Pearl's Kitchen, Ted's 2-way Combo, The LeBron.

Howdy Pastrami fans. Some bad news to start. I fell down running at the beach and fractured my wrist, going to be in a cast until July 21st. I've been eating some great food to make myself feel better...starting off with Pearl's Kitchen. I first read about Pearl's Kitchen in Save the Deli - here . Wow...a street vendor that specializes in home cured corned beef sandwiches...I'm intrigued. I started following Pearl's Kitchen on twitter and found out they would be serving up their special corned beef this past Saturday at an event called Outside in 5 - a food vendor street festival in the Dogpatch neighborhood.


I showed up at 5 PM on the dot to wait for the Pearl's stand to set up. The anticipation and excitement were high...many others started gathering for the food. Jon - one of the owners of Pearl's showed up, took out his rye bread, his mustard, and his hot trays of beautiful corned beef. He looked at my shirt which read "I heart Canter's Fairfax" and he said "you must be the pastrami guy." I talked with Jon for a minute about his business - he likes to use Prather Ranch meat for his corned beef, but doesn't always use them as a supplier. Jon would like to get a pastrami going soon, but he needs to get a smoker to smoke the pastrami. For now...he just has killer corned beef.

6$ for a half corned beef sandwich. Jon starts by slicing a piece of his home made rye and slathering the piece of bread which seems like to be too much mustard...but it's just the right amount. Jon then hand slices the corned beef, against the grain, with great precision. His corned beef slices are just the right thickness...very uniform..he's good with his knife. I took the half sandwich over to a nearby bench to examine the specimen.




The corned beef was a deep, ruby red - a good sign. I sank my teeth into the sandwich and smiled. It tasted exactly like it would at a deli....probably better. The rye bread had an excellent flavor...and the crust was a bit chewy like it's supposed to be. A superb home made rye. The mustard was sharp and tangy - just the way you want it to be for this type of sandwich. and the corned beef....i think it was some of the best corned beef I've ever had...almost brings tears to my eyes thinking about it now...it's simply marvelous. I also sampled a piece of the noodle kugel - still hot from the oven. It had a sweet cinnamon flavor with a consistency of eggs and noodles...a sweet treat. Check out Pearl's Kitchen on twitter to see where their cart we'll be set up, trust me you'll thank yourself for trying this gem.

Ted's 2-way Combo

I've been coming to Ted's market at Howard and 10th for a few years now. I know they have tri-tip on Mondays and Wednesdays....while they have pastrami every day. If you can get to Ted's market on those days before they run out of either meat you can order a half tri-tip, half pastrami. You could have it on rye, but it's pictured above with the baytastic Dutch Crunch. The stars have to align for you to get this sandwich...and to my knowledge - I'm the only one crazy enough to order it. Now you know about it and knowledge is power folks - get to Ted's and try their pastrami - it's one of the best in the city for under 10$.


Congrats to my Lakers for taking their 16th title....the 8th title since 1985. I think this win...the game 7 to become back to back champions while simultaneously avenging our loss to Boston 2 years ago, was the biggest win in Lakers franchise history. The Lakers have little to do with pastrami, but this is my blog and I get to gloat however I damn please on here. How empowering.

So what does the NBA have to do with pastrami? The "LeBron".

This is the biggest free agency market in NBA history....leading the pack of those looking for multiyear, multimillion contracts is super talented LeBron James. People have been speculating since 2008 that LeBron might be bound for NYC, as he is friends with Jay-Z and has been seen at various spots in New York sporting a Yankees cap. The Knicks are obviously one of the worst franchises in the league and the City sees LeBron as its basketball savior. People started making LeBron to NYC teeshirts, LeBron posters were seen all over the City...and of course - The Carnegie Deli offered a 5 pound, 1 foot tall sandwich called the LeBron MVP to honor the basketball star's impending arrival in the Big Apple. Just look at that sandwich for a minute folks....holy moly...the lettuce, cheese and tomatoes at the top of the rye bread just get lost amid the pounds of staggering, stacked-high meat. The best part of the article, is at the end when the owner of Carnegie, Sandy Levine, offered the winning patron another free LeBron sandwich...on the house, which he declined to take. Yeah that's the Carnegie....it's overdone in a great way...great sandwiches with great pastrami. The Carnegie is a must visit for me every time I go to NYC in the future. However, I don't think I'd like to give up Langer's and the Lakers....LA really has it going when it comes to pastrami and basketball. This little blurb will be really funny if LeBron decides to go to Chicago and eat Manny's with Obama instead of NYC. Only time will tell.

My last subject is a shout out to another food blogger. While roaming the outside in #5 event I met a man who reviews street vendors and street food. Very cool, San Francisco based food blog. Check out his photos on his blog and you'll notice a picture of a guy wearing the "I <3 Canter's" shirt. That's me still being the phantom of the deli, not showing my face. Check out roaminghunger.com. Very cool, unique food blog.

Thanks for reading my best post in months. I hope you had as much fun reading it as I did creating it! until next time...Pastrami King out.

The Phantom of the Deli - The Bay's Dutch Crunch

How goes it pastrami fans? I've been busy - with school and personal growth. Went on a diet for a little bit - gave up the rye bread and soda for a month and lost some weight. I'm hiding my face - a la Phantom of the Opera, until I feel ready to reveal the new me.The pastrami I have been enjoying has been a dinner plate with brown rice and veggies. The spots to get a pastrami plate in the Bay - Tommy's Joynt on Van Ness, Brennan's in Berkeley, and of course the Chicken coop - all locations...all these places hand slice their lovely, smoky pastrami right in front of you!

Did anyone catch the Food Wars episode on pastrami? They took the challenge to New York to put the 2nd Ave Deli vs Katz's Deli to find out which one would win a taste challenge to be deemed the best pastrami in NYC. Check out the teaser on youtube. My good friend and pastrami brother David Sax made a nice cameo as he declared the war between 2nd Ave and Katz's would be an epic battle of two heavyweights. Sax also had a great article on San Francisco Deli food where he proclaimed "The city is on the fringes of deli greatness." Read the article here. It leads into an article from the Jweekly - a SF Bay Area Jewish magazine - with a nice story on the owners of Pearl's kitchen, which is a new food cart that serves corned beef/pastrami. The next event where they will be serving their meats will be June 26th at an event called Outside in #5...there are going to be many food vendors at the event from 6-11 - read about it on SF Weekly or RSVP on Facebook here.


I'd really like to give also give some props to my newest NYC blogger friend Brian Hoffman of Eat This - New York. Brian has been working really hard trying out all the corned beef and pastrami combo sandwiches in New York, while also taking on other foot categories such as pizza...although I have a sneaking suspicion his real true love is the smoked, cured meats. Check out his video where he went to Carnegie Deli and Katz's deli and also his great blog here.


My last topic - Dutch crunch. What is Dutch crunch? Dutch crunch is a type of bread made with sesame seed oil and rice paste that cracks while baking leaving a distinctive markings on the bread. It was first made in Holland, but it was called something different - tijgerbrood and in the UK - tiger's bread. If you're from San Francisco...odds are you've had a sandwich with Dutch crunch or you've at least been offered it as an option. I wonder how Tiger's bread in Holland stacks up to the Dutch crunch here in SF? This bread is selectively available in LA (I originally thought it didn't exist)...it's not available in NYC...It's something truly unique to the Bay Area, something we've taken and expanded upon. It's so widely available that deli men ask you in passé "Would you like sourdough or Dutch crunch." and people don't even blink...they don't even think "Hey, that's weird. I've never seen this bread outside of SF." A pastrami on Dutch crunch? Only if you live in the Bay.