Oy Vey!

(Jews met, and protested ELV)

Hell hath no fury like a deli lover scorned.

And scorned they were. And furious did they become.

And so it came to pass that they attempted to strike down upon me with great vengeance and furious anger.

And therein lies the tale.

Before we begin, let’s get two things straight: I love Jews, and their food. Especially their Ashkenazi-American-Jewish-deli food.

Even before I knew a rugelach from a gefilte, I was a lover of the Jewish culture.  I consider the Jewish faith to be the best, most sensible and loving of all religions.

If I were a religious man, I would be Jewish.

But some Jews have a problem: they wouldn’t know a great piece of pastrami if it bit them on their bialy.

And even if they don’t know their kashrut from their kreplach, boy do they have opinions.

And when you start splitting Talmudic hairs with them, you better gird your loins for a fight.

First some background. I’m an old deli aficionado, as my father (a Greek) was before me. I was practically raised in Ronnie’s in Orlando, Florida — which was a direct copy of Rascal’s and Wolfie’s in Miami Beach. And if you don’t think they knew from delis in Miami Beach back then, you’re a putz. Or at least a schlemiel.

From the 1970s through the 1990s whenever I was in New York, a stop at the Stage, 2nd Avenue, Carnegie or Katz’s was mandatory. When I was out west, you’d find me at Canter’s or Langer’s. In Chicago, it was Kaufman’s and in Montreal, Schwartz’s. I even remember at stellar experience at the Gotham Deli on 47th Street, in the heart of the Diamond District, back in the Eighties that might’ve been the best bagel I ever tasted….next to Barney Greengrass’s….which was second only to Schwartz’s…none of which held a candle to the sweet-sour little pumpernickel rolls (wrapped around tiny bits of melted onions) at the Ronnie’s of my youth.

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Most of those mentioned are now closed. In New York, Katz’s continues to hang on, but the the rest of them are history. On the west coast, the famous ones persevere against all odds. (There’s even been an infusion of new Jewish deli blood in L.A. with the opening of Wexler’s.) But in Miami Beach, where my deli education began, good Jewish food is harder to find these days than a heterosexual.

All of which is by way of establishing my bona fides for this type of food. I love it the way only a person raised with something can. The deep, rich, mahogany red of great pastrami pulses through my blood every bit as much as my matching hemoglobin. At various times of my life, if you had opened a vein, I’m sure it would’ve smelled like corned beef on rye.

Which is why I was excited when Canter’s decided to come back to Vegas and open a store in Tivoli Village. (Some may remember they had an outlet in the Treasure Island hotel that skedaddled some years ago.)  The original Canter’s on Fairfax Avenue in L.A. is an institution. Although I’ve always found its sandwiches a notch below Langer’s, I vastly preferred them to the so-so stuff at the celebrity-studded Nate ‘n Al. (Further proof, if any is needed, of the inverse relationship between great food and famous people.)

It all started with this opening salvo on my Facebook page: “There ought to be a line out the door at Canter’s Las Vegas. But I bet there’s a 20 minute wait for a table at Mimi’s and the Bagel Cafe – where everything comes out of a bag or a box.” (It was a poor choice of words, since deleted, as I’m sure everything at the Bagel Cafe does not come out of a box — it just tastes like it.)

It started out as a mild controversy, as one of my Facebook friends weighed in a statement,”The owner claims they make all of their food from scratch.”

To which I replied:

Really? They do their own baking? (It never smells or tastes like it.) Cure their own meat? Make their own bagels? (possible….then why do they look and taste like the bagels at dozens of places around town?) Do they slave over salmon? Nourish the nova from the time they fillet the fish? Roll out their own rye? Do they have a cadre of cooks in the back making everything from the tuna salad to the shredding potatoes for the latkes? Color me skeptical….Or perhaps we just have different definitions of what “making things from scratch” means…

Then it was on.

What started as a tickle of tendentiousness swelled into a raging river of retorts, ripostes and rejoinders.

The comments ranged from the thoughtful:

[Canter’s] is like a pop-up deli missing many of our major top food items.

Desserts and pastries better at Bagel Cafe; pastrami and corned beef better at Canter’s.

To the underwhelmed:

Service was excellent, pancakes were heavy and chewy….pastrami a bit dry to my liking.

To the absurdly hyperbolic:

The matzoh ball soup at Bagel Cafe is ten times better than that at Canter’s.

To complete disagreement:

I enjoy Bagel Cafe very much and didn’t agree with John Curtas.

To the totally disagreeable:

Canter’s is disgusting. (ELV note: Canter’s is not disgusting, and the person making the comment thinks the best Jewish deli in America is in Texas — because we all know how high the deli bar is set in Texas.)

Then I got a little arrogant and pushy (I know, quite a surprise) when responding to those trashing Canter’s:

Canter’s has the best bagels I’ve tasted in town. It doesn’t duplicate the magic of the original, but in Vegas — where we haven’t had a decent deli in 30 years — it’s as good as you’re going to get. And BTW: your friends (who say otherwise) probably don’t know anything about Jewish food.

Finally, after dozens of comments, I weighed in with what I thought would be the end of it:

Here’s the bottom line: Canter’s actually cooks and prepares all its own food. Bagel Cafe (where I had eaten many times over the years, and seen the Sysco trucks and viewed the purchased meats in the counter) tastes pre-made. To those of you who say, “[Canter’s] is not as good as….” – I leave you to your pre-packaged mediocrity.

Then it was really on. There were comments upon comments and threads within threads and it all became exhausting after a while. (In all, I think there were well over 200 comments — which is amazing considering that this web site (and my FB page) is lucky these days to a dozen people commenting about one of my reviews.

Many agreed with me that the Bagel Cafe is a mediocre deli experience at best. The real fressers in the threads pointed to how well steamed and hand-sliced Canter’s meat is. (Those busy defending their BC turf hardly ever articulated why anything there was superior in any way.)

For the record, I did give props to the chicken noodle soup at the Bagel Cafe. It’s about the only thing I’ve ever had there that impressed me.

My favorite comment was:

I’m ashamed to see some of my fellow Yidden don’t know from great pastrami and corned beef. We finally get a world-class place and people just kvetch. This is why we can’t have nice things. (This comment even included a link to David Sax’s “Save The Deli” – a book I doubt anyone associated with the Bagel Cafe has ever read.)

But then, a day later, things got really interesting when the Bagel Cafe itself started weighing in:

I am the owner of The Bagel Cafe. You must immediately take down your slanderous comments….we do, in fact make our food, in house, fresh daily. Shame on you.

To which I replied:

Please explain “make our own food fresh daily” – I’ve asked questions and I’m skeptical. If you actually: 1) do ALL your own baking; 2) cure your own meat and fish; 3) smoke your own pastrami; and 4) make all of your salads and soups from scratch; etc…I will not only apologize, I’ll come eat there.

His response:

Sir, you are not welcome at the Bagel Cafe…I will not continue to engage with you.

I also heard from the general manager of the BC who gave me the usual “We’ve been in business forever, everyone loves us, how dare you say anything bad about us blah blah blah…” — to which I responded with the same questions I posed to the owner. I even requested he send me pictures of all of the curing, smoking, and baking going on there, with my assurance that I would retract any comments that turned out to be untrue.

His response was to block me from any further conversation.

And so it continued…for days.

At one point, BC acolytes were purposefully posting bad reviews of Canter’s on Yelp to (I guess) try to enhance their reputation by besmirching another’s. Classy.

People went nuts accusing me of all sorts of things, but I never did get my questions answered to my satisfaction, and my satisfaction demands more than the owner and his relatives telling me, “We cook all our own food.”

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Bottom line: My three meals at Canter’s have been really really good. It has demonstrably better sandwiches, meat, cheesecake, bagels and fish than Bagel Cafe. (The coffee is also great, too.) If people don’t want to believe it, that’s their business.

Bottom line #2: Just because you like a place doesn’t mean it’s any good, and just because you’re born into a culture doesn’t mean you have a clue about quality. There are Italians all over America who swear by shitty Italian food, and Americans who wouldn’t know a good cheeseburger if it bit them on the bun.

The next time I want a corned beef sandwich, I’m heading to Canter’s. The rest of you, I leave to your mediocrity and this message:

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CANTER’S LAS VEGAS

330 S. Rampart Blvd. Suite 160

Las Vegas, NV 89145

702.444.0407

http://www.canterslv.com/canters-tivoli-village/

 

EAT IT OR BEAT IT on KNPR’s State of Nevada

Eat It or Beat It
AIR DATE: November 19, 2010

LISTEN TO M3U | DOWNLOAD MP3

Max Jacobson and John Curtas offer a list of five great young Las Vegas chefs to watch, and then in “Eat It or Beat It” they duel over Mi Peru, Carnegie Deli, and the Serbian restaurant Prince.

EAT IT OR BEAT IT
Mi Peru
1450 W. Horizon Ridge Pkwy
Henderson
702-220-4652

Carnegie Deli at The Mirage
3400 Las Vegas Blvd. S
702-791-7111

Prince
6795 W. Flamingo Rd. #A
Las Vegas
702-220-8322

Eat It or Beat It
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