Families First at "2nd" on First
2nd Avenue Deli (UES) | 1442 1st Ave. (corner of 75th St.) | 212. 737.1700 | www.2ndavedeli.com |
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OKAY, "LONG...SHORT!" WHEN I was a senior in high school, I used to flirt with a very sweet, pretty, and cool Jewish girl—Janet, a junior from another high school. Always innocently, and always around the mutual friends we constantly hung out with. One day she invited me to a viewing party for the movie The Day After (about post-apocalyptic America) at her place. This party was to start at 7 pm, but none of our mutual friends ever showed up at a party on time, so I didn't get to her place until around 8:30.
I was met at her Park Avenue apartment door by her mother(!) who very kindly invited me in and ushered me to the dining room where, at the dining table, sat Janet and several other members of her immediate family (including her cousin who turned out to have been a classmate of mine at the time as well). There were no other of our mutual, social friends, and by this point, the family had just finished dinner and had begun to clear off the dishes from the table.
You can imagine my surprise and embarrassment, realizing that I had completely misread the point of this "party". Yet, as I stammered around the different ways I could apologize, every member of her family, including her parents and grandparents, went out of their way to make me feel right at home, reheating foods, washing plates, and feeding me a glorious meal, asking me often if there was anything else I needed ("More coffee? Another dessert?").
I went to a ritzy private school where almost half my classmates—and many of my friends from other private schools—were Jewish, and I have been fortunate enough to have experienced firsthand the almost grandiose quality of familial hospitality most of my childhood and often since then.
I was the family of a childhood Jewish friend of mine that first brought me to the original 2nd Avenue Deli—then located on 2nd and 10th Street—and since then have been brought up to love liverwurst and tongue and matzo ball soup.
Alas, the next thirty years or so since then have seen the family-run and -operated, "mom & pop" shops are going the way of the dinosaur (unfortunate analogy) as they've been swallowed up or stomped out by restaurant chains, franchises, or hit-or-miss celebrity-backed "experiments" that are lucky to survive staying open for eighteen months. The original fell victim in 2006.
So it was with great and relief and celebration (and not nearly enough fanfare) that after the 2nd Avenue Deli reopened just a few years ago in Murray Hill, that they've added an outpost right up here in Yorkville—personally apropos since most of the Jewish families who have had me over for dinner lived in this very neighborhood!
I excited set upon early this morning, opening day!
Inside, a decor of simple charm; spacious, homey, and inviting.
I took a seat at the counter, walking by the display counter of beautifully prepared foods and sitting where I could see the kitchen staff diligently turning out the first everythings from this particular location's menu.
I already knew what I would order; having walked by the too overcrowded Katz's Deli and many trips downtown, and being fed up with the bland meat from the much closer East Side Poultry, I would try the first Jewish delicatessen sandwich I ever had (and still today my favorite): a hot (fatty) pastrami and liverwurst on rye!
While that was being prepped, I was kindly provided a bowl of snappy and bright sour and half sour pickles (and a sour tomato), followed by a hearty, heartwarming, and flavorful potato soup, and joined by a Dr. Brown's Cream Soda over ice.
I didn't even get to the bottom of my soup cup by the time my sandwich arrived. It was a thing of beauty.
Finally! The pastrami teeming with flavor, and not just from its perfectly warmed and rendering fat, adding just the right amount of moisture to every bite. The lean folds highlighted the beef's natural earthiness and nuanced sweetness. The rye bread added aromatic hints, and the kicky, textured grain mustard made sure the every taste bud got something to enjoy. Joined by firm slices of liverwurst (and not that "spreadable" supermarket stuff)—finely-spiced to counter and yet accentuate its slight gaminess—, the sandwich hit on all levels for me.
And all belt buckle holes as well, as I, knowingly, prepared to take the second half of the sandwich home. But not before I was treated to—by members of the family that runs the place, all of whom I had met by this time—a sample of the roast turkey that had just come out of the oven, the house gravy, and some chopped liver.
As you can probably tell, the turkey was beautifully juicy yet firm, and the deep, rich gravy, layered with the flavors of at least two different meats, "was to die for!", to quote a Jewish friend's mom. The just short of fine ground of the chopped livers made it a perfect spread for a warm piece of slightly crusty bread.
Even my lovely waitress got into the act, serving me up a shot of a chocolate egg cream!
This level of hospitality cannot be taught at a culinary school; it is mentored and measured through generations of real families. Families who grew up with other families, loved their neighbors, and would go out of their way to make someone feel right at home. That kind of care and attention—if you're lucky—can also carry over into some really fine food, as is the case right now at the newest 2nd Avenue Deli, where everything is being served with love, finesse, a friendly salutation, and a smile.
Bun Apple Tea!
.kac.
2nd Avenue Deli (UES) | 1442 1st Ave. (corner of 75th St.) | 212. 737.1700 | www.2ndavedeli.com |
