NY Deli Dogfight: Katz's vs. Carnegie

A few years ago, on one of my annual pilgrimages to Manhattan, I evaluated the merits of Katz's Deli and found that, while very good, it came up short in comparison to LA's own Langer's. This year, I took the opportunity to do meals at Katz's and its uptown competitor the Carnegie Deli. The verdict: Katz's by a mile.

First let's talk pastrami. A Katz's pastrami sandwich (pictured) may not capture the perfect gestalt of a Langer's, but it's still a pile of excellent pastrami, tender, soft and nicely spiced. Carnegie, on the other hand, has chewy, bland pastrami, unworthy of such a noteworthy institution.

That being said, I grabbed a reuben at both and preferred Carnegie's, even with their pastrami. The funny thing is, I didn't recall Katz's even having a reuben back when I lived in New York. I had thought Katz's was kosher, or at least "kosher style," which would prohibit the mixing of meat and dairy that you have on a reuben. In any case, the Katz's reuben was not grilled, rather the cheese and sauerkraut are microwaved and put on the reuben with a sauce that I can only characterize as odd. It seemed like a sweet tomato relish of some type. As the kids on the internet say, this was an "epic fail" at recreating this great sandwich. Carnegie does an open face reuben, piled high with sauerkraut and swiss cheese and accompanied by the traditional Russian dressing. It wasn't the best reuben I've had, but at least it was a recognizable form of the sandwich.

Sides at both restaurants were good. Chopped liver, pickles and a potato knish at Katz's were exactly what you want. Beer battered onion rings at Carnegie were also quite good. I had an egg cream at both delis and Katz's was better with a good balance; Carnegie's was a bit too sweet for my taste.

Prices are obscenely expensive at both institutions, but that's New York for you. Sandwiches at Katz's run $15 to $18. The reuben at Carnegie was in the $25 range with an additional, totally gratuitous, $3 charge for sharing the monster sandwich.

In the end though, Katz's may not know how to make a reuben, but they serve better food, and that's why they get the win in this deli challenge.

Katz's Deli
205 East Houston Street
New York, NY 10002
(212) 254-2246

Carnegie Deli
854 7th Avenue
New York, NY 10019
(212) 757-2245

New York Report: Third Wave Coffee at Grumpy and Stumptown

On my last visit to Manhattan, I was impressed at the rise in quality coffee. On this year's trip, I wanted to try two of the well known Chelsea espresso bars: Cafe Grumpy and Stumptown.

Cafe Grumpy is a surprisingly quiet little shop tucked away on West 20th Street. The set up is pretty no frills, but they do a good drink. My cappuccino had a nice, bright flavor and creamy texture. It was pretty standard third wave coffee fare, but the standard these days is high.

Stumptown Coffee, along with Intelligentsia, was one of the pioneers of the Third Wave. Founded in Portland in 1999, they now have outlets in Seattle and the one I visited on 29th Street in Manhattan. I've never been to a Stumptown, so I was excited to try it. Quite the contrast to the casual Cafe Grumpy, Stumptown had a long line and sort of an industrial feel. The seating area is the ultra-cool lobby of the Ace Hotel. The coffee at Stumptown was superb. The cappuccino was perfectly balanced with just the right amount of tannic notes coming out in the cup. I had an espresso as well. It was darker than what I'm used to from Intelligentsia, which I personally enjoy in an espresso, even if it's against the norm these days. (Note that the cappuccinos from Grumpy, above, and Stumptown, below, look almost exactly alike, down to the cup.)

All in all, both of these were great cafes. I enjoyed Stumptown's coffee more, but the ambiance was nicer at the less uptight Cafe Grumpy.

Cafe Grumpy
224 West 20th Street
New York, NY 10011
(212) 255-5511

Stumptown Coffee Roasters
18 W. 29th Street
New York, NY 10001
(212) 679-2222

New York Report: Minetta Tavern

Every spring I get back to Manhattan (where I spent time as a student) and take some time to see what's new and fun in the Village and adjacent food scene; over the next few weeks, I'll be filling everyone in on my latest trip.

It seems that New York is busting with food, even more than usual if that's possible. There suddenly seem to be a million more gelato places than I remember in the Village, Eaterly (which I didn't get to this trip) towers over Chelsea and the food truck trend has definitely migrated east...I saw everything from a legit looking taco truck to a truck called Kimchi Tacos (gee, where did they come up with that concept?) One place I'd been meaning to get to since my last year's trip was Minetta Tavern in the Village to try their famous Black Label Burger made of all kinds of prime cuts of dry aged beef.

The Tavern has a great old-school feel with lots of polished wood. I arrived early as a walk-in and had no trouble getting a seat at the bar, where I enjoyed a house specialty Dodd Cocktail, a flip made with bourbon, absinthe and peach bitters; I love a good flip (guilty pleasures you know), and this was a smooth and lovely drink; foamy, cool and slightly fruity, it was the perfect thing for a hot New York afternoon. I was less pleased with the Maple Sazerac, a sazerac with maple liqueur. Any maple notes were drowned out by absinthe, which was of the artificially bright green and overly sweet variety (might have been La Fee). As a disclaimer though, I should say that I'm very picky about my sazeracs.

Then onto the burger. Instead of fries, I opted for the punched potatoes, smashed white potatoes fried in duck fat with rosemary and garlic. The burger, served with caramelized onions, was very good, cooked medium rare it was a nice bright red in the center. It had a rich meaty taste but was a bit less funky-beefy than I might have hoped for. It's a high quality burger, but it didn't strike me as a revelation. I'm not sure that it was significantly better than my favorite LA burgers, and at $26, it was $10 more than Comme Ca's burger, for one, though this is New York and a ten dollar mark up from LA is probably just par for the course. The potatoes were quite tasty, but again, not a revelation. I found myself wishing there had been more fried surface area and bits, that they had punched harder.

Overall, a fine meal in a nice atmosphere, but not one that I will be dreaming about.

Minetta Tavern
113 MacDougal St.
New York, NY 10012
(212) 475-3850

New York Odds and Ends

Having already written up my trips to Katz's and Doughnut Plant, I thought I would summarize the other greatest hits of my brief New York trip.


Amy's Bread (three locations, but I went to the one in the Village). I'd been to Amy's West Village location on my last trip to New York. Amy's is on the same block of Bleecker as Faicco's Pork Store and Murray's Cheese Shop, which qualifies it as one of the greatest food blocks in the world. Amy's makes bread, but I've never tried the bread; instead, I indulge in their wonderful sweets. This trip, I had a fantastic red velvet cake. The cake itself, often the fatal flaw of red velvets, was moist and sweet, though with less discernible cocoa than some versions. The frosting was a perfectly light as air butter cream, which I dug as I much prefer butter cream to cream cheese frosting on my red velvets. Good stuff!

Amy's Bread
250 Bleecker Street (@ Leroy)
NY, NY 10014
(212) 675-7802


After hearing about it for a few years now, I had to stop by Momofuku Milk Bar for the famous crack pie. The Milk Bar is home to many fun and creative desserts. The compost cookie is a chocolate chip cookie with pretzels, graham crackers and potato chips. Cereal milk and cereal milk ice cream give you the sweet, malty taste of milk at the end of a bowl of cereal. The celebrated crack pie is a buttery, oat-infused, custard pie. It's a good dessert, creamy and buttery, but I didn't develop the immediate obsession for it that passed over New Yorkers when it opened. I also tried a grasshopper pie, chocolate and mint with marshmallows on top and a bit of salt on the crust; overall, it was a bit too sweet for me. I like the playful spirit of the Milk Bar and the products were good, but the place suffers from an over-the-top hype that can't help but leave one disappointed.

Momofuku Milk Bar
207 2nd Avenue
New York, NY 10003
(212) 254-3500


Bluebird Coffee Shop. When I lived in New York in the '90s, coffee was a problem. Starbucks, which invaded the city during that decade, was actually a pretty substantial step up from the vast majority of coffee in Manhattan, excepting a few espressos pulled in little Italian joints in the Village and cafe con leche at Cuban and Puerto Rican diners. The indie coffee shops were mostly terrible. After a few years, I just gave up on the whole scene and had Peet's beans shipped to me from California. Well, times have changed. New Yorkers have fully embraced third wave coffee, and the latte art flows, especially in the Lower East Side. There were far too many to try, but one of the best I had was the Bluebird Coffee Shop on East First Street at the corner of First Avenue. They serve a smooth, creamy cappuccino similar those from Intelligentsia in LA. It was good to see so much potentially good coffee in what was once an espresso wasteland.

Bluebird Coffee Shop
72 East 1st Street (@ First Avenue)
NYC, NY 10003
(212) 260-1879


Num Pang is a Cambodian sandwich shop on 12th Street, east of Fifth Avenue. If the guys from Animal opened a banh mi shop, this is what it would be like (num pang is essentially the Cambodian version of banh mi). The 5 spice glazed pork belly sandwich is among the most indulgent things between bread. It consists of a large hunk of sweet, glazed pork belly, juices pouring onto the toasted bun, the fat cut by pickled pear slices. Also excellent was the regular pulled pork sandwich; the pork was moist, tender and glazed with a spiced honey sauce. On my last day in New York, I was lured back in the direction of Num Pang and even passed by it, but I just couldn't do it. After four days of pastrami, doughnuts and other indulgences, my arteries couldn't take it. Thanks to the great Nina M. for taking me here.

Num Pang
21 East 12th Street
New York City, NY 10003
(212) 255-3271

Hey, that was lots of food for three days! Next stop: Vegas.

F***ing Euphoria at Doughnut Plant with the NYFD

As regular readers know, every spring, I commence Doughnut Days, an eating extravaganza dedicated to the once humble doughnut. Given that I've been at this for years now, I've pretty much tapped all the great doughnuts of LA, so this year, I'm taking Doughnut Days on the road.

Being in New York City gave me a chance to visit the legendary Doughnut Plant. I'd been hearing about this lower Manhattan doughnuttery and its creative recipes for years; the tres leches cake doughnut and creme brulee doughnut are the stuff of doughnut lore.

Like any good food blogger, I mapped out my trip ahead of time. I hit Doughnut Plant 15 minutes after opening on a Tuesday morning (6:45 am). There was no line, just a few people milling about. I got a tres leches cake doughnut and a vanilla bean doughnut. I asked for one of the famous creme brulee doughnuts but was told by the counterperson that they would be ready in five minutes, so I went outside and stood next to two firefighters who were also waiting for the creme brulees.

While I waited, I munched. The tres leches was a good concept, a glazed cake doughnut with a soaked bottom just like the cake of the same name, but it was overwhelmingly sweet, so much so that the sweetness masked any other flavors. The vanilla bean, a yeast doughnut which was the closest thing they have to a traditional raised glazed, was also sweet and nicely chewy, though I would have liked more yeasty flavor. Overall, I found it unexceptional. Needless to say, while doughnuts generally make me happy, I wasn't finding these to be out of the ballpark; was this just another overhyped New York eatery?

The firefighters, who had not ordered any other doughnuts while they waited for their creme brulees, pegged me for a newbie.
"Have you had the creme brulee?" one of them asked. I responded that I hadn't and asked if it was good. His eyes widened.
"Fucking euphoric," he said, staring intensely at me. At that moment, as if on cue, I saw the counterperson pull out a tray of small round doughnuts with gleaming brown caps. She motioned for us to come in.

The creme brulee doughnut is quite modest in size compared to the rest of the Doughnut Plant lineup; it is a round, compact yeast doughnut which fits firmly in the palm of your hand. The top is hard, caramelized sugar, as per the namesake dessert, and the filling is a liquid, vanilla custard. Eating this doughnut is an explosion of flavor and texture. The chewy and still slightly warm yeast dough gives way to the sweet crunch of the caramelized sugar, after which the vanilla creme oozes out. The custard is perfect. It is a far cry from the gloppy, corn starch custard you traditionally find in a custard doughnut. It's more liquid with a purer vanilla taste, and it's not too sweet, not unlike the custard of a particularly liquidy creme brulees. All of these elements come together to create a moment of doughnut perfection.

As I walked out of the shop, I took a bite. One of the firefighters, now getting into his red car, looked up at me.
"Is that the best doughnut you've ever had?"
"Fucking euphoric," I responded without missing a beat, and immediately turned around, went back into the shop and bought another.


Doughnut Plant
379 Grand Street
New York, NY 10002
(202) 505-3700

What's that? You want pictures. Jeez, what do I look like, a food blogger? Well, if you must have them check out these beauties from the ever gracious BananaWonder.

The Great Pastrami Debate: Katz's vs. Langer's

I lived in Manhattan for three years in the mid to late '90s. Since then, I've been back only sporadically. When I lived in New York, I occasionally ventured out to Katz's famous deli on Houston, but on a recent trip back to NYC, it occurred to me that I had not been to Katz's since I lived in New York, which means I had not been since before I moved to LA and tried Langer's. Since one of Angelenos' favorite pastimes is telling New Yorkers that Langer's is better than Katz's, I thought I should go back to Katz's with that comparison in mind. So, I headed to Houston Street, took a ticket and ordered the Katz's equivalent of my Langer's order: the straight up pastrami on rye.

Katz's makes a great pastrami sandwich, no doubt about it, but I'm proud to report to all you LA civic pride advocates that Langer's is indeed better. I view Katz's meat as the best of the deli pastrami. It is well spiced, tender and full of spicy, meaty flavor, but it is ultimately a great version of the same pastrami you get at every deli in the City. Langer's, on the other hand, is an entirely different beast. It has very little in common with traditional, sliced deli pastramis. It's moist and thick and almost more of a meat entree than a cold cut. Biting into a Katz's sandwich is extremely satisfying, but biting into a Langer's sandwich is a near religious experience.

And then there is the bread. At Katz's, the bread is a throwaway. A mere container for the meat, Katz's bread is limp and flavorless; it's clearly not there to be appreciated, it's there to keep your fingers from getting greasy. At Langer's, in contrast, the soft, crispy crusted bread is as much a part of the sandwich experience as the meat. That is the wonderful gestalt of the Langer's sandwich; the thick and tender, perfectly spiced meat contrasted with the fresh, crusty bread is what makes it superior.

The one place where Katz's clearly wins, though, is the pickles. Langer's pickles are floppy and sad. Katz's gives you both a sour and a half-sour with your sandwich. The half sour is not as good as some I've had, but the Katz's sour pickle is everything you want in a pickle. It's salty, juicy and deeply sour.

So give me a good old Langer's sandwich any day, but I'll take it with a sour pickle from Katz's.