So we heard there was a new place in town serving New York style pastrami sammiches. (I spell it that way ‘cause that’s how we used to say it up there.) Growing up in New Jersey just across the George Washington Bridge from Manhattan, Deli food was a big part of life. I left there in the mid 70’s and have been disappointed by dozens of supposedly “NY Deli Style” sammiches since then. Usually, the pastrami or corned beef is what you would get from a supermarket deli, dry and shriveled, bereft of fat and flavor. Well, Eaglwish was a very welcome blast from the past! There was an article in the paper, I believe Sunday, 05 July, about the place so Irene and I went there on a whim today after running around town taking care of business. Honestly, I was prepared to be disappointed but kept an open mind. We perused the menu and I ordered a pastrami melt on rye and Irene ordered a corned beef on rye. The sammiches are made with meat sliced to order. The meat comes out of the steamer and is sliced, by hand – not machine, right in front of you. As the owner, Leo Estrada, is slicing that beautiful meat with a very long, very sharp knife, he flips a piece on a small plate and hands it over the counter to me. Oh, my was it good! Tender, juicy, – flavor that you will never find in a grocery store. Meat sliced about 1/8” thick and piled high on fresh rye bread with spicy mustard and topped with melted Swiss cheese. And when I say piled high, I mean high. I would guesstimate there was close to a pound of heavenly pastrami on that sammich. Irene’s Corned Beef was the same. She was offered some Russian dressing, another NY thing, which she declined and just stuck with the spicy brown mustard. Looking for a beverage, in the cooler I spotted Coke in a glass bottle with a paper label. Could it be?! I asked, “is that Mexican coke?”. It is! This is getting very close to an erotic experience for me. If you have never had Mexican Coke, well, you probably have if you are old enough. Back when you and I were younger so much younger, Coca Cola was made with real cane sugar. Somewhere along the line, around 40 years ago, they started using high fructose corn syrup instead of sugar, reportedly because it was cheaper. And regardless of what the Madison Avenue brigade tells you – it ain’t the same. In Mexico, they still make Coke with sugar. It tastes like Coke did when you were a kid. Try it, you will remember. And regular Coke will be forever ruined for you. Ces’t la vie. Anyway, for me, this was like going back in time sans the 88 mph Delorian. Irene had a bottle of Mango nectar. We sat down at the food court and went at it. There was no way either one of us was going to finish our sammich. But that’s OK, they had the forethought to provide a couple sheets of deli paper to wrap them up in and a bag to carry them. I finished every drop of my Mexican Coke.
The sammiches were fantastic. The atmosphere, well, it’s a food court. The prices – some may find them a bit high for lunch but keep reading. The tab for lunch, the sammiches, drinks, and a tip, was 55 bucks. However, Leo told us he is happy to make sammiches that are half and half. So we could have had a sammich that was pastrami on one side and corned beef on the other. That would cut the tab by about 40%, and still be plenty of food for most people, certainly for us. That would bring lunch down to $33. We spend more than that on breakfast pretty regularly. What you get at Eaglwish is well worth the money.
I hope the place succeeds. We rarely go to the mall. And from walking through it today it’s evident that we aren’t the only ones. There is a whole lot of emptiness there. I often use my hobby of trying to convince myself that I have a working understanding of quantum physics to come up with analogies for work-a-day situations. (Theoretical Physicist Richard Feynman is quoted as saying “If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don’t understand quantum mechanics.”) The comparison I would draw here is that of a hydrogen atom – one proton and one electron surrounded by a whole lot of nothing. I parked, of course, at the wrong end of the mall and thus had to walk through a good bit of it to get to the food court. The number of empty storefronts is remarkable. Food courts are usually supported by foot traffic from the stores in the mall. While we were eating, at about 1200 on a Monday, there were, counting us, eight people seated in the food court. Six were eating food from Eaglwish. I see lately the mall has become something of an event venue. I hope they can attract enough people to make the restaurant viable. Mr. Estrada told me they also have food trucks for catering. The article I read says he hopes to eventually open a full blown deli with a bakery. I hope he succeeds, and I suspect he will, just based on the conversation we had. He is driven.
Eaglwish is across from the theater, so maybe on date night go for dinner and a movie. Try the place. If you have had NY deli food you will not be disappointed. I can’t overstate how good the food is.
