The Pastrami Joint, homeless
Steve Olek has loved deli culture his whole life. He grew up in Brooklyn, worked at Grabstein’s Deli in Canarsie. But he hasn’t loved the shift to commercial, packaged meats used by most delis. So in 2016, after several career switches, he and wife Lisa (also from Brooklyn) started making pastrami and corned beef from scratch in small batches. They sold it at the weekend-only Yellow Green Farmers Market near their Hollywood home. Business and buzz kept growing. They left the market last fall and opened a small brick-and-mortar in Miami in March.
The Pastrami Joint location was cumbersome, at the end of a remote block cut off by railroad tracks in Little River, but people found it. They got positive press, featured on Deco Drive on Ch. 7. It abruptly ended this week when a dispute with the landlord led to the eatery’s closure. The Oleks are considering their next move. For now, they’ll lead a nomadic existence of street fairs and festivals, including 5-9 p.m. Friday (July 12) at Peter Feldman Park, 310 NE Sixth St., Fort Lauderdale, and 5-10 p.m. Saturday (July 13) at Dania Beach City Hall, 300 W. Dania Beach Blvd.
When I visited the restaurant in late June, the place was quiet. Steve Olek told me the end was probably near, saying the landlord didn’t follow through on several promises. He said the facility lacked a grease trap and other equipment. He pulled out a beautiful-looking pastrami, bemoaning the cost and labor involved in producing it. He was breaking in a new smoker. He talked about how the big commercial producers buy up nearly all the navels, also known as the point, the premium fat-laced beef cut near the brisket that, when sliced, resembles bacon. He makes his pastrami with Angus brisket. “Who does this?” he says. “I have to be crazy.” Or devoted.
He took the spice-coated hunk of meat and nuked it in a microwave before slicing and assembling my sandwich. My heart sank. This was wrong, like cooking a dry-aged prime steak with a Bunsen burner. Why bother going through the painstaking curing, spicing and smoking process to finish like this? Pastrami should be finished by steaming or warming gently to soften the fat and bring out full flavor. Olek says short-duration microwaving is an effective way to “loosen the meat” before slicing.
We both seemed to know this space wasn’t going to work, charming as the small restaurant was with its counter seats, a cooler filled with Dr. Brown’s sodas and a sign asking, “Got Pastrami?”
The pastrami was good ($12 for a 6-ounce sandwich, $18 for 10 ounces), with proper color (more red than pink), subtle spice and smoke flavor, and ribbons of fat near the edges. Lisa’s matzo ball soup was excellent, a minimalist version with curative chicken broth, parsnips and carrots, and a heavenly light orb of fluffy matzo meal. The Pastrami Joint has real potential. It just needs a loving home.
Too Jay’s, multiple locations
Mention TooJay’s to deli mavens, and invariably they scrunch faces and intone, “Not a real New York deli.” But people keep going. And the chain keeps growing. It has sprouted from a single restaurant on the island of Palm Beach in 1981 to 30 Florida locations, with more on the way. TooJay’s was purchased by a New York private equity firm a few years back, and CEO Max Piet says the chain plans to add another 12 to 15 locations in Florida before venturing to other states.
TooJay’s blends the traditional (deli and appetizing counters where meats and smoked fish are sliced to order, a bakery case with good rugelach and black-and-white cookies) with modern touches (tablets for ordering and paying are on the way, potato pancakes topped with nova salmon and sour cream). It is more diner than deli, with breakfast, burgers and a wide range of entrees besides soups, sandwiches and salads.
I’ve eaten at the Plantation and Hallandale Beach locations in the past and when I visited the new Fort Lauderdale restaurant last month, I had the usual TooJay’s experience. It did its job. The matzo ball soup was fine, the tuna salad (made from white albacore and Hellman’s mayonnaise) was very good, and the machine-sliced hot pastrami (from Old World Provisions of Troy, N.Y.) was engineered for comfort and satisfaction, with processed, fat-laced pink ribbons that were juicy and had flavor that reminded me of the Brooklyn delis of my youth. The soup-and-⁄ -sandwich lunch was $9.99, a good value. My biggest complaint? A dill pickle that tasted as if it had come from a Vlassic jar. Very Midwestern. Feh, as my grandmother used to say. I griped about it to Piet during a phone interview.
When I arrived for an opening reception at the new Dania Pointe location this week, Piet greeted me with a full-sour New York pickle. Gotta like a chain with a sense of humor.
Soho Kosher Deli, Aventura
What do you get when you blend an Israeli-style hummus and falafel cafe with a New York deli counter? Something like Soho Kosher Deli, which opened last summer in an Aventura strip mall. The restaurant, an offshoot of a nearby kosher sushi restaurant that opened in 2016, is big and spacious and has a large salad bar in the middle of the dining room. The restaurant abides by Jewish dietary law (no cheese or dairy products mixed with meat) and observes the Jewish sabbath (closed Friday evenings and Saturdays).
The ownership is Israeli and much of the clientele seemed to be as well, with pitas, dips and salads more in evidence around the room than heavy, hearty deli meats. I stepped up and ordered a pastrami sandwich to go ($16). The kosher brisket, finished on site after being prepped and smoked by an outside purveyor, looked beautiful but I froze as the counterman started hand slicing with the grain, not against it. I should have stopped him, but my journalistic instincts to simply watch and let things happen kicked in.
The meat had good flavor, but the sandwich was so chewy it could have been labeled pastrami taffy. A shame. With a deli, proper training and the human element are just as important as the cow.
The Pastrami Joint, Facebook.com/ThePastramiJoint
TooJay’s, 2980 N. Federal Highway, Fort Lauderdale, and multiple locations, TooJay’s.com. Hours vary by location, Fort Lauderdale 7 a.m.-9 p.m. daily (until 10 p.m. Friday-Saturday).
Soho Kosher Deli, 19010 NE 29th Ave., Aventura, 305-931-8883, SohoKosherDeli.com, 11 a.m.-8 p.m Sunday, 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday-Wednesday, 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Thursday, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Friday, closed Saturdays.
1843 S. Federal Highway
Moore Road.
7410 W Boynton Beach Blvd.
Smoke BBQ, Boca Raton
At its best, pastrami should be warm and comforting and fatty. It should melt on the tongue like meat butter, with a proper punch from spiced edges and subtle smoke that perfumes the mouth like a kiss from a lover nestling by the fireplace. I didn’t have any bites like that in the last month.
I did have bites like that three years ago, when I first tasted Smoke BBQ’s pastrami at its Fort Lauderdale location. It was the closest I’ve come to New York’s Katz’s Deli in South Florida and I called it “the sandwich of my dreams.”
But Smoke BBQ, which opened a Boca Raton location last year and still has excellent ribs and brisket, has gotten inconsistent lately with pastrami. Original pastrami chef Mike Porcari left more than a year ago. Although the restaurant is still producing its product from start to finish at the Fort Lauderdale flagship and coowner Scott Kennedy says Smoke hasn’t changed any methods or recipes, the results seem different.
Circle
3055 E. Commercial Blvd.
Blvd.
Road
W. Atlantic Ave.