We had high hopes when we walked in and felt completely out of place. Nearly everyone was Orthodox or at least male, and we were two gay guys and two women. We were on a quest for two things - a good pastrami on rye for lunch and knishes to take home to Orlando with us. We got neither.
First, we walked in and stood awkwardly at the counter, not sure if we ordered there and then it would be brought to us, ordered there and got it at the counter so we could then sit, or just sit. Eventually after trying to order at the counter, we were instructed to sit by a very soft-spoken waiter(?). He brought over a dish of coleslaw (which was amazing) and one of pickles (not my style), then we repeated the part of our order we tried to give at the counter and I attempted to order a tongue sandwich, only to find out they had none. Disappointment #1...I can get pastrami and corned beef easily in Florida, but tongue is hard to come by. I settled for the pastrami.
Sandwiches arrived, on plain white bread, even though we requested and were confirmed we'd get rye. Never had options for any cheese...I had dreams of high-piled deli sandwiches with toasted bread and I got a plain bread sandwich with a smattering of meat that was only half warm. It was tender, but had mediocre flavor. The closest thing I have to a Jewish deli near me is the TooJays Deli chain and their meat is 10x better. I paid $12 for a sandwich I could've made with better meat at my Orlando local grocery store for $6 and still had a bunch of bread and meat leftover.
We asked about knishes and no one seemed to know what we were talking about at first even though eventually I found them sitting in the front case. Eventually, we communicated that we noticed they did frozen meals packed specially for traveling home on planes or for shipping, and we wanted to know if they had frozen knishes that we could pack to bring back on the plane. The answer was no, only fresh, which was fine except the ones in the case looked nothing like what we were used to. They were round and looked like they were hollow in the middles of some.
Finished eating, we were again confused as to whether we pay at the front or got a bill, as some people were paying at the counter and others just handing their card to the waiter. After again trying to complete our transaction at the counter, we were told to just sit back down and wait. Eventually we got out check, paid, and left.
At no point were we given menus, and I later saw there were tons of options aside from sandwiches that I could've gotten (I missed out on matzoh ball soup!). I have no complaints that we were the odd table out, but it was apparent they didn't care to help us out much to enjoy our experience because they had enough (what I assume were) regulars to care about.
The rest of the food may be amazing, I'll never know. I should've gone with my gut instinct when I passed by this listing several Yelp searches earlier when looking for Jewish Delis and knishes. I was trying to go by proximity to where we were, and I learned my lesson that for quality and better service, I need to travel a bit farther to places with better ratings. read more