(Another way to put this – anyone who actually gives a damn about whether Katz’s is better than Langer’s will be eating their Pastrami on Rye, which is why you subbing in Sourdough renders this article sort of useless in general.)

That being said Langer’s >>> Katz’s and I have lived in both LA and NYC for years, and love pastrami more than life itself.

-g

http://www.kennyandzukes.com/about/

At no point in my comments did I argue that foie gras belongs on a burger. That is a topic for another discussion entirely. Maybe if you were a legitimate foodie and knew anything about the food world, you would know that Boulud was famous for putting foie gras IN his burger, which kick started the gourmet burger craze of the past few years. Clearly you missed the point entirely and should work on your reading comprehension skills. So, let me make my point abundantly clear. You not only copped out by having those wonderful establishments serve their fantastic meat on two slices of crap, but you did a dis-service to the global food scene as a whole. Nobody cares whether or not you “like rye”, just sack up and eat the damn sandwich the way it was intended to be eaten. You essentially just reviewed fried chicken after removing all the skin because you find it “icky”. Way to go.

The pastrami sandwich at Langers with the cream cheese sounds weird but is close to the best sandwich of any kind i’ve had in LA.

You’re the best Matty!!

The first is with inaccuracies in the review. The writer compares the quality of the skin on the pastrami from one restaurant to another. This doesn’t even make any sense. In all my beef eating life I have never seen beef with skin on it. That is because this ain’t no frickin’ chicken, and a cow’s skin is what we people call hide or leather. It doesn’t make it to the table, or the restaurant, but to a clothing store instead. So unless his jacket fell on his plate, I think the author is attempting to describe the outer part of the brisket with it’s glorious layer of fat.

The second issue I have is with the choice of breads. Quite frankly rye bread is the only respectable choice to be made at delis. Sure there have been exceptions to the rule of an onion bun for an octogenarian or a challah roll for a preschooler but seriously get with the program. What kind of self respecting food reviewer are you? You’re not doing anyone a favour with your special orders and pedestrian palate. I don’t want to know how Daniel Bolud’s burger tastes when served without the foie gras on two crisp pieces of iceberg because you’re on the atkins diet and don’t want to eat it the normal way. Your entire job as a food reviewer is to shut up and eat, at which point you are allowed to talk as much as you want. This is particularly true of the deli world. Looking at the pictures of your sandwiches, not only was it not appetizing, nor authentic, but the look of that sourdough bread almost kicked in my gag reflex. You had turned great pillars of the pastrami world into the next Subway special of the month. Either review the meat in sandwich form on rye or without bread next time. What you have done is blasphemy.

I am reminded of a time when I was a young boy (no more than eating at Wilensky’s in Montreal. Wilensky’s is famous for their “special”, a glorious combination of salami and bologna hot pressed between a bun with mustard. As a kid I detested mustard, and the thought of it made me sick. I kindly asked the gentleman behind the counter if he would make me a special without mustard. “Without mustard?” he replied. “Son put your hands up on the counter he said”. So I put my hands on the counter, at which point he picked up a chefs knife and said to me: “If you ever ask for no mustard again I will cut your hands off”. Needless to say I would never attempt to augment my order there again, and I still go back to this day. My point is, I was a child and you are a man. Man up and do it the proper way…