Demise of the deli
I’ve often observed that there’s no deli like a New York deli.
Now, you may think you’ve found some exceptions to that rule. And perhaps you have; I haven’t sampled all the delis in the world. But outside of New York (most particularly, the New York of my youth) I haven’t yet located any that can compare.
Tasteless corn beef. Slimy pickles without that special zip I remember so fondly from long ago. And rye bread? Please, let’s not go there. Soft crust instead of the chewy kind, and a stale center instead of a succulent and springy one studded with the bite of caraway.
But now I learn to my greater dismay, via my arch-enemy the NY Times, that even in the New York metropolitan area delis are going the way of the dodo. The economy has taken its toll, but that’s not the half of it:
In the old days, everybody cured their own corned beef and pastrami, made their own pickles, and used bread from a neighboring bakery. Now, few even make their own matzo balls…But delis are up against more than a bad economy. “Jews are largely assimilated and don’t want to eat only Jewish food,” Mr. Sax said.
When they do, they have to face concerns that might have been overlooked a few years ago. Foods like pastrami and kishke (beef intestine casings stuffed with brisket fat or chicken fat, matzo meal, onions and carrots) are delicious, but they’re not health food.
The Times also notes the heartening news that there’s a blog devoted to saving the deli. But on my maiden voyage there, I encountered some very sorrowful tidings about rye bread.
I’d recently been on a quest in several cities for the real thing, to no avail. But until now I had continued to hold onto the notion that it could still be found somewhere in New York, the mother ship. But this recent post disabused me of that notion [emphasis mine]:
There’s a crisis in the Jewish deli, and it starts at the bottom: the rye bread. Simply put, most of the rye bread at delicatessens around America is not worth the effort it takes to chew. Of all the ryes I tasted in my global research into Jewish delicatessens, none were more disappointing than the supposedly legendary New York rye. The bread at such landmark delis as Katz’s or the 2nd Ave Deli is a disgrace, and the delis’ owners readily admit to it. The crusts are limp, the centers dry, and there is hardly any yeasty aroma to account for. It falls apart under any real stress, leaving you with a handful of greasy meat and mustard. If the finest musicians in the world shine on the stage at Carnegie Hall, doesn’t the finest pastrami in New York deserve a canvas to make it sing?
Real Jewish rye, made with a large percentage of coarse rye flour, hasn’t existed for years in New York. Most so-called “rye” is made from white flour, tossed with a few caraway seeds, and diluted with just enough rye flour to legally call it rye bread. The change came about during the postwar era, when white flour became cheaper, and easier to preserve, than rye flour. Industrial bakeries, such as Levy’s, hooked many on the taste of a packaged, pasteurized rye bread with their famous slogan “You don’t have to be Jewish to love Levy’s Real Jewish Rye.” That the bread paled in comparison to traditionally-baked loaves wasn’t the point. It was hip, it was cheap, it could last longer. Jewish eaters followed suit. As independent Jewish bakeries succumbed to their larger, industrial competition, quality rye bread disappeared from delicatessens.
But just when I had dissolved into a puddle of tears, devastated at the idea of relinquishing my dream (think Proust and the madeleine forever lost), I discovered that real rye is not dead, it’s alive and well and living in other places. The article goes on to mention that there are small enclaves of old-fashioned rye bread in Los Angeles, DelRay Florida, Skokie Illinois, and an especially large offering of bakeries in Detroit. I will have to make a visit to one of these places soon, because of descriptions like this:
I first experienced double-baked rye at the Bread Basket, a small chain of Detroit delicatessens, with Sy Ginsberg, the corned beef king of Michigan and much of the Midwest. As the waitress set down a sandwich of Ginsberg’s trademark corned beef in front of us, I was equally impressed with the bread. It had a darker flecked color to it (the rye flour), with a golden crust that reminded me of good sourdough. The crumb was warm to the touch, and the heat of the oven had released a tangy perfume of yeast. It felt like a little pillow in my hand, cradling the tender corned beef slicked with mustard. The crust had crackle and chew, the crumb was soft and doughy. It tasted like rye bread ought to.
Please read the whole thing. And then make your pilgrimage to one of these sacred spots. Tell them neo sent you.
[NOTE: In the accompanying photo—from this kosher deli in Florida—the pastrami looks mighty tasty indeed. But the rye bread not so, I’m afraid:
Oh drat…. now I’m so hungry for that I’ve booked a flight to…. DETROIT? Oh well, houses are cheap there and so is ammo.
Oy. For a good (insert awesome deli sandwich name here). Guess I’ll have to do it myself.
My mouth waters and my heart beats faster just reading about the delights of a good pastrami on rye. And real rye bread – the kind you get in little villages in Germany. mmm, mmm, mmm, Real Jewish Rye, mmm!
Are you sure this is a blog about current events?
J.J.: current events? They’re just the excuse for the blog.
You can still get good rye bread, though alas without the caraway seeds, in bakeries in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, baked fresh twice a day.
zabar’s carries some incredible corn rye from brooklyn
(kosher)
Perhaps I never did it right, don’t know. But I’ve always loved a thin sliced pastrami sandwich, with the pastrami fried (not crisp, but hot) and piled high on rye – potato salad and a frosty root beer. I could eat that ’til it comes out my ears. As a young teen, there was a little sandwich bar within walking distance of my neighborhood owned by (I think) a Jewish husband and wife. They made what I described above, the way I asked for it. They were like grandparents. There are some great memories stacked up in the mind. It is fun to discover them and dust them off for a look see.
A college trip from Texas to NYC was my first real time to be in deli heaven. I’ve tried but I can remember the name of the place. It was relatively close to Times Sq, was a large deli, and was / is famous. My choice was a reubuen. Like I said – heaven.
can = can’t
I have a smoker I bought for ribs but I started making my own pastrami with it too. Can’t find any premade thats any good….
As a former Manhattanite who lived around the corner from Zabar’s and H&H Bagel I cannot begin to tell you the wonderful memories this post brings back to me. Oy vey, what I’d do for a good NYC pastrami on rye, hot, greasy, and smothered in mustard. You just can’t find it in California.
It wasn’t so long ago that American beers from the large breweries were light, bland-tasting, mass-produced and almost interchangeable with one another. In order to get something dark and flavorful you had to buy imported beers.
But within the last 20 years or so, hundreds of local craft brewers have sprung up, brewing beer and ale in a dizzying variety of styles. A few of them, like Samuel Adams, have made it big and gone national. Today some of these smaller brewers can compete with the best in the world.
It sounds like a similar niche exists for real bread (not just rye). We may see the rise (heh) of a new wave of local bakeries to satisfy that need. So don’t give up hope yet.
Greetings:
I grew up in the Bronx of the ’50s and ’60s. The Jewish deli across from the schoolyard we used to hang out it used to sell potato knishes. The knishes were about 5″ square and well over an inch thick. The soft potato inside was covered in a harder, yellowish crust. The deli guys would slice them in half on the square dimension and then slather the inside with their deli mustard.
Now, I live out in the Peoples Republic of the San Francisco Bay. You don’t want to know.
James: which bakeries? I need to know.
the SBA 8a program which gives huge pluses to minorities and women are what destroyed the delis. how could a white male owner compete when they get free equipment, tax abatements, power cost reductions, bigger bank loans that are guaranteed, lower payroll taxes, and so on.
Whenever I make it back to New York City I try to get to Katz’s Deli. I have my pastrami on club though. Nothing can beat the taste of that sample the carver gives you just before he makes your sandwich,
Deli’s are alive and well – just not so much in the chain world.
I do not remotely live in the north east US – I’m in Knoxville Tennessee. Yet there are great deli’s amongst us that serve up some of the best sandwiches I think you will ever eat.
Nor am I one that has not been outside of my area – I’ fairly well traveled. I have found many an equal but have yet to find better, that goes for metropolitan areas to more rural ones.
It’s hard to say though how you would like them – as I return today from Miami and think about the cuban’s I had there (hmmm – great food I’m currently trying to simulate at my home cooking venues) I can not think of anything that is similar. Yet in terms of tastiness (and even price/tastiness) I can point you to more than several places you can go. One may be a club, another may be a Reuben, and another may be a totally local sandwich but all are Good.
So, no I do not think the Deli is dead or even close. The one you remember from childhood may be (and given how accurate our memories from then are they may never really have existed) gone but the genre is still alive and well.
I think we are seeing more of a return to the early 1900’s with MUCH more local places being the places to eat if you want original food. New York was one of the few places to retain that tradition but as we can all get it even in rural East Tennessee we see that high quality deli spread out and even the dense population centers move towards a few high quality places with many fast food ones to supplement them.
Those of us in more rural areas see a huge increase in quality whereas those more urban areas will see a loss.
I came to love this and other breads, but only as an adult. I knew no such things in my youth. Wonder was the best small Mid-West towns had to offer, as even home baking was dying, or dead really, in my youth.
And though I have come to truly enjoy fresh baked breads of many styles, through a Co-op in my last home town, I learned as well that if such a bread is made correctly, it’s shelf life is days unless refrigerated (which kills most any use, as it simply is not the same (and similarly if frozen for periods, no matter how well wrapped)).
Still, for special events, I know seek out such fine breads. As for the meats, I simply was not raised on it and it has never been widely available or reasonably priced enough, nor do I know how to make it or use it. Still, you write so well, I wish I could find what you seek, simply to try it.
I do regret all the tradition lost to a modern, fast, industrial, divorced world though. I wonder if anything will ever be the same, if anything will come back, or if we are merely machines now, running on our own advanced fuels, having lost all soul and spirit? Talk about silent spring… I wonder if this is what she really wanted.
I didn’t eat at a deli until I went to Ann Arbor. Began with a Z, and the line was down the block. I wasn’t impressed enough to go back.
My father and eldest uncle make rye bread from scratch. It’s almost too good to use for a sandwich; better to eat warm with a touch of butter.
Good bread is very important to our family.
I checked to see what I could find on ask.com and found this
http://www.ask.com/bar?q=where+can+I+buy+good+jewish+rye+bread&page=1&qsrc=2417&ab=0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.zingermansbakehouse.com%2Fcontent%2Fpages%2Fproducts.php%3Fcategory%3Djewishloaves
Someone else comments that in New England,Iggy’s has a good long rye (available at Shaw’s). Note – in the past, I have purchased other breads by Iggy’s at Idylwilde Farms, which is a hike from Boston
http://www.ask.com/bar?q=where+can+I+buy+good+jewish+rye+bread&page=1&qsrc=2417&ab=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fchowhound.chow.com%2Ftopics%2F150162
In Somerville, there is a bakery whose dark seeded rye I have not tried, but might be worth looking into:
http://www.visitthebiscuit.com/menu/breads.html
I have tried their whole wheat, but I’ve not tried their NY rye
When Pigs Fly
http://www.sendbread.com/cart/index.php
Just try getting decent bread–of any type–in Asia. Even finding a white or wheat bread that doesn’t crumble to tiny pieces on the thinnest, wimpiest sandwich is tough. Rye bread, fuggeddaboudit. But I’m currently in Singapore, and things are looking better here. Maybe not as good as a NYC deli from 80 years ago, but tolerable. I’ll file a more complete report once I complete my recce and taste testing.
Last place I lived before I moved overseas had a bagel shop run by a couple from NYC. He was Hispanic, she an Anglo, but they put their own spin on the deli concept, and it worked. The bagels were made from scratch, large, boiled, and crusty on the outside, soft on the inside. The meats and cheeses they bought, but they were a high-quality brand. And while purists might be horrified at the “bagel sandwiches” the place served–corned beef, pastrami, turkey, roast beef, plus cheese if you wanted it (Catholic owners instead of Jewish), they tasted mighty good. So maybe it wasn’t 100% authentic, but there was a line out the door every morning.
The Deli that Neo is talking about are gone… the Deli’s many here are talking about are not the same, thought they are very good.
it was very different… hard rye was different… made all th difference in the sandwhiches. the meat was usually at least an inch thick in the center. on the tables were pickles and pickeled tomatoes.
mornings you get a bagel with a shmear 🙂
afternoons pastrami, or maybe corned beef
dr browns cherry soda was a hit withe the kids always, and some stocked manhatten special coffee soda (made in brooklyn).
and evne the pickles were different, often bought from lower manhatten where there were (up to this year) pickle venders who would have them in barrels on the streets.
smolked salmon, pastrami, corned beef, knishes, blintzes, borscht if they were russian jews not german. matzoh ball soup. the kids get a slice of baloney while waitng for mom to get the cold cuts for the week. oh, and dont forget if the deli also had a wife in residence, you would also be picking up the local news of the area!!!
friendly good hard working people, who knew that keeping customers happy, kept customers making them happy.
i havent really been in one since late 70s before the 8a program, and family state planning destroyed the neighborhoods and blew the children to the winds not wanting to do what their families have done for ages.
to see what happened is a shame. i used to live near mosholu parkway, near jerome ave.
about a decade before iwas born, it was mostly jewish neighborhood. the apartment buildings with courtyards had fountains then. there were no security bars on the windows of the stores. grafitti was almost non existent. when i was born things had already changed. kids broke the fountain. so my grandfather took it apart and put the base back together in the backyard… that became my private park and sandbox when i was little.
people knew each other on the block. you could go to jerome avenue and if you wanted that exotic chinese food (expensive) you could go to Jade Garden. for meats we would go to near the armory. there was/is a german butcher there. 20 years ago i went back to brave a war zone and see if they were still there, they were. and they still remembered my granfather, and me coming in. asked how my grandmother was, and mom, even my uncle by name. the sons were running that business, i dont know if there still there. they made their own sausages, and keilbasa (kolbasa), and the best baloney.
there were a few jewish delis and corner candy stores. the two were different creatures. the delis were not really hangouts. while the candy stores could always find a mix of people in them. the one on 210 bainbridge used swiss dark chockolate to make the egg creams and sodas. counter top been brushed on so long the formica was worn to the base. the swans neck seltzer with the black beaks still there. comic book racks behind.
there is so much more i could write about the times and neighborhoods then. but then they created these social programs. the black families and the neighborhoods fell apart first. which was where i lived. the wealthier jewish families moved out, others moved in. fathers were kicked out for welfare reasons. the candy stores and mini groceries went first. because the new owners were often not white they could run the place at an advantage over the others.
so you saw delis, groceries, and candy shops all go into immigrant foreign hands who werent bad, they just didnt know the tradition of quality and what the old place used to offer in the way of character.
minimum wage killed jobs like i had when i was 12, bagging spices for the hindu store that opened up around the corner. I made change for pitching quarters and pin ball, and an education in culture and food. so no, these people were no different than the ones the state was pushing out as far as being good people. its just that the method the state used left none of the old ones left other than show pieces (like on 56th in manhatten).
the blackout saw these people frustrated by the state for more than a decade… go wild. and i mean go wild. after that, no store could afford not to have a metal gate on it.
the small down feel of every neighborhood went away. no more window shopping… no more christmas window shopping. the toy store closed, replaced by a chain. olinskies supermarket closed as they didnt have the tax and other advantages of a chain, and they were the wrong race to compete against the guys getting the SBA stuff. i remember them having price wars across the street. one owner would yell out price of oranges, the other would scream out a better price. back and forth this would happen as the ladies waited to see which price went where, then they would split based on what they were buying and go to both stores. 🙂
the schraffs closed. no more pressing your face up against the window and watching the woman make chockolates on a conveyor belt like you saw lucille ball do, but not the way she did it. the movie house became a burlesque porn theater for a year before it closed.
every thing then is colored with a dark pall to it. the crime rate was nasty, and everyone started to prey on everyone else. race stuff started to happen where no one cared before. gangs started to form. people went nuts. i remember the time they left a head across the street on a stoop (that was when the posse came to town). i remember one guy chasing his lady with a carving knife. sleeping on the fire escape hot nights. being woken up by 4 drunk men singing do wops (And they were good). shooting gallery across the street down the supers tunnel to a little courtyard on the left.
yeah… things sure got different after they improved it from afar.
Real Rye. Gone, gone, gone from these parts (Cleveland). Too damn bad. Corky and Lenny’s still has great corned beef, exemplary pickles. But the bread melts in your hand, not even requiring a good set of choppers to get through the crust.
i also forgot to point out how these deli’s were family businesses… which had been running for several generations. that is some of them were started in the late 1800s, and survived through to the late 60s and slow deaths through the 70s once they were forbidden to compete (as in the country that some of them fled from).
go to
http://www.sba.gov/
look to the right.. and you see a foto of the white deli grocery owners as if they exist much at all.
here is the 8a program
http://www.sba.gov/aboutsba/sbaprograms/8abd/index.html
they have a lot of programs and they dont give grants but they give grants to companies to provide services to 8a qualified people.
here are their resources
http://www.sba.gov/aboutsba/sbaprograms/8abd/resources/index.html
there is SCORE mentership programs with volunteers to help you (if your not an oppressor class).
there are Women’s Business Centers… knowing the rules is why womens businesses are some of the fastest growing ones. not necessarily because they are competing. but because of these advantages, and beacuse married couples change ownership to the wives name so suddenly a company that wasnt eligible becomes so.
There are almost 70 women’s business centers in 40 states; all the centers offer financial management, marketing, and technical assistance to current and potential women business owners and each center tailors its style and offering to the particular needs of its community
(1) business technical assistance offered directly or through funding to private entities; and
(2) in certain federal agencies, procurement incentives for bidders on certain projects that have pre-approved mentor-protégé relationships in place at the time of the bid.
Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
Telecommunications Development Fund (TDF)
Department of Agriculture(USDA)
The USDA also administers the Empowerment Zone/Enterprise Community Initiative to promote economic opportunity and new private sector partnerships.
The Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) is a network of manufacturing extension centers located throughout the country that works with local organizations either to establish a new program or expand existing services for smaller manufacturers.
there are things like the 5X5 program where there are two databases for getting entities to bid for governmen contracts. you have a regular database where everone is in with their corporate dun numbers. and a second one where these minority and women owned businesses are in there. every bidder has to take 5 from the first and 5 from the second. the special businesses are allowed to collude with larger entities to do the contracts.
this is a interesting program called surplus property
http://www.sba.gov/aboutsba/sbaprograms/8abd/surplusproperty/index.html
If a federal agency no longer has a need for personal property, it declares the
property excess property, and the property is then made available to all other
federal agencies. If no federal agency claims the excess property within a certain
amount of time, it is declared surplus property.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
The Small Business Act provides that eligible 8(a) Program participants are
qualified to receive federal surplus property on a priority basis. 15 U.S.C. §
636(j)(13)(F).
so basically a cafeteria closes and the big kitchen stuff that a deli would use becomes available to a person in this program for free so they can start a deli, or kitchen, or whatever…
remember this stuff was originally bought by our tax monies… and that this law presumes some nefarious advantage that a certain class of people are supposed to have.
The U.S. Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Mentor-Protégé program enhances the capability of 8(a) participants to compete more successfully for federal government contracts. The program encourages private-sector relationships and expands SBA’s efforts to identify and respond to the developmental needs of 8(a) clients.
Mentors provide technical and management assistance, financial assistance in the form of equity investments and/or loans, subcontract support, and assistance in performing prime contracts through joint venture arrangements with 8(a) firms.
good luck if you are your own guy and are trying to learn as you do your business…
The SBA administers a business assistance program for small disadvantaged businesses. The program is the 8(a) Business Development Program. The 8(a) Program offers a broad scope of assistance to firms that are owned and controlled at least 51% by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals.
Benefits of the Program
Participants can receive sole-source contracts, up to a ceiling of $3 million for goods and services and $5 million for manufacturing. While SBA helps 8(a) firms build their competitive and institutional know-how, the agency also encourages them to participate in competitive acquisitions.
Recent changes permit 8(a) firms to form joint ventures and teams to bid on contracts. This enhances the ability of 8(a) firms to perform larger prime contracts and overcome the effects of contract bundling, the combining of two or more contracts together into one large contract.
To qualify for the program, a small business must be owned and controlled by a socially and economically disadvantaged individual. Under the Small Business Act, certain presumed groups include African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Pacific Americans, Native Americans, and Subcontinent Asian Americans. Other individuals can be admitted to the program if they show through a “preponderance of the evidence” that they are disadvantaged because of race, ethnicity, gender, physical handicap, or residence in an environment isolated from the mainstream of American society. In order to meet the economic disadvantage test, all individuals must have a net worth of less than $250,000, excluding the value of the business and personnel residence.
The last time I was there was the late 60’s, when comedians would gather round the same table (ie. Woody Allen, Dick Cavett, Milt Kamen, Rodney Dangerfield). Women were permitted if they kept quiet and were appreciative – hard as this was for me, I buttoned the lip, and listened to the wit & sometimes the wisdom (Kamen had the wisdom).
Last Saturday night I brought a good book (“The Man Who Was Thursday”) and a small hope, and walking through the oohs and aahs of tourists from as far away as Europe and as nearby as Great Neck (these awestruck sounds greeted the sky-high sandwiches and the giant wedges of cheesecakes carried nonchalantly through the pre-theater crowds by an interesting mix of Chinese waiters and Latino bus”boys” – a stately African-American veteran waitress smoothing out any kinks as they occurred ***
Oh where are the sainted elder Jewish waiters of yesteryear? Just wondering……..sigh
***) was seated at a small table, with expertise, as though the radar had discovered: um –
a native. I must report the pickles were superb – I don’t touch those like cukes, only the Real Deal. As I don’t eat bread, can’t speak of the rye. I ordered (after 40 years)
a Hot Pastrami sandwich – “wrap half, please” – and, friends,
I was not disappointed… even the mustard was divine. Perhaps there was cole slaw, I do not remember. Certainly there was a potato pancake – just fair…. but between Chesterton, attentive service, and the international and borough accents to my right and left – beneath the signed photos of people I had heard of and not, there was bliss.
True, though without a microwave, who can say – the 2nd half of my pastrami portion was not quite as superb the 2nd evening, where it constituted my protein for a pot luck with friends.
With all its ghosts, this deli did not disappoint. A lovely tourist trap, accordingly overpriced:
The Carnegie Deli, NYC.
Ok, those deli’s are gone – I’ll buy that – but that is a far cry from “deli’s are dead” which is what is said.
There are pickles outside of lower Manhattan, there are states other than New York and some even make their own bread and cure their own meats. I haven’t been to New York in a long time (I try and avoid it if at all possible), but there are more than a few good Jewish New York style deli’s around outside of New York. Of course, you loose the “New York” part of it and I rather suspect there is more of that than actually the blind taste (that is the pickle is better since it comes from lower Manhattan and *nothing* can compare because of that).
Indeed, if you can get not only get over the deli not being in New York but not only being Jewish there are even more out there. I just got back from a business trip to Miami, several nice little mom/pop places that use all fresh Cuban ingredients (for one thing there is no “sara lee” to buy thier stuff from).
I still call it a deli, but then I never really thought those New York things were that great either – it always seemed to be more that they were nostalgic mixed with “New York is the BEST”. Since I detest large crowd and have yet to find a city that didn’t smell bad I never got the whole “but this is made in New York” thing either. Food was good, but it wasn’t anything specially crunchy, tangy, or chewy compared to similarly made food purchased elsewhere.
NYTimes can’t find rye in NY? Well, if they only look in Upper West Side – sure, there is none.
Let them come to Brooklyn – and not to snobbish Park Slope. In any Russian or Polish deli they’ll find excellent rye, and not just of traditional American variety.
Just in my neighborhood’s tiny Russian store there are 11 kinds of “healthy” bread (not white wheat), including imported black breads from Lithuania, with caraway seeds, caraway grains, honey, sunflower seeds, etc.
Also, 3 building down the block from my house, there is a Greek restaurant Yanny’s, where they have brick pizza oven and offer artisanal breads- warm, if you happen to stop by at 10am – ‘multigrain’, “olive”, “Irish soda”, and 5-6 more varieties, all for $3.50 a loaf or less.
NYTimes critics have to come out more…
I’ve got just one thig to say — Pico Kosher Deli, Pico and Robertson, LA.
I miss chopped livers on rye, with an onion and tomato. Why am I doing this to myself?
always make a point to stop at a deli outside ny.. and while kentucky ham is hard to come by (and you wont like how its made), and rocky mountain oysters, white gravy, and other things abound. no deli outside of the old ones comes close. there IS a guy in florida who is maknig bagels, and he figured out it was trace minerals in ny water that made them so great. so he had a chemist make a machine to imitate that mix, he is raking in a bundle.
once they had to compete with people paying lower taxes, lower payroll taxes, lower electric, free equipment, mentorship, and other perks. how could they afford real rye, and other such things?
the pickles moved this year to brooklyn… you want to go on a two hour trip now to get pickles instead of one hour? fuggidabbotit
I’m from Los Angeles and have found what seem to me to be good delis in areas where there are many Jews, e.g., the West Side and in Encino.
When I get desperate here in the Midwest I go to Jason’s Deli, a national chain that’s ok. Before they arrived there was no pastrami in town worth eating.
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