Subway... eat, kvetch.

I should be flagellating myself for neglecting to tell you to take your Valentine to see chamber rockers Ethel at Symphony Space last night. Without my guidance, you probably just bought your honey a box of Whitman’s and one o’ them cruelty-packed tattooed guppies, didn’t ya? (Rolls eyes at imaginary readers’ imaginary bad behavior.) I hope to make up for it by reporting on Subway’s new Big Hot Pastrami Sub.

They perhaps need to look up the word ‘big,’ but this thing ain’t awful. It’s no Katz’s (a statement surely deserving of some “w’duh” award), and it was disappointingly skimpy (pastrami’s meant to be piled, can I get an amen?), but since the sad disappearance of Pastrami Queen last year, my ‘hood suffers a dearth of girth-enhancing deli meats, and I was curious to test drive this sandwich.

Sliced too thin and a bit fattier than I like, this misnomer of a sandwich won't have pastrami purists lining up. If they did, they’d likely pop a cap in the Subwaif’s neck upon hearing they don’t have rye. But the flavor was surprisingly pastrami-like, and the spicy mustard (they get points for “we recommend” -ing it) was good.


It ain’t the pastrami for your boy in the Ahhmy, but if you can’t get downtown or to the West Side, or even to Harold’s New York Deli in Edison, NJ (monstrous and greasy-delish), but you’re jonesin’ and need pastrami to jump through the phone, try the Big Hot Pastrami Sub. Besides, Subway’s counter crew is always entertaining.


<> <> <>

UPDATE: Thanks to the reader who wrote and hipped me to the fact that Pastrami Queen has now reopened a few blocks south of their old location, on East 78th and Lex. Seriously, it’s the most under-appreciated pastrami sandwich in Manhattan. But I’ll still dial up Subway when I’m in need of a soft, mild Meatball Parm on Italian Herb & Cheese bread. And an amusing excuse for not delivering. “It’s too cold!” I later learned that meant the delivery guy had a cold. “I have a family!”

I shall never know what that one meant.

No comments: