Steve Safern knew for 20 years that he had a restaurant to open.  When he finally teamed up with college roommate and long-time restaurant man Andy Walsh to open Hershel’s East Side Deli four years ago, the story of the restaurant was actually more than 64 years in the making.  Hershel’s serves a full Kosher-style menu and makes almost all of its products from scratch, procuring locally delicious breads and pickles. We were overwhelmed by the thick-cut fresh pastrami sandwich, Corned Beef Special and Reuben.  Like the fresh-made meats they are famous for, their shop is brined in the tradition of the Jewish people.

Hershel’s stays true to a standard of hearty freshness and quality set by a dying breed of old-American delis. Delis that, like the world famous Katz’ Deli in New York, cure their own Kosher-style meats.  Steve’s uncle Hershel, the shop’s namesake, worked over 40 years at Katz’, eventually becoming a partial owner before retiring in 1989.  Before his uncle passed away, Steve promised him he was going to open a restaurant to honor the legacy of their family’s meat, “doing it right, from scratch”.

Before Steve’s uncle and father came to America, his family made and sold deli meat at their general merchandise store in Poland.   His uncle Hershel, who Steve rightly credits for his own life, rescued his father from the Nazis when they swept through and burned their crowded synagogue to the ground one Sabbath morning, leaving them the only two Jewish survivors of their town of Dynow.  To honor him, Steve and Andy have taken generations-old family recipes and refined them until they created a product that rivals, and many argue tops, the famous Katz’ Deli.  Andy is personally involved throughout the 10-day process “to ensure perfect quality,” he said, ”after all, I didn’t get into this business just to make my living”.

The pastrami sandwich is the crown jewel, a massive pile of dripping fresh hand cut, 10-day cured, slow-baked, 10 spice rubbed “Kosher navel”: the same traditional, high fat, high flavor meat that less than a half-dozen delis still use.  The peppery, garlicky, coriander rub adds a kick and coating to the succulent meat.  The sandwich comes on local Kaplan’s New Model Bakery rye “the best rye you can buy anywhere, no comparison”, says Andy.

The thick-stacked Corned Beef Special, their most popular sandwich, is made with slaw, made fresh daily, and a tangy thousand island dressing.  The rye bread soaked up the thick dressing and juice from the coleslaw, but remained perfectly spongy and snappy.  The thick-cut corned beef allows you to taste the sour and garlicky flavor, while preserving the subtle value of the textural differences between the crisp outer crust and the tender meat.

The Reuben was everything you expect a Reuben to be, if you expect your Reuben to absolutely blow you away. A stockpile of their thick, house-cured and slow-cooked corned beef, sauerkraut that Andy buys “from the Northeast Philly Pickleman” and a sharp Swiss cheese are served on grilled rye.

We highly recommend you stop by Reading Terminal Market and go to Hershel’s.  Treat yourselves to a sandwich, soup and Dr. Brown’s soda as you consume your share of the 4,000 pounds of meaty hospitality dished up per week by Andy and Steve. If religious tradition has you soon giving up bread for Passover, and you are swinging by today to get your last leavened-fix, we recommend the pastrami. If you’re feeling generous, we’d love seconds.

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Hershel’s East Side Deli
1 North 12th Street – Philadelphia, PA 19107 (Google Map)
(215) 922-6220

On a sunny corner of South Street that straddles Washington West and Bella Vista, seemingly miles removed from the blaring car stereos a few blocks to the east, Supper’s new lunch menu boldly re-imagines classic sandwiches with a welcoming, come as you are attitude.

Acclaimed Chef Mitch Prensky strives to create “the ultimate version” of iconic sandwiches, adding his own stamp to a Reuben, a French Dip, a Hot Dog and a Banh Mi.  Having once worked as Sous Chef for the lunch service at Bobby Flay’s Mesa Grill (in addition to his classic French training and New York fine dining experience,) Chef Prensky truly loves the action at lunch and needed to get his ideas for sandwiches out onto plates.  Now available Monday through Saturday, Supper’s lunch menu has some serious sandwich action.

Supper’s version of the Reuben is served on Famous 4th Street rye bread, sliced thick and brushed with bacon fat and a mustard aoili.  Fried carnitas-style pork belly is tossed with thousand island dressing, and toasted with cooked sauerkraut under a layer of gruyere.  Chef tops the open-faced sandwich with apple chutney because pork, apple and gruyere work so well together, even when served as a reuben with a side of pastrami chips.

The Banh Mi features crispy fried Malaysian-inspired squid with bits of spicy Sichuan sausage, heaps of cilantro, lettuce and pickled peppers on a baguette that was baked fresh a few blocks away at Ba Le Bakery, paired with five spice chips.

The Supper Dog is made in house from 100% pork shoulder – “all killer, no filler” – on a house baked, buttered bun.  Wrapped in bacon and deep fried, it is served with grain mustard, BBQ onions, kraut and buttermilk fried pickles.  The Lamb French Dip, served with Herbs de Provence chips, is made from house-prepared lamb pastrami and lamb jus, is served with feta and olives on a baguette cut on a bias to help with the dipping.

The menu also features a burger borrowed from the dinner menu with horseradish cream, roasted tomatoes, caramelized onions, gruyere and a side of duck fat fingerlings. The lobster roll is served as a tried and true classic and paired with Old Bay chips.  Traditional fresh steamed lobster is mixed with lemon aioli, chopped celery, salt and pepper on a top-loaded buttered bun.

Chef Prensky is openly enthusiastic about sandwiches because in his opinion, the layers of ingredients combine to make each bite the perfect bite.  Among his local favorites are John’s Roast Pork, Sarcone’s, Jim’s Steaks, Ba Le Bakery, even a late night panini at Old Nelson.  He stresses that people should not overlook the bread when making sandwiches – you want the right type, the right thickness, and sometimes, like with their house made charcuterie, older bread can better than fresh.

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Supper
926 South Street, Philadelphia, PA 19147 (Google Map)

We’re giving away a copy of David Sax’s book Save the Deli: In Search of Perfect Pastrami, Crusty Rye, and the Heart of Jewish Delicatessen. Read the post to learn how to win!

David Sax is our kind of guy. The Canadian born Jewish freelance writer spent the past year or so traveling the globe to nosh at over 140 delicatessens. Raised on traditional foods like matzah ball soup, blintzes, corned beef, and tongue, Sax knows when he’s found the perfect bite. Through the years though, he has experienced a horrible revelation: the Jewish delicatessen as we know it is soon to become extinct.

Thus David Sax set out on his aforementioned journey, keeping a journal along the way, which developed into a book, Save the Deli: In Search of Perfect Pastrami, Crusty Rye, and the Heart of Jewish Delicatessen. From a stint slicing pastrami behind the corner at Katz’s in New York’s Lower East Side to a tour of a plant that pumps out thousands of corned beefs a day in the Midwest, the author takes us through the clogged arteries of Jewish food lore. Both a history lesson and a drool worthy recount of all the food he encounters along the way, Save the Deli is a fun and informative read, a state of the union of sorts for corned beef and pastrami.

David Sax will appear tonight in New York at Ben’s Kosher Deli at 7:30pm and on November 3rd at the Philadelphia Free Library. You can also read more at the Save the Deli blog.

To win a free copy of Save the Deli, answer in the comments: corned beef, or pastrami? We’ll close submissions on Wednesday October 21, at midnight EST and pick a winner at random.

It seems that most sandwiches can be traced back to the Depression-era, created as a quick and easy meal on the cheap. In Pittsburgh, when steel workers needed a hot meal with the little time they had for lunch and dinner, the one-stop shop was run by three brothers named Primanti. The sandwich combines meat, cheese, fries, coleslaw and tomato on thick, fluffy Italian bread and always in that order, from bottom to top.

The original 18th Street location is constantly bustling, packed with locals and tourists alike in search of the top rated sandwich. The wait is short however, as the grill quickly pumps out meat to a line of sandwiches that are expertly assembled in seconds. No matter how large your party, a server will arrive only minutes after your order with a looming tower of sandwiches, plopping them down on wax paper, as you lick your chops in anticipation.

The key to the Primanti is the soft, yet sturdy bread, which allows you to compress the enormous sandwich between your hands enough to manage a bite. The most popular sandwich on the menu is the cheesesteak, which is dubbed the “Number 2″, and don’t even bother asking about the “Number 1″ because it doesn’t exist. Unfortunately, we wouldn’t recommend this sandwich to the average cheesesteak lover who is expecting sliced or chopped meat; in the Primanti version, the meat is formed into a patty that is fried until crispy on the grill. Instead, we’d suggest going with the peppery pastrami, spicy capicola, genoa salami, or roast beef. The coleslaw is fine chopped and vinegary, and adds a delicious crispness that counteracts the soft, salty fries. Although we typically advise against removing any components of an iconic sandwich, if coleslaw isn’t for you, never fear, as we heard several customers requesting to “hold the grass.”

For those in search of a sandwich with character, Primanti Brothers is for you. Order up a refreshing “Ahn City” beer and bask in all that the ‘burgh has to offer. One thing is for sure though, yins better come to Primanti’s on an empty stomach.

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Primanti Brothers
46 18th Street Pittsburgh, PA 15222 (Google Map)

This isn’t the first time I’ve poured out my sandwich love or written about my theory that they are this country’s first fusion food. You can read some of this previously published material in Esquire and Travel + Leisure.

When I am working on a story for Travel + Leisure, it’s my job to hit a city’s culinary highlights. But I always make it a point to start with that city’s signature dish as a way of understanding local history. Iconic regional dishes can be used to reveal the roots of local immigration and determine what each ethnic group brought to the community culture.

The great chef John Besh explained to me that New Orleans is unique as a historical port because it was settled with very little Anglican influence, and that the one-pots (like gumbo) are a link to its cultural mix of Spanish and French colonists with a large enslaved Afro-Caribbean community. He told me to look at those long lists of herbs and spices: “Everyone stirred a little bit of their culture into the pot.”  Or, when I was working my way through the menu at a Zingerman’s Roadhouse in Ann Arbor Michigan (specializing in “Great American Food,” regional dishes from around the country), I learned the background of chicken fried steak. Due to the prominent role Germans and Austrians had in settling Texas, it doesn’t take much to view that dish as a frontier translation of Wiener Schnitzel (staple of Central European cuisine).

The connection is even more obvious with sandwiches. Most of the country’s great urban sandwich places are in former factory (and working) neighborhoods where immigrants quickly set up shop and folded their native ingredients (and/or cooking methods) into mainstream cuisine. As the quickest way to layer the tastes of the old country into the new, sandwiches are probably our original fusion food.

There are plenty of American regional sandwiches (with accompanying stories) like the Beef-on-Weck in Buffalo or Loosemeats in Sioux City, IA. But I decided to limit myself to tracing the outline of the country, starting in Maine and working down the coast to Miami, over to New Orleans and then across the Texas land border, up the West Coast and across the Northern boundary to Chicago.

This was not an exercise in “best:” I am not much of a food ranker. I like to think about context, and although there may not always be perfect symmetry between city and sandwich, here is my version of the United States, according to sandwiches.

From Maine to Connecticut, the lobster and clam roll
There might not be a specific ethnic link for the lobster roll (many folks like Red’s Eats, Wiscasset, Maine, a picturesque road side stand that’s been around since 1938).  But there is an “embarrassment of riches” aspect, common in many immigrant family kitchens. In the 1988 film Mystic Pizza, townie waitress Daisy (Julia Roberts), invited to the summer home of a rich WASP boyfriend (played by Adam Storke in a classic James Spader role), is less than thrilled when dinner turns out to be lobster—a staple in her family’s household because her Portuguese-American mother works in a lobster plant on the docks.

Maine was the site of the first recorded European colony in 1604 and according to the state’s Department of Marine Resources, lobster fishing is “probably the oldest, continuously operated industry on the North American continent.” Prior to commercialization, every lobster caught in Maine stayed in Maine. (Early records are scarce, but in 2000, the lobster harvest yielded 57,000,000 pounds.)  So imagine what lobster was at one time: poverty food. Indentured servants (who exchanged labor for passage to America) had it written into their contracts that they would not have to eat it more than three times a week, and a law guaranteed prisoners the same protection (cruel and unusual punishment by crustacean).

To me, a heap of lobster in a roll that requires a good grip is nothing more than a device to turn seafood into a solid meal: heavier, heartier family fare is typically achieved by adding bread (even those crunchy Trenton oyster crackers soaked in chowders qualify).

The same theory can be applied to the clam roll, a shoreline staple along the Connecticut coast. Since the Native Americans showed colonists how to harvest clams (the white shells were carved into beads and used for currency, or “wampum”), shell-fishing has been a vital part of the state’s economy. But you can’t feed your family a steady diet of clams on the half shell, which accounts for some of the heartier regional clam dishes, like New Haven’s famous clam pizza.

In Madison, Lenny and Joe’s Fish Tale serves a clam roll made with breaded whole or full-bellied clams (also known as Ipswich or steamer clams, these have a thin brittle shell which doesn’t completely close because of its protruding long neck or siphon). No pre-breading and sitting around for these clams. Instead, they are batter-dipped, rolled in cracker meal, and fried to order. Since the breading is done at the last moment, the clams remain completely coated, forming a protective crust on contact with the hot oil which produces the internal steam necessary to properly cook the clam, and in the process, creates a sandwich of delicious contrasts: crispy but tender.

A regional requirement: both of these sandwiches must be served on a toasted top-loading New England hot dog bun, which looks like a small rectangular “box” made of white bread. I imagine it was invented like this: a hungry guy in a hurry took a piece of toast and folded it in half with one hand, letting the seam rest along his palm like a trough. Then he filled it up.

Pastrami in New York
More than a decade ago, the late Abe Lebewohl, founder of the Second Avenue Deli, showed me how to hand-slice pastrami. Now this is an instinctive art. You have to be able to “feel” the pastrami because each one is different, taking into consideration how hard or soft the meat is after steaming as well as the fat content. Placing a whole brine-cured and smoked beef belly on a narrow wooden counter (where it fit perfectly into the indentation shaped by the thousands that went before it), Abe trimmed off the crisp, spicy edges, pushing them into a little mound and motioned for me to “eat, eat.” I left that day with a securely foil-wrapped packet of still warm and beautifully fatty pastrami in my purse, feeling like I was transporting an organ.

Although it is more of a global village now, the Lower East Side of Manhattan was once the epicenter of Eastern European immigration, packed with pushcarts peddlers and synagogues, and Abe, known as the Mayor of Second Avenue, was a throw back to the day when that street was lined with theaters and called the “Yiddish Broadway.” Like Ukrainian refuge Lebewohl, pastrami has deep Jewish roots (explanation better left to an expert like Joan Nathan)  even appearing as a cultural stereotype in Woody Allen’s great urban romance Annie Hall (1977), when Midwestern transplant Hall (Diane Keaton) orders a “pastrami on white bread with, uh, mayonnaise and tomatoes and lettuce,” and New Yorker Alvy Singer (Woody) looks embarrassed and then a little afraid.

I have my own procedure: Order pastrami on rye—no trimmings or toppings. When the sandwich arrives, use my thumbs to pick up the edges of the bread (as though I am shuffling cards) and then, because the fat to meat ratio is never exactly “right,” peer down at the pastrami and give a little philosophical shrug. Add mustard.

In 1996, the wonderful Abe Lebewohl was murdered while making a deposit at a local bank. I went back to the deli once after that, but it didn’t feel right. Then it closed. But recently, I read that his nephew opened a relocated Second Avenue Deli, where I have yet to go.

Philadelphia and its connection to New Orleans
Slide down the map until you get to Philadelphia, the largest fresh water port in the world and surely the sandwich capital of America. This is a city with several iconic regional specialties: cheese steak, roast pork, and the hoagie are a few.  For this purpose, I settled on using the hoagie, reportedly named for the Italian immigrants who labored in the iron and steel building naval shipyards on Hog Island (the world’s largest shipyard during WWI). The “hoggie” was a meal on the move with all the flavors of home: an assortment of cured pork meats (prosciutto, sopressata and coppa), sharp provolone cheese, and a make-shift salad of sorts (lettuce, tomatoes, onions and hot peppers, dressed with oil, vinegar and a pinch of dried oregano). The bread—typically a crunchy seeded crust with a soft but substantial interior—was merely transportation.

At this point, jump over to the port of New Orleans because one of its signature sandwiches—the muffuletta—is exactly the same as a hoagie—only different. Like two dialects of the same language, the central elements are there: a layering of meats (with the inclusion of mortadella, a pork bologna) and cheese. But while Philadelphia’s turn-of-the-century Italian settlers came from the Southern provinces of Italy, 90% of those who came thru New Orleans were from Sicily. That explains why their sandwich (“invented” in about 1906 to feed that city’s wharf workers) is on round, soft, slightly hollow Sicilian bread (or muffuletta), and the standard hoagie salad toppings are translated into an idiosyncratic pickled olive-laden vegetable medley, distantly related to the regional Sicilian specialty of caponata (a sweet and sour eggplant relish reminder that Sicily is a leading olive and caper growing area).

When I made this very same American iconic regional sandwich trip years ago, I got a warm muffuletta at the Napoleon House and a toasted Frenchuletta (on a baguette) at Luizza’s. But like most visitors, I also went to Central Grocery in Viuex Carre or French Quarter, once known locally as Little Sicily. Slightly spongy (to absorb the olive salad) and intersected by a ribbon of meat/cheese filling, this huge muffuletta is pre-cut into quarters and wrapped in old-fashioned sturdy white paper. Although the highly-hyped grocery may look like a tourist trap, don’t be put off by the discarded Barq’s root beer bottles, crumbled Zapp potato chip bags, or the long lines. The people of Central Grocery are sandwich professionals.

(There is also a link between NOLA’s shrimp/oyster po’ boy and Connecticut’s fried clam roll: both turn local seafood into heartier fare. I got my po’boy from Parkway Tavern, at the corner of Hagan and Toulouse, overlooking Bayou St. John.)

Breaded and fried shrimp (served with lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise and pickles) on distinctive New Orleans–style French bread (lightly crisp crust, interior as airy as cotton candy) from celebrated Leidenheimer Bakery.

Editor’s note: Part 2 covers the iconic sandwiches of the American South, Southwest, West Coast and Midwest.

As the name suggests, The Kibitz Room has an informal atmosphere where the deli men crack jokes about as fast as they slice the meat.  And this traditional Jewish deli has a few rules: corned beef, pastrami and brisket are only served hot; there is absolutely no white bread; no French’s yellow mustard; and no corned beef or pastrami will be served on whole wheat.  But if you ask owner Neil Parish, a Baltimore native who’s been slicing corned beef since he’s 14, the best sandwiches are served on rye with nothing more than their signature mustard.

The Kibitz Room is the sister restaurant of Parish’s New York style deli of the same name in Cherry Hill, no relation to Kibitz in the City on East Chestnut Street.  The 70-seat restaurant offers Jewish soul food via dine in, take out, delivery, catering, deli trays and meat by the pound.  About 95% of people order a sandwich.  The best sellers are corned beef, pastrami, turkey, roast beef, tuna, turkey pastrami and nova on a bagel.

Parish’s extensive taste testing led Kibitz to import brined, uncooked corned beef from United Meat & Deli in Detroit, which is boiled and steamed on the premises.  They also serve Naval cut Vienna Pastrami, which Parish calls “the best there is.”  They get bread from a variety of sources: seeded or plain rye bread from Collegeville Bakery, bagels from New Jersey, but the kaiser rolls, challah rolls and onion rolls are baked fresh at Kibitz.  The restaurant’s pickle bar (sourced from a local Philadelphia vendor) offers New York sour pickles, half sours, spicy pickles, pickled tomatoes, pickle chips, hot cherry peppers, a sweet pickle mix, sauerkraut and health salad.

Meat is piled high on bread, but the sandwiches are still manageable to eat – they compress just enough to bite so you don’t have to deconstruct the sandwich before you begin.  The pastrami has a peppery, spicy crust with a bold, smoky and salty flavor.  The meat is trimmed to offer enough fat to keep it moist and juicy but not thick ribbons of fat that overshadow the meat.  The corned beef is exceptional: warm, moist and full of rich flavor that significantly outshines most competitors’ corned beef.  (Extra lean corned beef is available but Parish doesn’t recommend it.)  The speckled deli mustard is a unique recipe made exclusively for Kibitz from a company in New York.  Not too vinegary, not too hot, it offers just enough twang to electrify the meat.

So where does the deli man go to get a sandwich?  Straight to Shank’s & Evelyn’s (soon to be a Center City neighbor of Kibitz) where Parish enjoys just about everything on the menu but called out the meatball, chicken cutlet with broccoli rabe (no cheese), roast beef and Italian by name.

Kibitz stays open until 9PM during the week, 11PM on Saturday and 8PM on Sunday because according to Parish, “Sandwiches are as good for dinner as they are for lunch.” (Editor’s note: Agreed.)

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The Kibitz Room
1521 Locust St, Philadelphia PA 19102 (Google Map)

Just off Exit 10 of the New Jersey Turnpike in Edison, NJ lies a sleeping giant called Harold’s New York Deli. The 300 seat restaurant is home to the world’s premiere corned beef and pastrami, served a mile high on bread so fresh it’s delivered four times a day. The “small” sandwiches weigh close to a pound and the larges are enough to feed an elephant.

Owner Harold Jaffe, having built and sold almost 40 restaurants throughout the Garden State, has learned a thing or two along the way (and made a tidy profit, to boot.) “More meat” is the name of the game, and Harold plays the game to win. He perfected his craft as General Manger of New York’s Carnegie Deli, where he learned the closely-guarded secrets of corned beef, pastrami and cheesecake.

Meats are brined, “pumped” (injected with additional brine to impart unparalleled moisture and flavor to the meat) and cured for 3 days before cooking. The meat is then boiled (corned beef) or smoked (pastrami) on site and steamed until serving. Customers can enjoy the never-ending pickle bar that offers half sour, sour, and kosher dill pickles, pickle chips, hot pickles, pickled tomatoes, pickled hot peppers, sauerkraut, and all the rye bread you need to turn a single sandwich into a meal for the family.

The corned beef is flaky and delicate, warm and melts in your mouth. Available in traditional cut or extra-lean. The pastrami is smoky, rich, fatty, peppery and robust. The roast beef is light and tender, moist ribbons of lean meat. The brisket pulls apart effortlessly, flaky and moist like the corned beef, but darker in color and flavor. The succulent, juicy, house roasted white meat turkey was some of the very best I’ve ever tasted.

Harold cannot say for sure, but he believes that Harold’s is the highest volume deli in the country, even surpassing the levels of famed New York establishments like Carnegie and the Stage Deli. An astounding 8 tons of corned beef and pastrami pass through the kitchen each week to the 14,000 hungry patrons who come from up and down the east coast.

Read our Q&A with Harold Jaffe:

Unbreaded: What are your personal favorite sandwiches?
Harold Jaffe: Pastrami and corned beef.

UB: What’s a hidden gem on the menu?
HJ: The potato knish. And the cheesecake is the best there is.

UB: What is the biggest day of the year for the restaurant?
HJ: St. Patrick’s Day, then Christmas, then Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. On St. Patrick’s Day, we serve 5000 lbs. of corned beef, 5000 lbs. of potatoes and 5000 lbs. of cabbage.

UB: What do you think are the most important qualities of a good sandwich?
HJ: The meat can’t be too hard or too soft, too fatty or too lean. Consistency is everything. People expect the same quality, same experience every time they come here and they’ll tell us if something isn’t quite right.

UB: What percentage of people order sandwiches here?
HJ: 95%.

UB: Who are some celebrities to whom you’ve served sandwiches?
HJ: Henny Youngman, Peter Faulk, June Carter, Mike Tyson, Mohammed Ali

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Harold’s New York Deli
3050 Woodbridge Avenue, Edison, NJ 08837 (Google Map)