Pancer’s Circa 2012

What’s the deal with Jewish food on the west coast of this damn country?

Ok, I’m from Toronto Canada and I absolutely love food. I’m not a “foody” and you won’t find any shots of food on my Instagram but I certainly like to eat. And like a good Jewish boy, I like to eat my grandmother’s food and my mother’s food, but when I’m not being stuffed to the rim by those lovely ladies I tend to venture to some awesome restaurants.

When I was growing up there was a restaurant called “Pancer’s” not far from where I lived and I became a regular. $10.99 gave me a sizeable pastrami sandwich, a whole pickle, coleslaw and the best potato salad I’ve ever had. I’d also make my way to “Centre Street Deli” pretty often to get some Montreal smoked meat. The main difference between the two was that the Montreal smoked meat was served hot and the pastrami cold. Both sandwiches were carved thinly, and placed delicately on fresh rye in an almost ballerina style, with folds in the meat to stack it high. I’ve certainly made my way to Montreal to the famous “Schwartz’s” deli for some ‘true’ Montreal smoked meat, and I can confirm they also do it the right way.

So, when I began traveling in my youth I of course sought good meat sandwiches. To my pleasant surprise “Carnegie” stacks up nicely to Toronto meats and I was always a happy camper in NYC. When my Jewish parents became old and went to Florida I was pleasantly greeted with good meats there too. Seems like the east side of the U.S. understands what a damn sandwich is.

Alrighty lets shift gears into something else, the bagel. The damn bagel, the simplest thing in life that is just an absolutely quintessential part of my Judaism. In Toronto we have “What a bagel,””Gryfe’s,” and so many other incredible bagels that I cannot even decide most of the time. In Montreal, though the bagels are different, they certainly stack up nicely to Toronto’s with “St. Urbain,” and dozens of others I will not be naming right now. South Florida has absolutely no shortage of bagels, although they are certainly not the quality I expected considering the quantity of old angry Jewish people.

Well here’s why I’m writing this article. I moved to San Francisco recently and literally the last thing I ever thought of was deli and bagels. Jews live here and I therefore had the expectation that, like Florida, they will provide quality goods to paying customers. I was not only wrong, but my disappointment is so much that I had to write a medium post about it. LOL.

First of all, I literally had to bring bagels back with me from Miami during the holidays because I cannot find anything close to what I consider a bagel in this entire state. Worst of all, I have inquired with many west coast Jews I have met and they told me that it isn’t a California issue, it is a west side of the U.S. issue. This boggles my freaking mind; the bagel is a requirement in life. The way that I am rationing the 6 bagels I brought back from Florida is literally laughable. I feel like if I brought a Toronto bakery here every Jew in California would just be like “holy shit, this is what a bagel is?!”

Ok back to the meat issue. A sandwich is not, I repeat IS NOT, meat on bread. It IS however, delicately handled meat stacked properly onto quality bread. So far I have been to the three “best” delis in San Francisco and I am flabbergasted at what I’ve seen. I won’t name names because at this point I’ve realized its not just these three delis, its this entire fucking coast. The first one I went to was dry, expensive, and the meat was placed onto the bread by a clearly non-Jew, oh and they didn’t offer hot mustard, which sucks. The second one I went to, which according to all blogs is the “best” one, literally put three pieces of way too thickly cut pastrami slapped onto the bread like a chore. Thankfully I saw the Jew making it so I know it was true Jewish food. Truth is, this place had awesome rye (I didn’t see bagels to buy but I bet they would have been $1000 like this sandwich) and the meat was good but it certainly wasn’t plentiful and it certainly was too thick. The third place was riddled with the exact same issues as the second, and they put the mustard on for me! What the hell is that? I do mustard myself thank you very much. The saddest part of all of this is that I actually want to go back to place number three because it is the best of them and yet I still consider it horrible at my standards.

Just like the bagel I have confirmed that this is a huge, major, massive crisis that effects all Jews on the west side of the U.S. Don’t sit there with a smirk on your face thinking that I’m wrong and that this is how west coast people like it because I know for damn sure that I could show you the right way and you’d love it. I don’t want this hipster bullshit pastrami that is so expensive that I don’t even get enough to be full, I wanted a 95-year-old man to slice it thinly and passionately place it on the Rye, like a boss. I swear if it were legal I’d be shipping myself a steady supply of the good stuff.

Honestly, this side of the country needs to wake up and wake up fast otherwise I’m packing my shit and taking the next Air Canada flight back to bagel/pastrami heaven.

I hope this rant made you laugh, it was my intention, but I am still damn serious about this whole thing.