Katz's Delicatessen

You haven't had pastrami till you've had it at Katz's. In fact, you haven't even seen it till you've watched the cutters (that's what they call those fellows behind the counter in their flimsy paper caps) carve it off for your sandwich.

(The observant reader will note that I did not use the more elegant verb "shave" when describing how they shear the meat. Trust me, shave is the wrong word. So is slice. Those wimpy verbs imply thin wisps of meat falling off the knife. Katz's pastrami - well, thin it ain't.)

A few days earlier, Mr. Food Musings and I had botched our first lunch in the City - jet lag and some work emails got in the way of an early start - so we bagged visiting John's , a pizzeria in Greenwich Village coveted for its charred, thin crust pies, in favor of anything still serving food at 3 pm in mid-town.

We were determined that our second lunch would be a quintessential old New York experience and settled on Katz's. We took the subway to the Lower East Side and marched down Houston till we saw the sign. As soon as we walked in, we were each handed a ticket similar to the kind you get when you enter a raffle in the fruitless hopes of winning a brand new color TV. Signs warned us not to lose it, or risk paying $50. I looked at Mr. FM with alarm, and confusion. "What is the ticket for?" I wondered. He shrugged. We made our way to the counter which runs along the far wall. More signs instructed us to get in a cutter's line. Menus were posted on the wall behind the counter. The customers milled about in no kind of discernable line, like puppies fighting for a teat, bumping into each other and changing direction. Feeling confusion come between me and my pastrami sandwich, I started to panic. "Where do we order?" I wailed. Sensing a storm, Mr. FM spied tables that indicated waiter service and quickly steered me to safety. I sat down and immediately the smile returned to my face. This I knew how to do!

The menu was basic: a list of sandwiches, cold or hot, of Katz's famous meats: pastrami, corned beef, roast beef, and tongue. Traditional cold cuts like turkey and ham were offered in sub sandwiches, and potato and cheese knishes or french fries could be had on the side. I saw a bowl of chicken matzo ball walk by; the day was too hot to try some ourselves, but it would have been my choice if there was snow on the ground. We started with a hot dog to share. Mr. Food Musings doused his in spicy mustard while mine was dressed with both mustard and God's gift to the condiment world, ketchup. The dog was hot, just pulled out of boiling water, and had a strong beefy taste, nothing like the dogs you get at the ball park. Our teeth pulled at the casing to release the meat within.

Then the waiter brought a plate of pickles, big dill slices and chunks of bright green cuke, barely pickled, and some dull grayish-green pickled tomatoes (which we declined to try. Who knows what we're missing, you say? Who wants to know, I say!)

Then the sandwiches arrived.

Mine was rye and pastrami. Nothing more, spicy mustard optional. I eyeballed the fat hunks of pastrami, piled 10 or more to a sandwich; I'd say they each measured nearly 1/3 of an inch thick. They glistened with fatty juices that soaked ever so slightly into the sturdy rye bread, which had but a few caraway seeds, very mild next to the smoky meat and peppery black crust. I had to remove half of the pastrami to even fit my mouth around the sandwich, and though I did my best, I couldn't manage even half of it.

Mr. FM did a more admirable job, eating a full half and a touch more of his combo - half pastrami, half tongue. (Blech! I didn't try that either.) "This is the best pastrami I've ever had," he confessed in reverent tones.

Following a Katz's tradition, we both ordered Dr. Brown's sodas (cream soda for me and root beer for him). We looked around while we finished them up; the place is nothing fancy, cheap tables and floors, the walls crammed with photos of the owner and all the celebrities who've visited. We picked out Michael Imperioli and James Gandolfini from The Sopranos and Madeline Albright. The owner made the rounds during lunch, stopping at each table to ask how we were enjoying the food.

And then, when we had cried "Mercy!" the waiter came by and took our tickets to write the total on. Aha! After careful observation, Mr. FM confirmed that if you order at the counter, the cutters take your ticket and do the same, and then you turn those into the cashier on the way out. An efficient system - the cutters don't have to handle the cash register and there's no bottleneck of people trying to pay for their food, balancing a tray piled high while their tummies rumble with hunger. Satisfied with the food and the ticket mystery solved, we paid and went off for a walk in Greenwich Village. A perfect New York afternoon.

Katz's Delicatessen, New York, 205 East Houston, 212-254-2246

Comments

[Paul Dunford]

I've only been there once, and I don't remember the food as much as I remember the man who had a heart attack and keeled over in the middle of the melamine dining area. The paramedics came in, thoroughly familiar with the layout of the place, strapped him to a board and carried him out. What was striking was that this was neither unusual nor unexpected. Everyone went right back to their piles of pastrami.