Langer's Delicatessen-Restaurant

My world could wait no longer.

I had never been to Langer's. Some people would express shock when I would tell them this. Some people would simply command me: "You have to go."

But I never did. I knew I would probably like it, it was just one of those things I never had the motivation to do. I've never been to Hawaii. I've never seen any of the Lord of the Rings movies. I've never ice skated. I'm sure all those things are great, but I doubt I'll ever do any of them. I just don't care.

After a conversation with two friends - both lifelong Angelenos - who promised me I would love Langer's, I considered going for lunch a couple months ago on my birthday... but then the day came around and the idea of sitting at a sidewalk table at Green Street Tavern and wandering around Old Town sounded better.

But two things happened this week. Jonathan Gold, who has repeatedly stated that Langer's pastrami is probably the best in the country, wrote in the L.A. Weekly that he would choose Langer's to cater his funeral. (He was answering a reader's question; it's not as macabre a statement as it seems.)

That same day I wrote a post about Jack in the Box's "Pastrami Grilled Sandwich," a godawful brick of fat and rubber that can't possibly contain "only" 32 grams of fat, as their website claims. That post inspired several comments about pastrami (and relief pitching), including an offer from my friend Tim to take me to Langer's on Friday. It appeared I was out of excuses.

I received a few emails from strangers telling me what to order, what time to go, even where to sit in the restaurant. A good friend sent me a picture message of the sandwich he had at Langer's a year ago and called it "good, not great." Another friend shot me a text that their crinkle-cut fries are fantastic. (Although I knew there would be no way I would leave room for fries.)

We got down to Langer's, on 7th and Alverado, around 1 in the afternoon. I've driven through this part of town many times but I don't think I've walked around here in at least a dozen years, since the teenage years when my friends and I would come down here to get fake IDs made. There was a line of people out the door and down the street but Tim assured me it would move fast. And indeed it did; we only stood outside for about two minutes before the hostess told us that if we didn't mind eating at the counter we could go right in. We did not mind, not one bit.

The place is busy, no question about that. At any given time there are at least a dozen customers moving around, walking to tables, changing tables, getting food to go. A small army of cooks stand behind the counter, constantly cutting meat and plating food. The inside hums with the same vibe of every great diner I have ever set foot in, although as far as I could tell two topics were most common on this afternoon: what to do for Yom Kippur and what to do about the Dodgers.

The #19 is the best-seller here: pastrami, Swiss cheese, cole slaw and Russian dressing on Rye. I often like to ask the server what his or her favorite item on the menu is, knowing that just because something is the best-seller does not necessarily mean it's the best item. But that sandwich sounded really good so I ordered one. Tim ordered a pastrami on rye with nothing else.

"I got the #19 here once," he commented, "and I was scolded by my dining partner. So now I just get the pastrami. But really you can't go wrong with either sandwich."

The food was ready in just a few minutes. The waitress approached us with two plates, laying the pastrami-and-nothing-else in front of Tim.

"For the purist," she said.

So I received the other plate, the #19. I took a couple hasty pictures and took a bite. I would never call myself an authority on pastrami, but all it took was the first bite - encompassing a piece of the crispy crust and soft rye along with all the insides of the sandwich - for me to realize it was the best pastrami sandwich I have ever had. Thick and tender, juicy and peppery, it was one of the ten best sandwiches of my life.

The most common complaint I have read about Langer's is that their pastrami is too fatty. That is my number one pet peeve about pastrami and I am always quick to dismiss a sandwich when it contains too much fat, but this sandwich had very little of it.

Tim sawed off a piece of his sandwich and gave it to me. I squeezed a tiny amount of Gulden's mustard on it and took a bite. It was spectacular, too. I took another bite of my sandwich. Then ate the rest of the piece he'd given me. I could not decide which I liked more.

"That's amazing just by itself," I said.

"Sometimes less is more," Tim replied.

I finished off my sandwich. Part of me wanted to devour it as quickly as possible, as it was so wonderful. But part of me wanted to eat it slowly, savoring every bite. I reached a happy medium and was a little sad to see that last bite go. I picked up a pickle to take bite, revealing a hidden chunk of pastrami about the size of a dime. My heart leaped. I woke up on my 18th birthday to news that the Lakers had signed Shaq and the knowledge that I could now legally buy porn. I didn't think I could ever have a happier moment. But here it was. I ate that last piece of pastrami like it was the last morsel of food on Earth.

The total for both our sandwiches - and the Dr. Brown's black cherry soda that Tim drank - was 33 dollars and change. The second-most common complaint I hear about Langer's is that it is too expensive. It certainly isn't cheap. But too expensive? I would not call $15 too expensive for one of the best sandwiches I have ever eaten. Would I eat it every day if the option were available to me? Probably not; that would add up quickly. But for an occasional sandwich it is not too expensive.

Like I wrote earlier, while I love good pastrami, I would not call myself an expert. But I have been to Katz's and the Carnegie Deli in New York and Canter's here in Los Angeles, and this sandwich from Langer's was the best pastrami I have ever had.

Rubio's Crispy Shrimp Tacos

There are far too many foods I've come to love as an adult that I never would have considered even trying when I was young. I could spend the better part of an hour writing a list and it would still be incomplete: cilantro, red onion, peppers, roasted garlic, shallots, baby seal, chives, calamari, sushi, chutney, pickles... you get the idea. I believe there was a year or two where I refused to go to a restaurant unless it had fried cheese on the menu. (I often write comments that are self-deprecating exaggerations; that one was not.)

But there may not be any food whose refusal to try I regret more than fried seafood tacos. There is also no food whose refusal to try I can less explain: I loved fried seafood and I loved tacos. Why I never got around to combining them, I do not know.

Then, when I was 20 years old, I had one of my culinary epiphanies: a plate of fish tacos at the Lost Coast Brewery in Eureka - beer battered fish, fried up perfectly golden and crispy and washed down with a pitcher of Great White Beer. I became addicted to fried seafood tacos.

Years later my friend Tom and I took a weekend trip, cramming three minor league baseball games into 36 hours and eating fish tacos for every meal. What we found that weekend surprised me: Rubio's, the San Diego-based chain, served some of the best fish tacos I have had.

In the years since then I have eaten at Rubio's frequently, often trying their new promotions. A couple years back I tried their crispy shrimp tacos and thought they were outstanding, so when they reintroduced them a few weeks ago I thought I should take my camera and grab a couple.

There are two versions of the taco: the original, with a chipotle sauce, salsa fresca and shredded white cabbage, and the "Mango" version, with mango salsa and red and white cabbage. I got a two taco plate with one of each taco, chips and pinto beans. (I realized after the fact you can request rice instead of beans, something I would have much rather had.)

Looking back through this blog, I realize I wrote about the crispy shrimp tacos a couple years ago, when I'd tried them at a Rubio's in Riverside. Those tacos had been a disappointment, with only a few shrimp scattered in them. These tacos, however - at the Rubio's in the Paseo in Pasadena - were full of shrimp.

The shrimp were crispy and hot, just out of the fryer. Both tacos had nice flavors, but if I had to pick one of the two as my favorite I would choose the mango taco. The sweet flavor of mango was a nice play against the spicy sauce and the red cabbage was more flavorful than the white, which was all the original taco contained. But I would not hesitate to eat either of them again. They actually inspired me to make my own shrimp tacos. But more on that later...

Chili

Back in 1997, my dad and I went to the Los Angeles Grand Prix, one of those ideas that looked much better on paper than it actually was: racing vintage cars through the streets of downtown L.A. I may be wrong (and this is one of the few things in life about which Google is little help) but I don't think they ever held the event again after that first year. Certainly we did not return.

But that one day we went was a tremendous amount of fun. In the shadow of the MTA building was a concourse of Ferraris, the amount of which I have never seen before. There were fast cars racing around the (closed-down) streets. I ate a hot dog standing three feet away from an actor who starred in one of my three favorite movies of the 80s. I bought a t-shirt that I wore for years.

And the most indelible memory? An announcement over the loudspeaker that they were just about to start a live interview with Carroll Shelby. My dad lit up the way I do now when The Refreshments come on the radio. Or Saved By The Bell comes on TV. Or Twinkies go on sale at Ralph's. Okay... maybe I'm too easily excited. But my dad is not. He gets excited about two things: Die Hard on TV and UCLA scoring touchdowns. (One thing happens all the time; the other not so much.) But he was stoked to hear this interview with Carroll Shelby.

Now, I had heard of the Shelby Charger. But I had no idea that it was named after an actual person. My dad and I hung out and listened to the interview.

Yesterday was just a few days more than 13 years later and I was over at my parents' house, volunteering to keep an eye on their dog while they have their house painted, and I went by the butcher shop to buy stuff to make tacos. And what did I see but a box marked "Carroll Shelby's Chili Kit." Not knowing if it was the same guy (but guessing it probably was), I bought the box and some ground beef to go along with it. Later in the evening, when I got home to my place, I went about making it.

I browned the ground beef, drained the fat, and simmered it in water, tomato sauce, and the chili mix for a few minutes. In the interim I chopped up a giant sweet onion and a pasilla pepper and threw them in the slow cooker. I then added the meat.

A few hours later, Elizabeth, Tracie and I were sitting around watching a repeat of a television show, my second favorite show of all time. Starring that actor who stood three feet away from me at the Grand Prix just a few days more than 13 years ago. I spooned chili into three bowls, opened two beers, grabbed three handfuls of mozzarella cheese and threw one onto each bowl of chili. We all added a touch of sour cream and dug in.

I don't want to say it was the best chili I have ever had. But it probably was. Slow cooking it was key; the flavors melded together beautifully. Two of us had seconds. I took the leftover chili out of the slow cooker and put it in a bowl. It filled the bowl. It will probably be my lunch today. By the time you read this it may have been my breakfast.

Fast Food Review: Jack in the Box Pastrami Grilled Sandwich

Last month, when writing about Wienershnitzel's Bacon Ranch Chili Cheese Fries, I mentioned that I have a hard time understanding who comes up with these ideas. There is a flip side to that coin: the products that look great on paper but are screwed up in the execution.

I have no trouble understanding why Jack in the Box decided to add a pastrami version to their lineup of grilled sandwiches. I tried their "Deli Trio" sandwich a few months back and was pleasantly surprised. The dressing on it was a cloying, oily, fake-cheese tasting sauce that my dog wouldn't even eat, but the meats, and especially the toasted bread, were very good.

So when I heard about the pastrami sandwich, with pickles and "deli mustard," I knew I should give it a try. A pastrami sandwich when done properly is one of the great things in life: a salty, spicy, chewy affair. Small pieces of pastrami will fall out of the sandwich and ideally you will want to stab every last morsel with a fork and cram them into your mouth.

Conversely, a lousy pastrami sandwich is one of the great culinary letdowns. Anyone who has ordered a pastrami and received a fatty mess of rubbery beef on a soaked roll knows exactly what I'm talking about. A bad pastrami sandwich will fall apart faster than Jonathan Broxton in the 9th inning.

I certainly wasn't expecting greatness from Jack's sandwich, but I was hoping it would be just as good as the previous grilled sandwich I tried. It was not. It was, unfortunately, terrible. The meat was all shoveled into the center of the sandwich; the bites on the end contained no meat. Not that I was complaining, though, since the meat was as bad as any pastrami I have ever had. It was full of fat and as chewy as Big League Chew. (Except for the crispy burnt pieces that tasted like hair.) The pickles, cheese and mustard were decent, and the bread was once again very tasty. But that was small consolation.

If you want a sandwich at Jack in the Box, get one of the others. If you want a pastrami sandwich, go someplace else.

(I should add, however, that Jack and I are not really on the same page these days. Items of Jack's that I think are good - like the mini buffalo ranch chicken sandwiches, or the outstanding spicy chicken bites, or the best-thing-I-have-ever-had-at-a-fast-food-restaurant toasted ravioli - all disappear. While items I find terrible, like the mini sirloin burgers, really big chicken sandwich, and the horrible pita snacks all stick around.)

Tabasco Sweet & Spicy Sauce

I love Tabasco. Sure, I love other hot sauces, too. In my cupboard I have Tapatio, Valentina, Frank's, and Texas Champagne. But the Tabasco lineup of flavors all have their purposes: the chipotle is great on pizza, the green jalapeno is perfect for eggs, the garlic spices up anything, and even the habanero is a nice addition to the cloying sauces that accompany most frozen Asian appetizers.

So when I heard that Tabasco was coming out with a new flavor called Sweet & Spicy, I was very much looking forward to trying it. But here's the part I didn't count on: you can't get it in Southern California. I not only went to at least twenty stores to find it, I used a "product finder" on Tabasco's website, and the nearest available location was in Arizona.

But, since I was in New York in July, I was able to buy a bottle. And it was fantastic. It is much sweeter than any other Tabasco sauce, but that's the whole point: it's a blend of "Asian spices" with a touch of heat to it. I have read of people being disappointed with the sweetness of the sauce, but I was not. It is best to think of this as a hot sweet sauce, rather than a sweet hot sauce. If that makes any sense.

Shortly after buying it in New York I tried it on a slice of pizza and loved it. But I did not buy any more bottles. Because I am an idiot. So if anyone is looking for a present for me, you can order me a personalized one-gallon jug of the sauce right here. That should last me at least a few days.

Here is a rundown of just some of the things I tried the sauce on before it ran out:

Trader Joe's Tempura Chicken: I've written of the chicken before, tempura-battered, white meat chicken that is as good as you will get at most restaurants, for only a few dollars for a bag that is more than enough for two people. After making it for dinner one night, I tossed a few of the pieces in the Tabasco Sweet & Spicy sauce. It was the best tempura chicken I have ever had.

McNugget: Was this good? Yes. As good as McDonald's hot mustard sauce is on McNuggets? No. And not as good as the TJ's tempura chicken. But it had to be done.

Whole Foods mini dumplings: the Sweet & Spicy sauce did not taste bad with these - it would not taste bad if I tried to eat it on a baseball - but it really didn't complement the dumplings. This was a waste of the precious sauce.

Del Taco Chicken Soft Taco: Now we're talking. If Del Taco decided to make this a regular menu item, it would become legendary.

Cheese Quesadilla: Like the dumplings, the sauce didn't add anything. The quesadilla only had cheese in it; the gooeyness of it was the main taste and the sauce was lost. I wish I'd added some additional ingredients to play off the sauce.

Cheese Pizza: My friend Tracie was over one night and I was grilling up some pizzas. There was only a little bit of the sauce left and I wanted her to try it, so I figured what the hell, I will make a pizza with it. I emptied the last of the bottle onto the dough, topped it with mozzarella, and threw it on the pizza stone. In a few minutes I took it off the grill. It was great. Tracie agreed with me that the sauce is very good.