album “O”.

[2] The closing track of “An End Has A Start”.

[3] I’ve had some truly awful calamari in my time.

[4] Damn, I’m a Shasta man.

[5] About guts and for naming “Janie Jones” by The Clash as a better song than Bruce Springsteen’s “Thunder Road”.

So This Is The New Year?: January Recap

Well, the first month of this blog has come to an end. Here's some of the stats:

Number of Entries: 6
Average rating: 4.58/5
Most Visited Neighborhood: University Village (2)
Number of Times I Visited The Golden Loaf: 0
Number of President Theme Restaurants I Visited Instead: 1

Now, I've put a lot of thought into this and I would like to congratulate Manny's Delicatessen as the first ever Restaurant of The Month.

Restaurant: Manny's Delicatessen
Intersection: Roosevelt and Jefferson
Rating: 5/5

There were some damn good meals this month. But I still find myself dreaming of the Pastrami Sandwich and Potato Pancake combo I got at Manny's. The pastrami, glistening and piled on top of rye bread with the potato onion puck of carbohydrate beside it. It was a meal so good looking that it became the profile picture of The Lunchtime Diaries facebook fan page. While the meal looked good, it tasted even better. I shoveled forkful after forkful of pastrami into my gullet.
I’ve been back to Manny’s three more times since that first visit and those fuckers are consistent. There are photographic memories and then there are photographic meals. Every meal I’ve gotten there has been as good as the time before. They have yet to disappoint me and for that they fully deserve Restaurant of The Month.

Tie Me Up and Tell Me I'm Bad

Restaurant: Ohio House Coffee Shop

Intersection: Ohio and LaSalle

Rating: 5/5

January 29^th, 2010:

            I am mildly ashamed of myself. I try to do this blog on a shoestring budget out of principle. This morning I splurged. Instead of the trusty CTA, I am in a cab at the moment weaving and speeding along Wacker. This cab driver is a driver. Chicago has too many passive cab drivers. This cabbie, however, makes me feel as if I am involved in shooting a chase sequence without even knowing it; weaving through traffic in such a way that would make Jason Statham sexually aroused. If I’m going to pay someone to drive me somewhere the CTA can take me than it better be an entertaining ride.

            It is odd being awake this early. It’s 8am on a Friday. I do not have class on Fridays. I could be asleep right now. But alas, responsibility has won out over my lethargic tendencies. I have a doctor’s appointment today. So, I need to be awake. I also need to eat. I woke up famished. I am craving some greasy spoon and I’m headed to the greasiest, spooniest place of all time; The Ohio Coffee Shop. You can’t miss it[1].

            For a restaurant that you can’t miss, this place is the size of a closet. I take a seat at the counter and struggle to remove the menu from its holder. My surly waitress comes by and easily pulls it out and hands it to me before vanishing. Usually, surly service and interesting menu experiences are a turn off for me. Yet, when I eat at a greasy spoon I’m like a BD enthusiast. Yes, waitress, treat me bad. I’m not a regular and, therefore, have been naughty. I don’t know what I want as soon as I sit down, so give me as much attitude as you can dish out[2]. Many places, like Ed Debevic’s and Dick’s Last Resort, are fake surly. I hate fake surly[3]. It makes me feel like I’ve hired a hooker to half-heartedly tie me up and tell me that I’ve been bad. This place isn’t faking surly. It’s like I’ve found my soulmate. Someone who gets as much pleasure from giving me some greasy spoon attitude as I am to receive it. C'mon, give me your worst. I took a cab here, let me fucking have it baby!

            There is a reason for this need to be abused by a diner waitress. I believe that it says amazing things about an establishment’s food. If they can afford to stay open, despite a waitstaff that wants to see your head on a pike, than their food must be good. There must be a reason for the regulars to come back. There must be a reason for to take this abuse[4]. This waitress is pretty surly and places a healthy portion of scrambled eggs, corned beef hash and hash browns in front of me.

            I will admit, I have a certain way to eat eggs. I mix it together with the corned beef hash and hash browns. I make a giant mess on my plate and then take the first bite of what I can only describe as the ninth wonder of the world. This establishment has a surly waitress and a magic cook. He must be magic. I cannot think of another way for my meal to be this perfectly cooked. The eggs are firm but not rubbery, the hash browns are crispy on the outside but soft on the inside, the corned beef hash is perfectly crisp and tender.

I’m using my fork the way a 10-year old uses a snow shovel. I am going across the plate, quickly, gathering up as much onto my fork as I can in one pass and then depositing the piles of eggy-beefy-potatoey goodness into my mouth and getting to the next pass as quickly as possible. This is the best breakfast I’ve had in some time. Did I mention how good the toast was[5]? As long as it took me to write this paragraph, I could’ve finished my meal 8 times over. It was gone as soon as it came.

Frankly, my waitress hasn’t abused me nearly enough to feel that I deserve this meal[6]. From the dominatrix[7] wait staff to the crazy delicious heap of breakfast, served on the classic off-white plate, this place has greasy spoon down to a science[8]. They even portioned the fucking thing right. This is the first 5/5 I’m giving where I don’t feel stuffed to the rafters. I’m not hungry either. I’m simply full and invigorated and ready for my day to begin. Everything a good breakfast should be.

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[1] Mmm…Pictures of signs. Exactly what every food blog is about.

[2] Because I’ve been bad. Did I mention I’ve been bad? I’m a naughty boy.

[3] I hate fake in general. Goddamn phonies…RIP JD.

[4] Despite the fact that I’m a bad, bad boy.

[5] Yes, they managed to make toast a notable part of the meal.

[6] I’m a glutton for greasy spoon punishment.

[7] Come on, one more time, tell me I’m weak, pitiful, scum.

[8] A delicious, delicious science.

Love and Sandwiches

Restaurant: Jubrano's

Intersection: Taylor, between Ashland and Laflin

Rating: 4/5

January 27^th, 2010:

            Chicago is pissed at me. I taunted it in my post about the Lincoln Restaurant. I accused it’s winter of being too mild. In retaliation, the hawk is back with a vengeance. It is cold. It is windy. It is snowy. It is a Chicago winter. Which is why I can’t take the usual pleasure from the argument going on in front of me. The man doesn’t have fare but wants to get on the 29 regardless[1] and is making the rest of us wait in the blistering cold while he sorts things out with the driver.

            “You the captain of your ship, you can do what you want let me on.” The man’s words fall on deaf ears as the driver scolds him and lets him know that she “ain’t the captain of no ship” and promptly kicks him off the bus. She’s not the captain of the ship. She’s more like the bouncer.

            This altercation was hilarious, but my mind is elsewhere. February is around the corner, which means that Valentine’s day is down the block[2]. My free time to do this blog is probably related to the fact that I can’t seem to get a date and nothing reminds you that you haven’t been with a woman in 13 months[3] like Valentine’s day.

            Last year’s Valentine’s day was better. I had just met a girl and spent Valentine’s day watching romantic comedies and building up the nerve to ask her on a date. One year later and I’m going to be watching romantic comedies and building up the nerve to ask that same girl out on a date.  Last year, the act was hopeful, this year it’s just plain sad[4]. I am clearly not captain of this ship.

            After transferring to the trusty 12, I am in the UIC Medical District. Only one more block and I arrive at my destination, Jubrano’s. I know absolutely nothing about this place. Usually, when coming up with a restaurant to cover I either go with a place I’d heard of and wanted to try or I trust our 16^th president to not give me food poisioning[5]. This time I simply did a random search on Yelp and found this place.

            I scurry out of the cold and into a completely empty restaurant. There isn’t even someone behind the counter or at the grill. There are people here. There must be, a radio is on. I’m not the only one that can hear “Somebody Told Me” by The Killers. Or maybe I am. Maybe I’ve been thinking so much about my Valentine’s woes that I’ve completely lost it. Or maybe the employees are in the back.

            I take these solitary moments to scan the menu. Everything seems pretty standard. Cheeseburger, Hot Dog, Fries, Gyro, the things you find at a Chicago grill. Then I notice the white board. “Try our new item: Gyro Cheeseburger”. What? A Gyro Cheeseburger? Is that a cheeseburger with Tzatiki? Is that gyro meat with all of the burger fixings?

            As my head buzzes with questions of the Gyro Cheeseburger, a man emerges from the back. I don’t even say hello to him. I simply launch into my question about this mysterious sandwich.

            “It Cheeseburger with Gyro meat and Tzatiki on top.” I have no choice. I cannot pass this up. I must order this.

            I sit down and await my food. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was wary. Cheeseburgers and gyros are two sandwiches that have never truly left me satisfied. I like a good burger from time to time and I am a big gyro fan. It’s just that neither sandwich really hit the spot for me. Maybe this would be the answer. Maybe they’ve never satisfied me because I’ve never eaten them united.

            After a good 5 minutes, my meal is placed in front of me. I am still wary. It is an impressive looking sandwich.

            After examining it for a minute or so I finally take a bite. I taste mustard. I taste onions. I taste cheeseburger. I taste gyro meat. I taste Tzatiki. I taste ketchup. I taste all of these things in one bite. This is not a sandwich. This is a marriage of a greasy spoon classic and its Greek counterpart. Wedded bliss is truly the only way to explain how well the flavors of these distinct sandwiches come together. I am damn sloppy as I eat this. As I've said before, some levels of tasty require sloppy. There are three kinds of sauce to worry about and all three are on my face, hands and elbow. I no longer worry about getting a date as I have fallen in love with this sandwich. This sandwich is my rebound.

            There is another surprise to this meal. The fries are good. The fries are really fucking good. I pegged this as a place that used those mealy, potato mash fries. No, these fries were made from potatoes. They are not Hot Doug’s duck fat fries but they’re damn good.

            The entire time I eat this meal, love songs are playing on the radio behind me. I am reminded that I can not use this sandwich as my rebound. I’m eventually going to have to face my female troubles. I’m not a CTA bus driver. While I may not be captain of this ship, I should be. While I cannot fall in love with this sandwich, I can take comfort in it. After all, what’s a good sandwich for?

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[1] That’s right, I know irrergardless isn’t a word. I fucking rule.

[2] Mmm…this food blog may have some delicious entrees but nothing is tastier than a good distance metaphor.

[3] And two days…but who’s counting?

[4] Why yes, I am listening to the Best of the Old 97’s as I write this. Why do you ask?

[5] See “Abraham Lincoln and The Best Laid Plans…”

Sin

Restaurant: Fried Bologna/My Kitchen
Intersection: A Trailer Park and A Mullet
Rating: 5/5

January 24^th, 2010:

            Everyone experiments in college, especially in art school. Sometimes you find that you don’t like something. Sometimes you truly find something you do like something. Sometimes you find out something about yourself that you never wanted to find out, an secret that you’ve buried deep within yourself. I experimented. I found out something about myself. I am not proud of what I found out. What I found out goes against a lot of the beliefs that I was raised on. I found out that I am white trash to the bone, the core, the very marrow. I feel that someone who writes a food blog should let his readers know about his culinary sins.

            I’d always known I was different. I was raised by lawyers. I was raised by learned people who had doctorates. I was raised on U2, REM and Pearl Jam from the cradle. Yet I’d always had these corn-fed urges. It started around age 9 when I first took an interest in professional wrestling. My parents didn’t know what to think of it and quickly put an end to it. Then, around age 14, I started to be interested more and more in professional wrestling. It became one of my quirkier interests. It became part of my geek-dom holy trinity: Movies, Music and Pro-Wrestling.

            But pro-wrestling was only my gateway to more white trash behavior. Eventually, I discovered gravy. I discovered that there was no such thing as a bad meal if there was enough gravy on said meal to choke a cow.

            Now I have fallen completely down the white trash rabbit hole. I am standing over a hot skillet, full of frothing butter. I am holding two slices of bologna in my hand. Do I dare? Do I drop the slices into the sizzling pan? Fry up the lunch meat, throw on some wrestling and change my name to Jethro? Boredom and hunger are a dangerous mix.

            The bologna makes really odd sounds as it fries. The smells its making are downright dangerous. God forbid I should enjoy any part of this. This is supposed to be a reassuringly disgusting experience but its not; nowhere close. Every step in making this is leading me closer and closer to a double wide.

            I have no idea when fried bologna is done so I am playing this all by ear, smell and sight. It looks done and has probably been in the pan long enough to be hot all the way through. I flip the glistening slices onto the plate. Hot sauce is the universal condiment.

            This is delicious. This is heaven. This is now, in my mind, the only way to eat bologna. If fried bologna is wrong, I don’t want to be right. I am so wrapped up in white trash bliss that I decide to throw WWF Summerslam 1994 into the DVD player. Sitting on my couch, I eat every last bit while watching some old school wrasslin’. This is what art school is all about.

Abraham Lincoln and The Best Laid Plans...

Restaurant: Lincoln Restaurant
Intersection: Lincoln and Irving Park
Rating: 3.5/5

January 21^st, 2010:

            Chicago is wet, cold, sloppy. It’s been a mild winter. Lately, the Chicago wind hasn’t packed the bite that it’s known for. The hawk has lost it’s talons.

            The one thing I hate about elevated transportation is walking up all of those stairs. Just to be the sadistic bastards they are, the CTA puts two flights in every station. One flight gets you to the turnstiles and the second flight gets you to your train…fuckers. It is dripping, not raining, dripping as I head towards the Brown Line.

            The one thing I love about elevated transportation is all the character the Chicago skyline shows you on a drippy, wet Thursday. The buildings remind me of myself on a Monday morning. Using the blankets of fog to try and wrap themselves in a few more minutes of sleep before class. You just don’t get that kind of scenery from the subway[1]. I relate to buildings.

            I am on the Brown Line to find a restaurant called The Golden Loaf. I don’t know what to think about it. The name sounds like a fecal-centric sexual position[2], like putting a little extra on a Golden Shower[3]. This train of thought is interrupted when I notice an advertisement for battery powered, heated clothing. I feel like Darwin would get half mast from that.

         Chicago is a major metropolitan area. It faces the same pit falls as New York or LA. Restaurants close. Golden Loaf appears to have closed as I can’t find it anywhere in the mess that is the Chicago weather. It appears that this place has completely disappeared.
         I am not entirely sure what to do. I wander the area, thinking of mice and men, and soon come upon a sign that I cannot refuse.

         If that wasn’t enough, a sign on the window promises that every Monday from 6-10 is “Banjo Night”. I have never been more disappointed in it not being a Monday night.

        I enter the establishment and it is barren. There isn’t a single customer here. I almost leave, assuming I had stumbled upon another closed restaurant, until I am greeted by a very cheery waitress who assures me that this is the slowest time of day. It is 4:00 on a Thursday so I completely understand.

        She seats me and hands me a menu and says she’s going to go get me some bread. I am blown away by how far they go with the Abraham Lincoln/Civil War theme. There are Confederate Appetizers, Union Specials, Gettysburg Burgers[4]. The list goes on but it mostly things are either Confederate and Union. I scan the menu, it is huge, between the dinner and breakfast menu. My waitress comes back, without bread, to take my drink order. I ask for a coke. What I receive is a mug of coca-cola that rivals the Double Gulp for “Largest Drink I’ve Ever Encountered”.

        A few minutes later my waitress returns, still breadless. I order the fried chicken with potatoes O’Brien. My waitress lets me know that it will take longer but is “worth it”. She is extraordinarily desperate to keep my opinion of this empty place high. She is also genuinely sweet, so my opinion of this place is high.

           My waitress soon returns, again breadless, but carrying a gargantuan salad on what appears to be a shield from ancient Greece. It is a basic salad, covered in basic Italian dressing. I eat a lot of it.

My waitress then returns and I now understand why the bread took so long. She brings me a full loaf of fresh baked bread, enough butter to keep the U.S. Marine Corps satisfied. Plus, my own bread knife. I like any restaurant that trusts me with a bread knife. It lets me know that they will never call my judgment into question.

This bread is good. I eat half the loaf in under 7 minutes. In fact, I would’ve eaten the whole loaf but my waitress interrupted me with a Midwestern sized meal.

      Chicago is in the Midwest. I forget this from time to time because, as I said earlier, it’s a major metropolitan area. Like most major metropolitan areas, its food scene doesn’t take after its region. It takes after the trend and the trend, currently, doesn’t include half a chicken, a shit load of potatoes O’Brien and brussel sprouts[5].

       I am expecting this chicken to be salty and dry. I am happy that I am wrong. The chicken is really moist and surprisingly well seasoned. The potatoes need a little salt but I prefer food to be under seasoned than over seasoned. I eat a lot, I eat quickly and, most importantly, I eat happily. I am not blown away by this food, but I enjoy every bite. I am however blown away by this meal. My waitress brings me the check and the quirky menu, the genuinely friendly service, the gallon of coke, the giant salad, the loaf of bread, the personal bread knife, the Costco-aisle’s worth of butter and the giant fried chicken dinner is only $13.25.

$13.25 is reasonable. $13.25 is really fucking reasonable. $13.25 is enough for me to feel like I have legitimately stolen from this restaurant. I am almost as racked with guilt as I am full as I leave this restaurant. This was not food coma worthy but it was pretty damn good.

This restaurant isn’t anything special[6] but it is definitely worth the occasional visit. Make sure to bring an appetite and an army. I wasn’t kidding about the butter.

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[1] There are no real subways in Chicago. The red line and blue line flirt with underground travel but then, eventually, come up for air. Chicago is built on a swamp. I don’t blame them for wanting to breathe.

[2] Or I have a dirty mind.

[3] Ok, I definitely have a dirty mind. Doody, tee-hee, I’m twelve.

[4] I want to take away points for not just simply calling them “Gettysburgers”.

[5] Not technically, the trend is anything, as long as it’s eaten while wearing ironic eyewear…and vegan.

[6] Unless it’s banjo night.

Pastrami on Rye. Need I Say More?

Establishment: Manny's Coffee Shop and Delicatessen

Intersection: Roosevelt and Jefferson

Rating: 5/5

January 20^th, 2010

Jews have to be creative. The rules say: no pork, no shellfish, no mixing meat and dairy[1]. These rules can make cooking difficult. So therefore we have to be creative to come up with good Kosher cuisine. I myself don’t keep Kosher or attend services but I was Bar Mitzvah’d. I do however love Kosher delis. Something about Pastrami on Rye makes the Jewish side of me ecstatic.

It can be hard to feed my Jewish side in Chicago. There is one single diner that I used to frequent in the South Loop that served up a pretty decent Pastrami and carried Dr. Brown’s cream soda[2]. This place, however, is way too expensive and I always leave feeling mildly like a tool. It’s one of those places that serves up traditional food ironically. I hate doing things ironically. The Yiddish on the walls comes with a wink and a chuckle and the chopped liver is on the menu but I doubt they’d even serve it if you ordered. They’d just scoff and give you a bagel. It is mediocre. It is phony[3]. It is Kosher cuisine for hipsters.

Then, talking to my Uncle, I heard about a deli not far from the hipster diner. It’s cafeteria style and it’s called Manny’s, on Jefferson and Roosevelt. So, that is why I am currently the only white person on the 12 headed west. This trip is nowhere near as arduous as my Hot Doug’s odyssey. It’s probably only 10 minutes start to finish, but I’m hungry so it feels as long as the Hot Doug’s trip. Also, I find myself ready to be disappointed. So far, the only place I’ve found to give me pastrami and Dr. Brown’s, gave it to me as if it was a PBR or a pack of menthols. I have no idea what to expect from this place.

The 12 dumps me at the corner of Jefferson and Roosevelt. I can see Manny’s sign from the corner. The sign is a promising attribute. It proudly states that Manny’s has been around since 1942 and I can only believe that the sign has been there every step of the way. It’s clearly seen better days. More importantly, it’s authentic.

I enter the establishment and am greeted by a cornucopia of beautiful smells. Mostly, Kosher cuisine smells like meat, salt and onions but man they do it well. The menu is just barely legible. I think the menus were put in around the same time as the sign. The first thing that really hits me is that this place is authentic. Besides one framed news article in Yiddish, there is nothing screaming Jewish deli. Here the food defines the atmosphere and that’s exactly what I’m here for.

I grab a tray and pass by knishes, matzo ball soup and fried smelts. I come to a screeching halt in front of a large Jewish man who is seemingly surrounded by different meats. I ask for pastrami on rye. He proceeds to slice up what looks like half a cow’s worth of beautiful, shiny pastrami and then, as if reading my little hungry mind, throws a potato pancake and a pickle on the plate. I was not expecting this. I am a complete slut for potato pancakes and they are usually so hard to find in restaurants[4]. Also, had I not seen the man throw everything on the plate, I would’ve thought that they had taken extreme care with placement. This meal is beautiful.

I grab a Dr. Brown’s and take a seat. I immediately  notice three things:

1.                    There is a desk for a ticket vendor service here. Because nothing goes better with pastrami than scalped Bear’s tickets.

2.                    I am the youngest person here by easily 30 years.

3.                    I am the WASPiest person here. Now, I am not exactly super Jew but my god I feel downright Scandinavian in this crowd.

I take a bite of my massive sandwich and almost blackout from pleasure. Like I said, I’m used to mediocre pastrami. This is not mediocre pastrami. This is a salty, seasoned, beefy masterpiece. Sliced thin as tissue and layered with a ribbon of fat on the edges that packs in an entirely new level of flavor. The potato pancake is a greasy puck of potato, onion filled deliciousness. There is a grouping of articles on the wall that display President Obama’s trip to this establishment and I feel that is the only word that can describe the levels of flavor I am experiencing; presidential[5].

It is not long before I can no longer keep my sandwich together and use my fork to make a pastrami/brown mustard/rye bread mess on my plate. But, dear lord, that mess is delicious. I am shoveling glistening sheets of pastrami into my face with complete disregard for how I look eating it. There is a level of tasty where all manners go out the window and I am at that level. This food is so good that it makes me feel I should attend Shabbat services. Much like the Hot Doug’s trip, I find myself waddling out of the deli, stuffed with potato and onion and pastrami. Again, I know a food coma is in my future. I am full. I am happy. I am Jewish.

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[1] I’m sure I left a few out but, as I soon learn, I am not Jewish enough.

[2] This is what the gods on Mt. Olympus drank but they called it “Nectar”. Silly gods, it’s cream soda. Nectar comes from fruit.

[3] Yes, I used the word “phony”. I need a red hunting cap.

[4] The hipster diner charges 7.95 for two. Here I got it one for a dollar.

[5] Or Obamalicious.