Katz's Deli
Look at that pastrami! Just look at it...Tell me that doesn't totally kick the ass of Carnegie Deli's thinner, fattier pastrami. So hot, so juicy...
On our final afternoon in New York we stayed in the room for absolutely as long as they would let us and then checked our bags and hopped the F Train to the Lower East Side so we could get ourselves some Katz's. Some matzo ball soup, a potato knish, and a couple of sandwiches later we were two happy campers. Katz's treated us right, as always.
With a couple of hours to kill, we took a stroll through Chris's old haunts and saw the staggering amount of gentrification. We hit ABC No Rio and talked with Steve Englander about the plans they have for the place since winning their fight with the city. Even in the few relatively short years since the last time I was back to the neighborhood I can see the incredible difference, with twee little boutiques selling frilly lady things and expensive shoes and the various frat-boy-magnet bars and upscale restaurants pushing right up against places like ABC. I can't even begin to imagine what it's like for Chris to see how things have changed since he first started going to punk rock shows there, what, twenty years ago?
After ABC we strolled over to Porto Rico for some of their Brazilian espresso beans. I've found nothing like them here in Seattle (especially in our neighborhood, which is criminally under-served in the coffee house/espresso bar category) and we walked away with two pounds of coffee to bring home, at cheaper than Seattle prices to boot. As Chris said, say what I will about NYC, it's not completely without its boons.
A walk past NYU, a stroll through the snowy and strangely vacant Washington Square Park, a brief stop at a Starbucks so I could pee and we headed back to the New Yorker to pick up our bags and catch our shuttle. An ungodly long time later (squeezed into the van with eight other passengers and a small mountain of luggage for two hours and with a ride through Queens during rush hour) we arrived at JFK and finally headed for home. I was still full of Katz's perfection of pastrami, though if there'd been a Junior's Cheesecake outlet in our terminal I probably could have done my duty and had a piece... in tribute... for science. I boarded the plane with the line from Soul Coughing still ringing in my head: And you can stand on the arms of the Williamsburg Bridge / Crying hey man, well this is Babylon
On our final afternoon in New York we stayed in the room for absolutely as long as they would let us and then checked our bags and hopped the F Train to the Lower East Side so we could get ourselves some Katz's. Some matzo ball soup, a potato knish, and a couple of sandwiches later we were two happy campers. Katz's treated us right, as always.
With a couple of hours to kill, we took a stroll through Chris's old haunts and saw the staggering amount of gentrification. We hit ABC No Rio and talked with Steve Englander about the plans they have for the place since winning their fight with the city. Even in the few relatively short years since the last time I was back to the neighborhood I can see the incredible difference, with twee little boutiques selling frilly lady things and expensive shoes and the various frat-boy-magnet bars and upscale restaurants pushing right up against places like ABC. I can't even begin to imagine what it's like for Chris to see how things have changed since he first started going to punk rock shows there, what, twenty years ago?
After ABC we strolled over to Porto Rico for some of their Brazilian espresso beans. I've found nothing like them here in Seattle (especially in our neighborhood, which is criminally under-served in the coffee house/espresso bar category) and we walked away with two pounds of coffee to bring home, at cheaper than Seattle prices to boot. As Chris said, say what I will about NYC, it's not completely without its boons.
A walk past NYU, a stroll through the snowy and strangely vacant Washington Square Park, a brief stop at a Starbucks so I could pee and we headed back to the New Yorker to pick up our bags and catch our shuttle. An ungodly long time later (squeezed into the van with eight other passengers and a small mountain of luggage for two hours and with a ride through Queens during rush hour) we arrived at JFK and finally headed for home. I was still full of Katz's perfection of pastrami, though if there'd been a Junior's Cheesecake outlet in our terminal I probably could have done my duty and had a piece... in tribute... for science. I boarded the plane with the line from Soul Coughing still ringing in my head: And you can stand on the arms of the Williamsburg Bridge / Crying hey man, well this is Babylon
Oh my, that looks really really good. I'm also not that impressed with Carnegie Deli. Big ass sandwiches, yes, but great, no so much.
I'm drooling over your NYC food tales. The few times I've been there, I've been completely overwhelmed by all the foodie possibilities. I couldn't stop eating, possibly because I was living in the food desert that is DC at the time.
It makes me hanker for Zingerman's Deli downtown. (Mmmm, pastrami...).
Also, don't let Amy Jo disillusion you about D.C.'s food choices--there are plenty of interesting places to eat in that part of the country, although I will grant that it's not at New York's scale.