San Francisco's Deli Board
An ode to pastrami – the most sensual of all cured meats
The navel of a cow (aka the belly), once was considered to be a fatty, undesirable cut of meat. In the 19th century, poor Romanian-Jewish immigrants who had settled in New York City introduced a method of making those cheaper meats taste better and last longer. And, at some point in the late 1800s, they decided to apply this method to the cut of beef that was from the navel. Pastrami was born.
Famously referred to as the most sensual of all the cured meats, the name pastrami comes from the Romanian word “pastramă,” conjugation of the Romanian verb a păstra meaning "to preserve food for a long duration." And that’s basically what the pastrami-making process, which can take days or even weeks, does. At-home recipes have you submerging a big hunk of the meat (4-5 pounds) in a brine of kosher salt and other spices for about five days. Then you remove it from the brine, lather it with another dry spice mixture and bake it for 4-5 hours (one hour per pound of meat). Then it’s ready to eat. Smokey, fat-slicked and coated with spices, the flavor is obscenely decadent. People have said that pastrami is to beef what bacon is to pork. And you know how people feel about bacon.
The world-renowned Katz Deli in New York, which has survived for nearly 135 years largely on the deliciousness of its pastrami sandwiches, has a much more elaborate method. They cure the beef for 2-4 weeks, smoking it in an apartment-sized smoker, boiling it, and giving it a little 15-minute steam bath before serving. Their Instagram feed basically has two kinds of photos: 1) the external facade of the deli at different times of the day and year and 2) massive $25 sandwiches literally heaving hot, juicy pastrami at the camera. Piled as high as at least three open mouths, this is what Billy Crystal was having during Meg Ryan’s famous “I’ll have what she’s having,” fake orgasm scene in “When Harry Met Sally.” And it is heavily featured in the 2015 documentary, “Deli Man,” which was about the history and struggle of running Jewish delicatessens in New York. It’s no wonder the pastrami sandwich has its own national holiday (January 14th, mark it!).
The best pastrami sandwich in San Francisco
Not everyone here in Fogland can skip over to Manhattan every time they crave a pastrami sandwich. But you CAN stop in at Deli Board, a SoMa fixture for 12 years now, which has become locally famous for its “Romanian Pastrami.” According to the owner, Adam Mesnik, the “Romanian” descriptor is just a way of emphasizing that the pastrami is made from the beef plate – or navel – and not from some other cut like brisket or round (which, I’m guessing, is verboten for traditionalists). I supposed he could also have called it Lithuanian Pastrami since the first pastrami on rye was technically made by a Lithuanian immigrant in NYC. But I digress.
I heard about Adam’s “Cincinnati-style” deli from a nice chap I met on Lunchclub, Nish, who is also an SF restaurant investor (Foreign Cinema, Blue Barn) and was a longtime Brand Director at Yelp. Nish interviewed Adam for his Substack, “In Search of Lost Answers.” A good read.
When Nish and I had lunch recently, we got to talking about delicatessens (naturally) and he made a good point that directly relates to Deli Board. Part of what makes a good delicatessen, he said, is the experience. And a big part of that experience is the personality of the person or people behind that counter. Adam is a great example of that. Honest, upbeat and friendly (if not outright gregarious), Adam is the perfect person you want interfacing with customers. His presence is part of the allure of Deli Board and his passion for the food business comes through loud and clear.
When my son Luka and I showed up to Deli Board and put our order in, we stepped off to the side to wait next to an open table by the front door. Adam popped out and placed a container of cheddar-topped chili and a plate of his famous waffle fries down on the open table. Then he started snapping pictures of a fry being dipped into the cheesy chili. I struck up a conversation with him and he offered the fries and chili to Luka and me while we waited. Super generous… and it was delicious. The thick, gooey chili featured superfine ground beef and a faint hint of cinnamon. The waffle fries were solid and the perfect chili-delivery system - as you can see from his photo.
The sandwiches… and there are a lot of them
There are few sandwiches in the Bay Area that can get away with breaking the $20 barrier (Saul’s in Berkeley is the only other joint I’ve seen charging that). Deli Board has 15 outstanding, oversized sandwich combinations that range from $17 (veggie) to $21. It’s a lot to choose from and everything sounds legit delicious. Adam started cooking at the age of 3 or 4 and claims to have a binder at home full of awesome sandwich recipes that he had collected over the years.
In all fairness, the sandwiches were quite huge. Luka ordered the Carzle - a nice fat juicy number with Romanian pastrami, brisket, provolone, cherry peppers, pickles, coleslaw, and Board sauce (their house sauce) on a garlic french roll. I ordered the Allison, which Adam commended me on, featuring the Romanian pastrami along with corned beef, cheddar, provolone, pepperoncini blend, coleslaw, 1000 island, and "ole brown" mustard. The meats on both sandwiches were shredded pretty fine to allow the flavors to mingle a little. I imagine it also allowed the sandwich maker to be more exact with the portions. But what do I know.
Luka was in heaven. I was enthralled. Though, if I have any criticism it was that there could have been more pepperoncini to help balance out all of the meats. I’m also not sure how I feel about mixing meats in sandwiches. That’s an awful lot going on. Still deciding.
Adam hung around to chat us up a little bit - giving me lots of material for this post. Much of what he delivers at Deli Board is consistent with the culinary tradition that he grew up with in Cincinatti. The shop he started there in SoMa was originally more geared toward catering. He claimed that he’d been doing sometimes 300 sandwiches a day through the catering arm and another 250 at retail. Luka did some quick math and estimated that Adam was pulling in $10K per day. I don’t know if that’s true and I don’t care to check the math, but it was a lot. Too much, it seems. Adam actually appreciated the slowdown that came with switching his focus almost entirely to retail. He also didn’t mind what Covid had done to the business as that made it more manageable for him. He seemed to like the volume he has now and felt like he was in a good groove. Well, except for the crime.
The, uhhh, neighborhood.
As you know, San Francisco is in a bit of a crime rut right now (on account of not enforcing laws - funny how that works) and this part of SoMA is especially dicey. Adam was robbed just last month, and he’s not far from Tony Baloney’s delicatessen whose owner was attacked and beaten in her own shop. Adam was quoted as saying, “San Francisco is so broken, it needs Batman.” Luckily, his fans came to the rescue, helping to raise more than $14,000 on GoFundMe. Another restaurant owner even lent him a Square reader. He was able to reopen quickly.
THAT, my friends, is the power of pastrami and personality. 1058 Folsom…check it out.
Loved this one, well obviously!