Bagels – The Saboscrivner

Perrotti’s NY Deli

I am NEVER way out west in Winter Garden, but a while back, I was a little peckish after visiting a friend. I stopped at a deli I knew was out that way, figuring it was my best chance to try it while I was close. I’m referring to Perrotti’s NY Deli (https://perrottisnydeli.com/), a casual restaurant that serves specialty sandwiches, subs, wraps, prepared salads, and catering platters. Keep in mind Perrotti’s is not a New York-style Jewish deli nor an Italian deli, although they do offer some crowd-pleasing sandwiches of both styles.

Perrotti’s is also a fully functional delicatessen that slices and sells deli meats and cheeses by the pound. When we briefly had a Safeway supermarket in Altamonte Springs, I enjoyed shopping there, and I appreciated that their deli carried Thumann’s products rather than the ubiquitous, expensive, and occasionally contaminated Boar’s Head brand. Thumann’s is a lot more popular in northern cities like Philadelphia, where there is more of a deli culture. Many years ago, for a too-brief moment in time, Orlando also had a Primo Hoagies location — by far the best chain sub/hoagie place, based out of Philly — and they proudly use Thumann’s meats and cheeses too. Unfortunately, the Primo Hoagies was in a terrible location and kept terrible hours, so it didn’t last long, but I drove across town a few times while I could. At least I knew that the sandwiches at the locally owned and operated Perrotti’s would be high quality with the Thumann’s provisions. Yes, I have strong feelings about deli meats and cheeses, but if you’re reading The Saboscrivner, you probably knew that already.

I could not resist the Pastramageddon, an intense-sounding sandwich with hot pastrami and pepper jack cheese with hot cherry peppers, jalapeños, thousand island dressing, and creamy horseradish on toasted rye bread. I love spicy food, so I read the description and said “Challenge ACCEPTED!”It was wonderful, but nothing I couldn’t handle.

Just as an aside, looking at that sign in the background, Perrotti’s NY Deli serves bagels made by Just Bagels, a company based in Da Bronx, New York. These are excellent quality bagels that come frozen. Pickles New York Delicatessen, a favorite of mine much closer to home in Longwood, also serves Just Bagels.

As long as I was in Winter Garden, I also couldn’t resist Perrotti’s classic Italian sub, with ham, pepperoni, Genoa salami, capicola, provolone cheese, lettuce, tomato, red onion, mild banana peppers, and Italian dressing on a soft white sub roll. It was lovely, even after taking a bite there and bringing the rest home to chill in the fridge for a while. There wasn’t much I could suggest to improve on a sub like this — maybe more of those hot cherry peppers and balsamic glaze? — but it was very good. I wonder if they used a Cusano’s roll. When I’m making my own subs at home, I make a special trip to restaurant supply store Gordon Food Service to buy those, and I know other beloved local sub shops LaSpada’s and Gabriel’s Subs use them too.

The German potato salad and macaroni salad (and I’m imagining the other salads at Perrotti’s) were also made by Thumann’s, and they did not disappoint. As you can probably tell from the photo, both of these refreshing salads were delicious. I always love German potato salad, usually served warm with bacon and vinegar. I believe this version was served cold, but hey, I’m easy.

As you might guess, Perrotti’s NY Deli is a small, humble, no-frills place, but everyone working there was friendly, it was clean and well-lit, and I enjoyed everything I tried. It reminded me of Paul’s Deli in Kissimmee and Lawless Subs in Altamonte Springs, which I als0 loved. I don’t know when I’ll be back in Winter Garden for any reason, so I was very glad to finally try it while I was nearby. If you live out that way or are just passing through, you should try it too!

Sarge’s Delicatessen and Diner (New York)

I recently took my wife on a whirlwind trip to New York City to celebrate our 15th anniversary. Before that, we had gone there for our 10th anniversary back in 2019, where I reviewed six restaurants, and before that, we were last there for our honeymoon in 2009.

We made the most of this recent trip — we saw two shows together, and while she saw a third, I made off to attend New York Comic Con, where I got comics signed by beloved writers and artists and posed for a photo with my favorite actress, Carla Gugino. Food-wise, we enjoyed a fancy anniversary meal, visited old favorites Ess-A-Bagel and Junior’s, and I took a trip to the Bronx to visit several iconic Italian delis along Arthur Avenue (which will be the subject of a future Saboscrivner ‘sclusive).

As great as my Arthur Avenue adventure was (spoiler alert!), my single favorite meal on this latest NYC trip was Sarge’s Delicatessen and Diner (https://sargesdeli.com/), and not just because I was back with my wife after a day apart from her, mostly spent waiting in long lines with fellow nerds. Sarge’s is located in Manhattan’s Murray Hill neighborhood and first opened in 1964 — not as ancient as Katz’s Delicatessen, but still an impressive run. You will see why shortly.

I should note that on past trips, we had always gone to the historic Katz’s, a Lower East Side landmark and tourist trap known for its legendary pastrami (and legendary chaos). But since we’ve been more than once, and since I’ve had equally fine pastrami at Langer’s Delicatessen in Los Angeles and The Pastrami Project right here in Orlando since our last Katz’s visit, I wanted us to have a new New York deli experience. People always say that the pastrami at Sarge’s may not be quite as good as Katz’s (maybe an 8 or 9 instead of a perfect 10), but the rye bread is better (it wouldn’t take much), the menu is larger, and the entire experience is a lot more pleasant and relaxing, with booths(!) and table service(!) and no long lines. It sounded amazing, so off we went, reunited after spending our longest day in New York doing our own things.

We were seated right away by a lovely and patient server (try finding one of those at Katz’s!), and there were no long lines to get in nor any weird rituals with tickets. My wife started the meal with a magnificent chocolate milkshake, while I opted for a cool, refreshing vanilla egg cream (no doubt made with Fox’s U-Bet vanilla syrup, which I always keep on hand back home). I had just walked from the Jacob Javits Convention Center to the theater district to meet her as her show let out, so I probably would have been better off with delicious New York City tap water, but I was caught up in the moment.
For those of you who never read my reviews, an egg cream contains neither eggs nor cream. It is made with seltzer water, milk, and a flavored syrup — traditionally Fox’s U-Bet chocolate syrup, but I also love egg creams made with Fox’s U-Bet vanilla and coffee syrups. As a result, they are more like a soda than a thick, heavy milkshake. Sometimes I even enjoy one at the end of a heavy meal to aid with digestion, but tonight I opened with the egg cream.

Like any good deli, Sarge’s quickly brought out free plates of regular and half-sour pickles and fresh, cool, crunchy cole slaw. I devoured the cole slaw and had one of each kind of pickle, and they were all terrific, especially as the first real food I had eaten all day.

We were blessed with blissfully cool October weather on our trip, so my wife got one of her favorite Ashkenazi Jewish comfort foods: matzoh ball soup. It was a huge bowl with one huge matzoh ball in the center, but no visible pieces of chicken, no vegetable, no noodles, just the ball. She said it was amazing soup, and after trying a spoonful of broth, I concurred.

She ordered half a pastrami sandwich with her soup, and she loved it as well. As you can see, Sarge’s serves huge, overstuffed deli sandwiches, but the main difference between Sarge’s and Katz’s pastrami sandwich is that Katz’s hand-slices the pastrami, resulting in thicker slices, while Sarge’s uses a machine, ending up with the much thinner, uniform slices you see here.

Whenever I visit a deli, whether it’s Jewish or Italian, I always try to sample as many different house specialties as I can, especially when I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to make it back. I certainly hope to return to Sarge’s one day, but that didn’t stop me from ordering a Custom Combo sandwich with three different meats: the excellent pastrami (on top), its underrated cousin corned beef (in the middle), which was equally great, and rolled beef (the darker meat on the bottom), a mysterious, mythical meat I had only ever heard of, but never seen available anywhere else. For those inquiring, I made sure to deconstruct the sandwich to taste and truly appreciate each meat separately. So what is rolled beef? I wasn’t entirely sure, either before or after eating this heckin’ chonker of a sandwich, so of course I did some research and found a Tablet article about the history of rolled beef. It is cured and smoked beef navel (similar to pastrami in that regard), but less fatty, less peppery, usually served cold, and traditionally a cheaper option at delis. It was great, but I still prefer the perfection of pastrami in the pantheon of salted, cured meats.

And me being me, I saw onion rings on a menu and had to order them. I always try onion rings wherever I am, and I review them in a recurring segment on this blog called RING THE ALARM! Well, folks, I didn’t know exactly what to expect, but our server turned every head in the dining room when she walked out this titanic, tremendous tower, this massive, monumental mountain of gorgeous, golden-brown batter-dipped onion rings. It was almost too beautiful to eat. Almost.
Dear readers, you stalwart Saboscrivnerinos, I can say without hesitation that these were the absolute finest, worthiest, all-time best onion rings I’ve ever had in my life. They narrowly beat another New York deli landmark, the aforementioned Junior’s, which previously held the prize with their similar style of onion rings. These are crispy on the outside (not quite crunchy), and almost cakey on the inside — kind of like fluffy funnel cakes, but savory instead of sweet. I’ve only ever encountered this style of onion rings at iconic Jewish delis, and it is definitely my favorite.

So that was our first-ever trip to Sarge’s Delicatessen and Diner, but hopefully not our last. There are over 200 items to choose from on that vast and voluminous menu, and I doubt any of them would disappoint. In addition to the deli sandwiches they are probably best known for, Sarge’s offers the usual smoked fish you would hope for from a good appetizing store (nova salmon, salty belly lox, smoked whitefish, and even fancy smoked sturgeon and sable, plus multiple varieties of herring), a full breakfast menu, hot dogs and burgers, all kinds of diner classics, and even beer, wine, and liquor. If you’re looking for comfort food in Manhattan and want to enjoy it in actual comfort, as opposed to the tumult of Katz’s, Sarge’s is the place for you. Tell ’em The Saboscrivner sent ya… and they’ll have no idea what you’re taking about!

Palm Avenue Deli (Sarasota)

Back in November, I took my wife to Naples, Florida, to visit a friend who had traveled in from Maine. Naples is almost four hours south of Orlando, but it’s a hell of a lot closer than Maine, so we divided up the long drive by stopping for lunch in Sarasota. I’ve never been to Sarasota in my life, so of course I did my research, and I decided to stop at a New York-style delicatessen restaurant that had a great-looking menu and enthusiastic reviews: the Palm Avenue Deli (https://palmavenuedeli.com/) in downtown Sarasota. It was fabulous. I’m so glad we chose to go there, and I wish I had opportunities to return.

When we arrived in the middle of the day on a Friday, I gushed about this being our first time, how we were passing through town from Orlando, and how excited I was to visit after reading their menu online. Our lovely hostess and steadfast server must have thought they had a real live one here, but they had no idea just how much food we would order, or how much fun we were about to have.

We were seated near the open kitchen, and I was so tickled to see this old library card catalog behind our table, repurposed to add some flair to the dining room. You can’t see it here, but each of the card catalog drawers was labeled for some kind of Jewish deli fare, like Bagels, Brisket, Chopped Liver, Corned Beef, and so forth. You get the gist. I’m a librarian, so I really knew we had made a great decision for lunch.

The lunch menu literally offered a dish called “Pickles for a Nickel,” and they weren’t joking. We actually got a couple of sour kosher dill pickles and a dish of cool, creamy, crunchy cole slaw for five cents, cinco centavos, whatever you want to call it. For that alone, I would have to recommend Palm Avenue Deli, because where else can you get ANYTHING for a nickel, with or without a picture of a bumblebee on it? Anyway, this is the cole slaw:

My wife and I both ordered egg creams, those fizzy, creamy concoctions from old-timey New York City soda fountains. A place like this would certainly make them the right way, with Fox’s U-Bet syrups (which I have reviewed before), milk, and seltzer water, creating sweet and refreshing foamy drinks that contain neither eggs nor cream. My wife got the classic chocolate egg cream, and I opted for a coffee egg cream, since I haven’t found coffee Fox’s U-Bet around Orlando in a long time.

We shared an order of excellent potato latkes, fried to golden-brown perfection and savory with onions and black pepper. How do you like your latkes? My wife likes applesauce with them, while I prefer sour cream. But the ultimate question is, “Why not both?” At Palm Avenue Deli, you don’t even have to choose.

My wife is a sucker for the Ashkenazi Jewish dish kasha varnishkes, which is kasha (buckwheat groats, toasted and then boiled until they are soft and tender) served with al dente bowtie noodles. I’ve never had a strong opinion on the dish one way or another, until now. Palm Avenue Deli went hard with caramelized onions, and let me tell you, that made all the difference. I get it now. Those caramelized onions added savory flavor as well as sweetness and brought this carb-fest to life (to life, l’chayim!).

She also ordered a smoked fish platter with sablefish, cream cheese, butter, and a toasted everything bagel. The sliced onions, tomatoes, and cucumbers come standard on almost any deli or appetizing store’s smoked fish platter, along with salty capers and fresh dill.

Close-up on the sliced sablefish. Also known as Alaskan black cod, it is a rich, buttery fish that is rubbed with spices and then smoked. If you’ve ever had nova, lox, or gravlax (different kinds of smoked salmon), you know how delicious those are, especially offset against creamy, tangy cream cheese and some fresh vegetables on a good bagel or bialy. Is your mouth watering yet? Well, think about how tasty nova salmon is, and sablefish is somehow even better. Many years ago, I introduced my wife to its glory at our beloved Ess-A-Bagel in Midtown Manhattan, and now she is a member of the Sable Squad with me.

I ordered a classic sandwich that is a great benchmark to gauge any deli: a combo sandwich with sliced pastrami and corned beef on rye bread with caraway seeds. It was excellent quality. I’ve certainly had more ridiculously overstuffed deli sandwiches, but I can’t complain about the quality or the flavors of this one. I still prefer pastrami to corned beef, and I still prefer my pastrami hand-sliced (like at Katz’s in the Lower East Side, Langer’s in Los Angeles, and The Pastrami Project here in Orlando), but I can’t take anything away from this lovely sandwich. The rye bread here at Palm Avenue Deli was certainly better than Katz’s, and the meal was so much more leisurely and relaxing, as opposed to Katz’s chaotic atmosphere.

I opted for a side of potato salad with my sandwich, since I already got to sample the cole slaw in my “Pickles for a Nickel.” For sharp-eyed Saboscrivnerinos who are eagerly awaiting my next set of Cutting the Mustard reviews, I was thrilled to try a new (to me) mustard here: Sy Ginsberg’s New York Style Deli Mustard. It was perfectly good — very similar to Gulden’s, but not as good as Ba-Tampte, which is pretty much my go-to deli-style mustard.

As long as we were tearing things up at this deli and just passing through town, I figured “Why not try the chopped liver too?” I was able to order a bissel of chopped liver — just a small side portion to taste it. It was very rich, thick, and savory, with a pleasant consistency — smooth with some little chunks for texture. I’m very glad I tried it, because chopped liver is a decadent treat that even a lot of delis don’t serve that regularly anymore (at least not here in Central Florida). I wish they had served it with some extra rye bread and caramelized onions, but I could say that about almost anything.

My wife feels as strongly about desserts as I do about delis, although she has definitely come around to appreciating delis like I do. She saw flourless chocolate cake on the menu and made sure to save some room for it. It came with a glistening dark chocolate glaze, a scoop of vanilla ice cream, a puff of fresh whipped cream (not the canned stuff), and fresh diced strawberries, and she loved it.

I did not intend to order dessert at all, but I might have made a comment like “Mmmmm, blueberry cheesecake.” Much to my surprise, our very friendly server brought out a slice of blueberry cheesecake on the house, which we neither needed nor requested, but I certainly welcomed it enthusiastically. It was “New York style” cheesecake — rich, thick, dense, and a little bit tangy — more like the legendary Junior’s than the familiar Factory, but made in-house. What a delightfully unexpected end to this epic road trip lunch!

Even the restrooms had character and style. The men’s room had a framed photo of Marilyn Monroe and Andy Warhol-inspired Elvis wallpaper. My wife reported the ladies’ room had an Elvis photo and Marilyn wallpaper. Who were you expecting — Joan Rivers and Jackie Mason?

So I says to my wife, I says, “I wish this place was in Orlando, because we would be regulars for sure.” She agreed. Sadly, Sarasota is nowhere near home, and I can’t imagine returning anytime soon, as good as our Palm Avenue Deli experience was. It’s amazing that this small city on Florida’s Gulf Coast can support three Jewish delis (Palm Avenue, the Meshugana Deli, and the newly opened Wolfie’s), which is definitely more than we have here in our progressive and cosmopolitan City Beautiful. I have some strong opinions about dangerous and disquieting things happening elsewhere in Sarasota, but a food blog is no place to get into that kind of editorializing. That said, for our first visit ever and probably our only one for the foreseeable future, I could not have chosen a better restaurant for our own meal in town. If you’re anywhere close, drive into clean, welcoming downtown Sarasota, park in the nearby garage to avoid having to parallel park along the busy streets, and check it out. You won’t be sorry. You can tell them I sent you, but even though I ordered half the menu, they probably won’t know who you’re talking about.

D’Amico & Sons Italian Market & Bakery

After a long wait (which probably felt much longer for the owners than people like me looking forward to the opening), D’Amico & Sons Italian Market & Bakery (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100093695793933) has officially soft-opened in the Oviedo Mall. Sometimes I go to the Regal movie theater in that mall, and it desperately needs something else to keep bringing people in. I am pleased to report that D’amico & Sons should flourish there, if the enthusiastic crowds on the second day of its soft opening continue. Its hours are 7 AM to 7 PM, Monday through Saturday, and 7 AM to 3 PM on Sunday.

I am thrilled to have another Italian market in town, especially one that is much closer to me than my beloved Stasio’s and Tornatore’s. It is a much larger space than either, having completely refurbished the old Chamberlin’s health food store, bright and clean and spacious, with plenty of natural light and ample parking. There is even a covered patio with tables under an Italian flag awning, for those who want to enjoy coffee, gelato, pastries, and sandwiches on the premises.

Like any good Italian market, you can order a variety of coffee drinks. I am happy to see any locally owned and operated coffee shops to combat the Starbucks stranglehold.

There is a gelato counter too, although it was too crowded today to get a photo of it. It looked like they might have twelve or 16 different flavors, and I’m sure my wife and I will work our way through them eventually. Of course I like ice cream (who doesn’t?), but I like gelato even better. I prefer the texture, the intensity of the flavors (especially fruity flavors), and somehow, it is even healthier (or less unhealthy, if you will).

When I arrived around 12:30 on its second day open, there was a long line just to get up to the bakery counter. I managed to snap this shot of beautiful macarons and pastries in a glass case, but there were other cases to behold on each side of it, with cakes to the left and cookies to the right:

Here is another vertical refrigerated case full of gorgeous gelato cakes: chocolate raspberry, triple chocolate, and pistachio.

I ended up bringing home two lobster tail pastries that were so flaky and crispy — the top one filled with rich Bavarian cream, and the bottom one filled with cannoli cream and tiny chocolate chips. Below that are two zeppoli, fried pastries dusted in powdered sugar. Those were my wife’s favorites.

They also sell these Italian wedding cookies and black and white cookies, which I highly recommend. I have bought this brand of black and white cookies before (Bakery Boys of New York), but I brought home the Italian wedding cookies because she loves those, and she was really happy with them. I don’t think they sold individual Italian wedding cookies at the cookie counter, but one would not have been enough!

There are plenty of savory foods to choose from too, including golden-brown arancini, rice balls coated in bread crumbs and lightly fried, for a texture that is crispy-crunchy on the outside and soft and yielding inside. If you’ve ever had a papa rellena from a Cuban cafe or bakery, these are similar, but with rice instead of mashed potatoes inside. There are original, cheese, and cheesesteak arancini to tempt you. D’Amico & Sons definitely have a lot of balls.

I brought an original rice ball home for my wife. The thing is the size of a baseball!

A butcher case of fresh sausages was tempting, but I passed on this first visit. I’ll definitely be back to try some.

They also offer pizzelles, which are pizza-like flatbreads, sold by the slice (and possibly also whole). They looked great, but I treated myself to a pizza yesterday and still have leftovers.

You can also get sandwiches made to order, and I took great care to get a legible photo of the hanging menu, since it is not listed on the Facebook page yet. Right-click this image and open it in a new tab for a larger, more legible photo.
I was really surprised they don’t offer a traditional Italian sub with salami, ham, and other deli meats, plus the typical provolone cheese, veggies, and a vinaigrette, so I ordered what seemed like the closest approximation: the Italian Cubano, with Boar’s Head prosciutto Riserva, porchetta, Swiss cheese, pepperoncini peppers, tomato, deli mustard, and Boar’s Head Pepperhouse Gourmaise (a really good mayo-based condiment) on a sub roll. It was ready pretty quickly, despite how slammed they were at the deli counter.

This is the Italian Cubano sandwich, unwrapped back at home. I would have preferred the pepperoncini peppers to be sliced or chopped rather than whole, but at least they removed the stems. The bread, prosciutto, and Pepperhouse Gourmaise really made this sandwich, but it was a little light on ingredients, and the bread was not fully sliced all the way across, so the ends didn’t have any of the good stuff on them. I didn’t get a taste of the porchetta by itself, but at least I saw it in there. I wonder if they would consider getting a sandwich press for more of a traditional Cubano experience.

I would absolutely try other sandwiches from here, even if they’re not going to dethrone Stasio’s (and my favorite sandwich in the city, the namesake Stasio) anytime soon.

There is a separate counter next to the gelato for ordering fresh-baked bread, and I wisely bought two different loaves to bring home. The sub roll was great, but this sesame seed-studded semolina loaf was even better — warm and fluffy inside, crackly crust outside, and so wonderful when spread with some of our room-temperature butter back at home.

I also bought a pull-apart olive batard, which didn’t have a crunchy, crackly outer crust, but was also warm and fluffy and full of salty, chewy, pungent black olives, baked in. I’m not the biggest olive guy in the world, but I like them as olive salad on a muffuletta sandwich, and I liked them in this bread. My wife really loved this one, and olive her.

Over by the pizzelles, there is a refrigerated case brimming with different Italian cheeses, including ricotta, fresh mozzarella, and even some delicious-looking smoked cheeses. I abstained this time, but I’m glad to know they have all this variety.

And since I am infamous for documenting my love of sardines with my ‘Dines List reviews, I could not leave without a can for this Cuoco brand Seasoning for Macaroni with Sardines. I’ve made the Sicilian dish pasta con le sarde before, with fresh fennel, but I look forward to trying this ready-made combination of sardines, oil, fennel, onions, raisins, and salt the next time I cook up some high-quality imported pasta. Of course I will review it in a future installment of The ‘Dines List! Good for Kaley Cuoco for choosing to diversify, selling sardine seasoning while still performing the animated voice of Harley Quinn. Beauty, talent, and business savvy!

While D’Amico & Sons does not have a full-service Italian restaurant next door like Tornatore’s (probably my favorite Italian restaurant in Orlando), and while the sandwiches may not be Stasio’s quality just yet (definitely my favorite sandwiches in Orlando), Central Florida’s newest and most spacious Italian market, bakery, cafe, and deli is already off to a terrific start, and Seminole County residents are lucky to have it. I know I am. I strongly encourage all my regular readers to make a pilgrimage out here ASAP and consider getting Christmas and New Year’s Eve goodies for any entertaining you have planned. Heck, Hanukah celebrators should find a lot to love here too!

Deli Desires

I try to spare my readers too many similar reviews in a row, plus I like to switch up my cuisines up to keep this blog as interesting as possible. My readership is low enough as it is, am I right? But even though I discovered The Pastrami Project two weeks ago and made it the subject of my most recent review, I have since discovered another delicatessen in Orlando, mere minutes away from the Pastrami Project food truck. It’s a brand-new restaurant called Deli Desires (https://delidesires.com/), located one block north of Colonial Drive on Ferncreek Avenue.

For the last several months, Deli Desires ran a delivery-only business model over Instagram, similar to recent sensation Brad’s Underground Pizza, but started a soft opening in their new brick and mortar location last weekend and is continuing the soft opening this weekend. I don’t believe they are doing phone or online orders yet, but since I couldn’t find a menu online, I went in person to pick up an early lunch on Friday, not knowing how crowded it would be or what they would have available. Luckily, when I arrived around 11:45, there was no line, but a line grew by the time I left with my food. Just so you all know, at least during the soft opening, Deli Desires is open for breakfast and lunch only, and just on Friday through Sunday. It’s a small space with no seating — strictly a takeout operation for now, which is just fine with me. And I’m always pleased to see the full staff of a restaurant wearing masks at all times, and wearing them the right way, covering their noses. Wearing your mask with your nose hanging out totally defeats the purpose, like walking around with your schmeckle sticking out of your pants. And yet you see it all the time! (The noses, that is. During a pandemic, consider it just as bad.)

There’s a lot to look at inside Deli Desires, with large shelves on each side with gourmet groceries — local honey, hot sauce, fancy canned seafood, giant jars of Duke’s mayo (the only kind of mayo I will buy), T-shirts, and a whole rack of Herr’s potato chips, which are excellent, especially the ketchup chips. Directly in front, they have a display of Dr. Brown’s canned sodas (good root beer and cream soda, but I can’t recommend the Cel-Ray soda) and boxes of kosher salt.

You know what else is fine? All the food. Damn fine deli fare. Here’s the menu, since they didn’t have a website up at the time I wrote this review, just the Instagram page. It’s very unique for a deli menu — some classics, but definitely modern interpretations of the classics.

When I told my co-worker, a regular member of our Friday “lunch bunch” that I was going to a new deli and asked if she wanted anything, she asked if the menu was online, and I said I couldn’t find it and had no idea what they would have. She told me she likes Reubens, in case they have one. (Who doesn’t like Reubens?) Well, they didn’t have a Reuben, but they did have a different kind of corned beef sandwich ($10) — a “Big Mac”-style corned beef sandwich with shredded lettuce and pickles (in place of the sauerkraut on a Reuben), special sauce (already very similar to the Russian or thousand island dressings that accompany Reubens), and served on a soft, fresh-baked sesame seeded roll. I didn’t taste this sandwich I brought back for her, but she said it all worked well together. When I placed the order with the very patient and welcoming Tyson at the counter, he told me they make everything from scratch, including curing their own corned beef.

My regular readers know how much I love delis, especially all the smoked, cured, and pickled meats and fish. I saw a whitefish salad sandwich on the menu ($10) and had to have it. Whitefish is a large fish that is often smoked whole, until the skin turns a beautiful golden color. Then the flaky, oily, smoky flesh is scooped and scraped out, mixed with mayonnaise, dill, usually chopped celery, and other herbs and spices. I just love it, and I’m already overjoyed on the rare occasions I can find a whole smoked whitefish or “chub” in a store and make my own whitefish salad. But it’s a labor-intensive process, making sure to remove all the inedible hair-thin bones that look like clear plastic and can really get caught in your throat. That’s why it is even more pleasing when the professionals do the work. This was delicious whitefish salad on the same kind of soft seeded roll — big chunks of fish mixed with mayo (Duke’s!) and lots of dill. It was topped by crispy “celery salad,” with long, paper-thin strands of celery and red radish that must have been sliced with a razor-sharp mandoline slicer. They topped it with a slice of muenster cheese too, almost making it like their version of a tuna melt, that diner classic. Of course the sandwich was served cold, as it should be.

While I was there for the soft opening, I wanted to try a second sandwich, so I could eat a little of both at work and finish them for dinner. I decided to go with the scrapple sandwich ($8), although it was a difficult decision. This was an excellent breakfast sandwich that would be a welcome meal at any time of day, not just in the morning. For those that don’t know, scrapple is a breakfast meat that is made by the Pennsylvania Dutch in the mid-Atlantic states, kind of like a sausage or meatloaf, but a looser consistency. It is often made with pork scraps, herbs, and spices, and then some fillers like flour and other grains, and served sliced and pan-fried. I’ve had it before from one of the Amish food stands in Philadelphia’s Reading Terminal Market, one of my favorite places in the entire world. I don’t know what Deli Desires puts into their scrapple, but I definitely tasted sage, making it reminiscent of a more crumbly pork breakfast sausage. (Hey, they have a BLT on the menu too, so they never claimed to be a kosher deli!) They also included a perfectly fried over-medium egg that held up perfectly until I got back to work and tried cutting the sandwich in half with a plastic knife, when it started to run. But it was nice dipping the bialy in the warm, rich, runny yolk.

What’s a bialy, you ask? They are similar to bagels, but unfortunately, a lot less popular. I love ’em, though. Bagels have that smooth, shiny outer coating because they are boiled in huge kettles of water before being baked. Bialys aren’t boiled, just baked, so they have more of a traditional outer crust, but are still soft, chewy, and fluffy on the inside like bagels. They lack the holes that help make bagels bagels, but they do have an indentation that usually contains diced cooked onions and poppy seeds. Deli Desires makes a very good bialy, and they are few and far between. (Bagel King, our regular standard place for bagels, much closer to home, also bakes their own bialys.)

But I had to get two bialys to enjoy later: a standard one with caramelized onions in the center (left) and a smoked jalapeño and muenster bialy (right), the same kind the scrapple and egg sandwich came on. These bialys were $3 each.

I saw they had potato salad ($3), so as long as I was already running amok with carbs (glorious carbs!), I wanted to try that too. These were small redskin potatoes, very tender with some nice texture from the skins, mixed with mayo and lots of dill, for almost a Scandinavian style of potato salad. But I have remarked before that the Scandinavians and the Jews share some culinary traditions — the aforementioned smoked, cured, and pickled fish, dark rye bread, lots of dill, and potato salad too, apparently. This was a generous helping of potato salad that I finished in two sittings, but probably could have made last even longer. It was just too good, though.

And even though I had no intention of ordering dessert, Deli Desires had an assortment of fresh-baked desserts under glass domes on the counter. There’s something about a pie under a glass dome, like at a diner, that makes it even more tempting to me than a pie in a fridge or sitting on a windowsill, like in old-timey cartoons. It’s kind of like putting a statue on a pedestal… or putting a very attractive person on a pedestal, for that matter.

One of the daily desserts was right up my alley — a cara cara orange pie on a graham cracker crust topped with whipped cream and a chewy, sticky dried orange slice. Conceptually, it is very similar to Florida’s beloved key lime pie, and very close to my all-time favorite dessert, a tart and creamy “Atlantic Beach pie” that I make with fresh-squeezed citrus juices on a buttery, salty crust made from crushed Ritz crackers. This slice was $6, but I just had to try it, for science — to compare it to my Atlantic Beach pie recipe and see how I stacked up to a seasoned baker.

Needless to say, it was good. Firmer and less runny than my similar pie, and I’ll have to figure out how they do that. However, it was served at room temperature, and I think it would have been even tastier served chilled, like how I serve my pie and pretty much any key lime pie from anywhere. Of course I could have stuck it in the fridge for an hour, but even after eating everything else I ate, once I opened the box and tasted my first tiny taste of the slice, I couldn’t wait. Also, cara cara oranges are more tart than our standard, familiar navel oranges, but the pie didn’t have that acidic tartness I love so much in citrusy desserts. But don’t get me wrong, I liked it!

I considered waiting a week or two after my Pastrami Project review to publish this one and running a different piece in its place. But since Deli Desires is still in its soft opening phase, I wanted to get the word out that Mills 50 district has an exciting new deli in a permanent location, and it’s open for business and excellent, right out of the gate. Check with them first, in case their hours change in the days and weeks to come, but everything I tried was terrific, and I look forward to returning and working my way through the menu.

Many of their offerings are fresh, new takes on traditional New York/Jewish delicatessen fare. You could almost call it “hipster deli,” but I don’t want that to sound like a diss in any way. Delis have long been an endangered species among restaurants, decades before this pandemic started threatening the entire restaurant industry. It breaks my heart to read about these august culinary landmarks closing down in big cities around the country, sometimes after half a century or longer in business. But I get it — neighborhood demographics change, urban rents skyrocket, and a Jewish deli might seem stodgy and stale compared to some of the hot new food trends, especially for those who didn’t grow up in a family that loved that kind of food, as mine did. But there is always hope! Over the last decade or so, even as some of the iconic delis have baked their last bagels, cured their last corned beef, and plated their last pastrami, a young, hip, adventurous group of chefs has started revitalizing and rejuvenating the entire concept of the deli, reaching out to younger, hipper, more adventurous diners, offering some twists on the old standards, elevating and reinventing classic dishes while still paying homage to the old ways. That’s what chef-owner Hannah Jaffe is doing here with her delicious, delectable, decadent Deli Desires, and it it’s going to catch on here in Orlando. We’ve needed this for a long time, and now it’s here — and not that far from my day job either. *I* need this. Don’t let me down, people. You will desire this deli, take it from me.

Bagel King

“You come at the king, you best not miss.”
–Omar Little, from The Wire (the greatest show of all time)

It’s no secret your friendly neighborhood Saboscrivner loves bagels. They are, after all, the food of my people. I grew up eating bagels with my family on Sunday mornings in Kendall (one of Miami’s more staid suburbs) from a series of bagel shops and delis that are all decades gone. On this very blog, I’ve waxed poetic about some of New York City’s best bagels, from the extraordinary Ess-A-Bagel and the rapturous Russ & Daughters Cafe. I’ve sung the praises of Pickles Delicatessen in nearby Longwood, where their bagels are shipped frozen from New York, and they are almost as good as the real things, hot and fresh when you’re right there.

But if you want freshly baked bagels in the Orlando area, your best option is Casselberry’s Bagel King (https://www.bagelking.net/). I’ve been going to Bagel King since I moved here in 2004, first with one of my good friends and former roommates, and then with my wife, ever since we started dating in 2006. It’s a “friendly neighborhood” place too, with a wide open dining room and plenty of natural light streaming in, a gleaming glass case full of pastries baked in house, and a floor-to-ceiling rack of different freshly baked bagels behind the front counter. You can order takeout at the counter (as everyone has to do these days), but in happier, safer times, it was a great place to grab a table for a leisurely breakfast or lunch.

This was the bagel selection on a recent busy weekend after the takeout lunch crowd came and went, but they still had everything I wanted:

I can’t tell you how many times I ordered the “Fresh Fish Fantasy” ($10.99) over the last 15 years, where you can choose a bagel with cold-smoked nova salmon (what most people think of as “lox”) or much saltier belly lox, along with cream cheese, tomatoes, onions, and capers on the side. Almost as many times as I would belt out “Well it’s just a fresh fish fantasy, baby!” in my head over that bouncy Tom Tom Club sample, to the tune of Mariah Carey’s “Well it’s just a sweet, sweet fantasy, baby!” I would always opt for an everything bagel, thick and fluffy with that shiny exterior that only comes from boiling, dusted with onion, garlic, sesame seeds, and poppy seeds, or a crustier, non-boiled bialy roll with its oniony center.

Close-up of a bialy, for the uninitiated:

Sometimes I’d switch up the Fresh Fish Fantasy formula and instead opt for smoked whitefish salad on a toasted everything bagel or bialy ($10.99), or sometimes I’d indulge and get Tinamarie’s stuffed potato knish ($8.99): pastrami, corned beef, roast beef, or turkey (I would NEVER get turkey) with provolone, caramelized onions, and dusseldorf mustard, served on a homemade potato knish, split open like a sandwich. For those of you who have been deprived, a knish is a pastry made of a thin layer of dough wrapped around seasoned mashed potatoes. You can buy delicious Gabila’s brand knishes in the frozen case at Publix (they are fried and made in New York), but a lot of bagel shops and delis bake theirs, including Bagel King. You can buy a mini-knish for 99 cents or a full-sized one for $2, and your life will be so much better if you do.

However, my wife never deviates from her formula: a toasted, buttered everything bagel ($1.99) with a side order of pastrami ($4.49), always sliced into strips and cooked on the grill until it was slightly crispy, like bacon. Bagel King isn’t a kosher restaurant, by the way — you can get applewood-smoked bacon with your eggs, cheddar cheese on your burger (on a pretzel roll), or provolone on any number of thick, meaty, overstuffed sandwiches. But they also offer turkey sausage and turkey ham.

Most bagels are $1 each, or you can get a baker’s dozen (13) for $10. Bagels freeze exceptionally well, especially if you slice them first, seal them in plastic bags, squeeze all the air out, and freeze them immediately. Then they warm up perfectly in a toaster oven… or you can microwave them for 30 seconds before the toaster oven, if you always forget to slice them before freezing, like I usually do.

On this most recent trip, I stocked up with bagels to freeze: nine everything bagels and nine bialys.

They were even kind enough to throw in these sweet treats: a raspberry danish pastry and a huge, dense cinnamon roll.

Bagel King also makes their own flavored cream cheeses, which you can order on your bagel or get to-go tubs. The savory veggie, bruschetta, chunky nova, and smooth lox cream cheeses are all outstanding, but they have sweet ones too, like strawberry, Nutella, and almond amaretto. I just wouldn’t recommend those sweet ones on an everything bagel or a bialy!

So that’s Bagel King, another old stalwart, and your source for the best fresh bagels in Orlando. I’m so lucky to live near the one in Casselberry, but there are also locations in Winter Park, Lake Mary, Debary, and a wholesale location in Orlando. Now more than ever, I know we’re all seeking comfort food. To me, few meals are as comfortable as a good bagel with smoked salmon and cream cheese. If that sounds the least bit good to you, come at the king, and don’t miss.

Pickles Delicatessen

Pickles Delicatessen (https://www.picklesnydeli.com/) is one of my favorite destinations in Longwood, on State Road 434 right off I-4 exit 94. It is located in the same little shopping center where the Longwood location of 4 Rivers Smokehouse is. In a town sorely lacking authentic New York-style delis, Pickles is the closest we have to the great delicatessens of New York City and its boroughs (and parts of South Florida). Of course there is the Toojay’s chain, but I greatly prefer Pickles for its authenticity, quality, and selection.

They have all kinds of cookies and pastries brought in fresh from New York. My wife loves some of the Italian-style cookies, like the ones with sprinkles, and pistachio cookies shaped like red and green leaves. My mom used to buy cookies like that at a little bakery in Miami back when I was a kid in the ’80s.

The bagels at Pickles are maybe the best you can get in Orlando, especially the everything bagels my wife and I both like. Pickles serves the Just Bagels brand from The Bronx, and they are extremely high quality. I’d rather have a really good frozen and toasted authentic New York bagel than a mediocre fresh-baked bagel. The other morning, I was overjoyed to find two of these saved in my freezer from our last trip to Pickles, and I happened to have nova salmon and cream cheese. It’s rare when the universe lines up so perfectly.

On my last takeout order, I brought home terrific latkes (potato pancakes). Even after the drive home, they were still nicely crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, with tastes of onion, garlic, and pepper. They are served with sour cream and applesauce. Some people prefer one over the other with their latkes, but I like both. If you haven’t had them that way, you don’t know what you’re missing!

I don’t have a photo, but if you like potato knishes, Pickles serves Gabila’s, a commercially-available knish that is definitely my favorite.

Here’s their pastrami sandwich on rye bread with caraway seeds. My wife especially loves their pastrami. It is sliced thin, and not too lean or too fatty. I wish it was hand-sliced a little thicker like New York’s iconic Katz’s Deli, but this is the Orlando ‘burbs, not the Lower East Side. It’s definitely a solid and generously-stuffed pastrami sandwich.

This is a very small sampling of my mustard collection at home, perfect for pastrami. In recent months, I was lucky enough to stock up on a dozen bottles of the Grey Poupon Mild & Creamy Dijon when Publix put it on clearance, AND five jars of the Sir Kensington’s Spicy Brown (which has a bit of maple syrup) when Lucky’s Market recently did the same. Not bad — usually those aren’t the cheapest brands, but I have mustard to last me years (months?) for a buck and change each. But I still take risks with new, exciting, and fancy varieties, like the Kozlik’s Hot Russian mustard, an indulgence that wasn’t cheap, but was totally worth every penny.

Pickles has really terrific vinaigrette pasta salad, which I always love as a side item with their sandwiches.

If you don’t feel like a Jewish deli classic like pastrami, corned beef, brisket, or chopped liver, Pickles also serves some great Italian hoagies and other deli-style sandwiches. I’m a huge fan of their Italian Combo, with cappicola, sopresata, Genoa salami, mozzarella, Italian peppers, lettuce, tomato, balsamic, and parmesan. I swear I took a picture of it at some point in the past, but it would have been on my lousy phone camera, so people probably would complain more if I included a photo of this sandwich than if I didn’t.

They serve breakfasts, burgers, salads, and wraps as well.

But WAIT! What’s this?

It’s true, dear readers — Pickles carries Junior’s cheesecake from Brooklyn, which might be the best cheesecake I’ve ever had. I sang its praises in my review of Junior’s, when we went to New York this past May and ended up eating at both of its Times Square locations.

Here’s a slice of their plain cheesecake, which I’ll take over Publix or the Factory any day:

And here’s the chocolate cake-layered cheesecake. I can normally take or leave chocolate cake, or anything chocolate, but this was on a whole other level, and I loved it.
On top of the cheesecake being awe-inspiring, the chocolate cake was rich, dense, moist, fudgy — almost like a gooey brownie, but still clearly cake. I don’t think I’ve ever had such good chocolate cake. As you can probably guess, this was very rich, and even the two of us working together got four portions out of this one generous slice.

Since Pickles has so many authentic New York products and ingredients, imagine my surprise after our New York trip to find Fox’s U-Bet VANILLA syrup, after I had the best vanilla egg cream at Veselka in the East Village. I’ll argue to anyone that Fox’s U-Bet chocolate syrup is the best commercially-available chocolate syrup, especially if you’re making an egg cream with milk and seltzer water. Nothing else tastes right. Luckily most Publix stores carry Fox’s U-Bet chocolate in their kosher sections, but I had never seen the vanilla syrup for sale anywhere locally until noticing it at Pickles. Needless to say, I had to buy a bottle, and now my homemade vanilla egg cream game is strong.
Since the trip I photographed for this review, we used up this one bottle, and I returned to Pickles to buy three more. Imagine the deliciousness of a vanilla milkshake, only thinner, lightly carbonated, surprisingly helpful with digestion, and with much less guilt, and you’ve got it. This stuff has been a game-changer at Casa de Saboscrivner!

Just so you know, Pickles is open 8:00 to 4:00, Monday through Saturday. That means they aren’t open for dinner hours or on Sundays, and those are times when I tend to want their food the most. But go there when you can for a little slice of New York deli heaven right here in Seminole County, Florida.

The New York Adventure Part 5: Russ & Daughters Cafe

Russ & Daughters Cafe (http://www.russanddaughterscafe.com/) opened for business in 2014, but it still feels like a time capsule of old-school Jewish New York, particularly representative of the early 20th Century Lower East Side. And it should, because the original Russ & Daughters “appetizing store” is still going strong after opening over 100 years ago, in 1914. The sit-down cafe appropriately opened a full century later, with gleaming retro interiors, luxurious booths, and tantalizing displays, reminiscent of the original.

This was another pilgrimage for me. My wife and I have been to New York more than once before and even hung out in the Lower East Side, but never made it to the original Russ & Daughters storefront. The more accessible and comfortable Cafe didn’t even exist when we were last there for our honeymoon in 2009. So I studied the menu in advance, determined to do it right.

I started us out with two mini potato knishes, which came with some good deli mustard. I’m much more of a knish guy than my wife, and since I didn’t indulge in knishes at Ess-A-Bagel or Junior’s, I figured it was now or never. They did not disappoint. They were very soft, with a nice oniony flavor in the potato filling and a soft, yielding dough shell I could cut with the side of my fork. If you don’t know from knishes, those baked (or occasionally fried) pockets of dough stuffed with potatoes or other fillings, I highly recommend them, especially if you’re anything like me and sometimes crave a mustard delivery device. Publix has started carrying the Gabila’s brand in the frozen food section, and those are some of my favorites. But these were no slouches.

My wife ordered the Shtetl platter: an everything bagel with smoked sable, after I turned her onto it at Ess-A-Bagel. While she said it was all very good, the bagel was smaller than Ess-A, and they skimped on the sable. You can see the thin slices they served her, whereas Ess-A packed their much larger bagel with thicker slices and chunks of the good stuff. I ended up with all her tomatoes and onions, as well as the goat cream cheese, which was a little funky for her tastes, despite how much she loves goats. It wasn’t baaaaaaaaad.

As the self-proclaimed Dean of Sardines, I am also a lifelong fan of pickled herring. My family used to bring in bagels on Sunday mornings at our suburban Miami home, always with cream cheese, nova salmon, and a jar of Vita or Skansen brand pickled herring, and I have loved it ever since. The most common kinds that you can even buy at Publix are boneless herring fillets, shiny and silvery, either in a wine and vinegar sauce or a sour cream sauce, both sweetened and packed with onions. Definitely not something to serve or eat on a hot date, but way more delicious than they sound. I guess they would have to be, right?

I was overjoyed to order a sampler platter with four different kinds of pickled herring to try: regular pickled (along the top), roll-mops (two long, thin fillets wrapped around pickled onions), schmaltz (fat) herring on the bottom left (cured in salt and sugar), and matjes herring on the bottom right (mature schmaltz herring cured for a longer period of time, tinted red by sandalwood). The matjes herring was juicy but incredibly salty, sour, and tangy, even by pickled fish standards, and even by my own standards. It was a bit much — still worth trying, but I definitely wouldn’t order it again.
Anyway, the platter came with a mound of sweet, vinegary pickled onions, surprisingly tasty pickled beets, and a sprig of fresh dill.

But wait, there’s more! My herring platter also came with slices of soft, fresh-baked pumpernickel bread and three different dipping sauces: a creamy mustard sauce with dill (top), a thicker and sweeter mustard (left), and a sweet cream sauce (right). I cleaned my plate, eating everything as a careful ritual: tear off a piece of pump, dip one side lightly in one of the sauces, add a piece of fish (never mixing the different kinds), top with pickled onions, repeat. I think they brought just enough bread to cycle through all the different possible combinations and permutations. It was good pumpernickel, and I have been craving more ever since. In fact, I bought some upon returning home, but wouldn’t ya know it? It was better in New York. (Must be the water!)

We left with these delightful little coffee-flavored hard candies from the Netherlands, a nice alternative to a mint (although after eating all that fish, a mint might have been better for my breath).

Oh, here’s a bonus shot of the original Russ & Daughters appetizing store, the one that opened in 1914. It was a short walk from the much newer Cafe, and an even shorter walk from the equally legendary Katz’s Delicatessen (which is coming, Saboscrivnerinos!). I went inside just so I could have the experience, but it was a mad mob scene. I took a number — 446 — but they had only just called 404. There are no tables to eat anything there, and whatever I would have wanted to buy was perishable and would never have survived the voyage home, so I left empty-handed.

I was very sad that the timing of our New York adventure occurred before June 12th, the start of the New Catch Holland Herring season at Russ & Daughters. These are supposedly the best herrings in the world, and you eat them standing up, holding them by the tail and lowering them down into your mouth, like cartoon cats. Back in that more innocent time when it was cool to like Louis C.K., he brought Parker Posey to Russ & Daughters on a date in an episode of Louie, and they ate the New Catch Herrings together. Just like when he showcased Veselka on another episode of the show, I have wanted to go to there ever since. Mission accomplished!

The New York Adventure Part 1: Ess-A-Bagel

My wife and I are celebrating our TENTH wedding anniversary in October, and we both wanted to make a big thing of it by returning to New York City, where we spent our honeymoon in 2009. We haven’t had a chance to return in this entire last decade, but since my wife is a college professor and I’m also in academia, October is a pretty busy time for us, and it would be impossible to get away then. So we opted for a mid-May getaway, during the empty and quiet weeks between the spring and summer semesters, before New York starts to rival Florida’s heat and humidity. We also had some personal and professional milestones to celebrate, so the timing was right and the stars lined up for us. We planned to take in the sights, see shows, and eat like kings.

Just as we did on our honeymoon, we chose our hotel based on its proximity to the legendary Midtown Manhattan bagel restaurant Ess-A-Bagel (https://www.ess-a-bagel.com/), considered by many the best bagel shop in the bagel capital of the world (sorry, Montreal!). And wouldn’t you know it — we ended up reserving the exact same hotel, just under a different name and new management, ten years later. It was meant to be!

So here is where the magic happens, this hole-y site. I’m always taken aback by just how small and cramped many iconic New York restaurants and businesses are, and Ess-A-Bagel is no exception. You enter and automatically line up, make your way down the counter until someone calls you, place your entire order with them, pay at the end, and hope there’s a tiny table available for you by then.

Ess-A-Bagel boils and bakes some of the largest bagels I’ve ever seen, with all the classics represented: plain, sesame, onion, garlic, salt, everything, pumpernickel, and cinnamon raisin, among others. Here’s a gigantic everything bagel, which is our favorite — coated with sesame and poppy seeds, toasted onion and garlic, and coarse kosher salt crystals.

You have a ridiculous choice of cream cheese and tofu-based spreads, all made fresh in-house. This is like heaven. The choices are unlimited, but you cannot go wrong.

In addition to all the standard cream cheeses, Ess-A-Bagel has a large selection of smoked, cured, and pickled fish, all standard Jewish fare that accompanies bagels. Most people are familiar with nova salmon — sometimes referred to as lox, although most lox is MUCH saltier than the more familiar nova your basic brunch spot offers. It pairs so perfectly with cream cheese. But when you get out of Orlando, you have far more fishy options for your bagels, and these are everything to me: smoked whitefish salad, large golden smoked chubs (whitefish), pickled herring fillets in either a sweet wine-based sauce or a sour cream-based sauce (both with plenty of sweet pickled onions!), rich smoky sturgeon, and the finest of all the smoked, cured, and pickled fishies: buttery sable, which sounds far more appetizing than “black cod.” Sable is the finest thing you can eat, and here is an article I found with a recipe and more information about it, for the uninitiated. These are the foods of my people, and they fill me with such joy.

You also have a wide variety of tuna, salmon, and other seafood salads.

And some pasta salads, potato salad, cole slaw, and additional vegetarian options, sold by the pound to enjoy as sides.

You can also order bagel sandwiches with the sliced deli meats and cheeses of your choice, but it seemed pointless to me to come all the way to New York and Ess-A-Bagel for a turkey, roast beef, or ham and cheese sandwich. (Despite its traditional Jewish specialties, Ess-A-Bagel is not a kosher restaurant, and I’ve never kept kosher anyway.)

The day we left for New York, we woke up at 3:30 AM to catch our 6:30 AM flight, got caught in morning rush hour traffic from Queens to Manhattan, and made it to our hotel to find out our room wasn’t ready yet. At that point, it was 12:30 PM — nine hours since we got up, and we hadn’t eaten anything yet. So we walked to Ess-A-Bagel just in time to join the long lunch line, and by the time we got our food and snagged one of those aforementioned tiny tables, almost an hour after that, it didn’t occur to me to take any pictures. Mea culpa, although some long-suffering Saboscrivnerinos may be relieved.

That first day, my wife ordered a toasted and buttered everything bagel, with a quarter-pound side of whitefish salad on the side. I wanted a bialy, that lovely cross between a bagel and a roll (baked, but never boiled!) with an indentation in the middle for baked onions, but they didn’t have any left. (See this Food Republic article for some bialy background!) So I got an everything bagel with sun-dried tomato cream cheese and my sweet, sweet sable. I also ordered a huge, fluffy salt bagel to tear off chunks and scoop up a quarter-pound of smoked shrimp and crab salad that looked and sounded great, and tasted even better. Everything was magnificent. My wife had fond memories of an apple cinnamon muffin from our last visit a decade back, but that was crumbly and dry, failing to live up to her nostalgia the way the bagels and fish did.

Our second day in the city, we wanted to take it relatively easy and eat a light lunch in our room, in preparation for seeing a show that evening. I walked back to Ess-A-Bagel to bring everything back to our hotel, and that time I remembered to take some photos.

My wife tried my sable the previous day and understood what I had raved about on and off for the last ten years, so she asked for an everything bagel sandwich with sable (left), and I happily obliged. I decided to try something different: a bialy sandwich (finally!) with baked salmon salad (right), at once smoky and creamy, so it didn’t need a layer of cream cheese.

Here’s a half of my bialy sandwich, generously stuffed with the baked salmon salad:

And her sable bagel, with nice thick chunks of the buttery, rich fish to melt in our mouths:

That huge everything bagel I showed you earlier came from this second visit. I also got a quarter-pound of their smoked tuna spread to go with that, and it was another good choice. I grew up eating canned tuna, to the point where I was shocked the first time I ever encountered rich, deep purple raw tuna in sushi in my late teens. My wife doesn’t like the smell of canned tuna, and it’s high in mercury and unsustainable, so I haven’t bought or even ordered it in years (although I am a huge sardine aficionado, and those are super-healthy and super-sustainable). But trying smoked tuna seemed like a worthwhile move, and it was far better than any conventional tuna salad I’ve ever had before.

My wife also asked for a black and white cookie, that New York deli and bakery classic. These should be more cake-like than anything — thick and moist, never crunchy or crispy. This one was unique for having a slight lemony flavor to the yellow cookie/cake underneath the layer of black and white icing that reminds us “We’re not so different, you and I.”

And then we went to see Hamilton, and I think it tied with seeing Tom Waits in concert in 2006 as the greatest musical experience… no, greatest cultural experience of my life. I love American history, and I come by it naturally. My dad was an esteemed history and social studies teacher, and now I teach a class that incorporates some U.S. history too. Combine that with my deep loves of musical theater (encouraged by my wife, a former child and teen actress) and hip hop, and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s award-winning show always felt like it was made just for me. I have obsessed over the original cast album for over three years, so finally being able to see it (and in the greatest city in the world, no less!), being right there in the room where it happens, was awe-inspiring.

Like I said, we ate like kings over our few days in the City, so stay tuned over the next week (or let’s face it, probably longer) for more of our culinary New York Adventures, right here on The Saboscrivner!