It’s a swine of the times

October 16, 2009 Chuck art, Food, Los Angeles 4 Comments

A few weeks back Wesly and I met up with Mary, Steve and Diana at Langer’s Deli, which is widely recognized as having the best pastrami anywhere (and I even know some New York Jews who agree — let the arguing begin!). When we parked at their parking lot a block away, we saw the most bizarre mural painted on the building wall next to it.  For a few minutes we were scratching our heads and saying, “WTF?”

swine

Finally Steve was the one to get it. “It’s swine flu!”   We thought the snot streaming out of the pig’s nose was the killer touch.

On a less disgusting note, we did have absolutely fantastic pastrami as ever, thick and spicy and hand-cut, with the perfect amount of fat — just enough, and not too much.  (I already had a good picture from a previous visit, so I got lazy and didn’t take another one.)

There was one other picture I took while we were there, though.  Our dear friend Dave passed away in July, and we miss him terribly.  Dave loved Langer’s and we felt he should have been there, at least in some way.  So we bought several extra side orders of their kosher pickles, and spelled his name out:

dave-pickles

Then he was there.  We weren’t able to finish all those pickles, but it was worth it.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

4 Responses to “It’s a swine of the times”

  1. growler said:

    Oct 17, 09 at 6:45 pm

    Is that lettuce? And Thousand Island, or maybe Russian dressing? And CHEESE??? On a pastrami? Chuck, that is just wrong. It should be just pastrami and mustard on rye. If you want, you are allowed to put Swiss and Russian on a corned beef sammich. But lettuce has no place on a Jewish deal sammich.

    Also, you get about six times more pastrami at Katz’s Deli here in NYC. And the pickles are free (I like their half sours in particular, and when you ask they give you at least 5 or 6 spears.).

  2. Chuck said:

    Oct 17, 09 at 8:47 pm

    Lettuce?! Are you kidding me? That’s cole slaw! Cabbage! Eastern European, and Ashkenazi i would imagine. And of course, Russian dressing. As for the cheese, it is listed as one of the numbered choices on Langer’s menu, so as far as I’m concerned it’s legit. Your mileage, of course, may vary.

    That said, this was from a much older visit — these days I prefer just my pastrami on rye with mustard, as you said. So, is it legit now? 🙂

    At least I know better than to order it on white bread. I heard Milton Berle quoted on NPR the other day as having said, “Anytime someone orders a pastrami sandwich on white bread, somewhere a Jew dies.”

    I’ve heard that about Katz’s Deli, but honestly … what the frak do I need with six times more pastrami than this on a sandwich, unless I’m going to stuff it into a doggy bag and take it home and make six more pastrami sandwiches? This really was enough for me.

    We did get a bunch of free pickles, but not enough to spell Dave’s name properly.

  3. Ken Moorhead said:

    Oct 17, 09 at 8:51 pm

    Oh God, I’m drooling for that sammich. I need to hit up my local deli for some good eats and to restock on mustard.

  4. Jonathan said:

    Oct 17, 09 at 10:07 pm

    Hey, looking good. It takes a while to customize WordPress. But hey, in the end it is worth it. It still takes time to write and upload content. But at least you don’t have to write in HTML (although it helps to know). The site looks very clean. And thanks for the link. Still trying to get the London / Paris posts written.