Thank God for Giulia Mandel

I won’t pretend to be able to write food porn on the same level as Corey Mintz, but here it is… THE MASTER’S REVIEW OF CAPLANSKY’S DELICATESSAN, A SEARING EPIC OF SORTS. I suck at titles, let’s just get to it!

The scene – a recent evening, sometime between the departure of the dinner crowd and the roosting of the nighthawks. I, the Master, arrived at Caplansky’s accompanied by my sometime associate the Rani, a brilliant carnivore and woman of fine tastes. One of the smiley gents in white t-shirts seated us without much of a wait.

The décor – clean and shiny.

The washrooms – there are two. Let’s not dwell.

The service – very friendly and attentive. The Rani has a knack for discovering things she has in common with others. Sure enough, she and our server girl found they both possess the same dietary restrictions. A rapport was established. While they kibitzed about local bakeries, I drooled over the menu paper, but the choice had been made long before.

The order – This being our first visit, I had to begin this journey of gastronomenschery with the classic smoked meat sammy, medium, with a side of latkes. The Rani negotiated an order of matzoh ball soup without the matzoh balls, with a side of beef brisket. She does love her soup.

The wait – tolerable. We admired the clever adverts posted around the joint. The music was light background and not obtrusive. Our friendly server returned to our table to let us know the food was mere minutes away. Wot a teaze!! Our senses of expectation were heightened. At last, as promised, our dinners arrived…

The food – the Rani immediately dove into her soup with gusto, and was delighted. I slathered one side of rye with brown mustard and took the first tentative bite. Everything in the universe was immediately drowned out by the soaring notes of a klezmer orchestra at full throttle. I rocked and rolled. I heard KLEZMER! The Rani paused long enough to ask me how it was. It was DALASHOUS. Just enough pickle to cleanse the palate before diving back in for more of that yummy meat. It was not overly salty, just right. The latkes were nicely browned and went down tasty with apple sauce. Having finished the soup in one extended gulp, the Rani roared through her brisket. She came up for air long enough to remark, “This is a hearty meal.” Indeed!

The verdict – everything we had hoped for. The Rani and I are not ones for hype and we despise flavour-of-the-month hotspots. We demand not flash but quality! Mr. Caplansky and his crew served it up bigtime — our complements to all involved. We look forward to mowing through the entire menu.

A toast to staying power. L’chaim!

–the Master

Speaking of non-sequiturs that have nothing to do with Giulia Mandel (nice Italian/Jewish girl she must be), I stopped by the shop this afternoon (it’s been a while) for a sandwich and rather than get the fatty, I got the tongue instead.

Zane, man, our smoked meat may be excellent; the tongue is utterly outstanding.

My late mother, may she rest in peace, made a wonderful pickled tongue, which I grew up eating (hence, I have no aversion to eating it as many others might). Mate, what I tasted was an improvement on the original. I dunno if it’s your recipe or you just had an above-ordinary batch (the waitress seemed to think so), but this meat was exceptional. Very tender, faintly smoky, perfect kind of bite, vaguely pickley and (maybe most important?) it leaves you with much lighter feeling, afterwards, than does the smoked meat. There’s also the cachet of being able to order off-menu. In any event, my friend, I haven’t tasted a pickled tongue like that in years and years and years.

Be glad the tongue’s not listed on the menu. I suspect that if people knew how good it really was, you might find that all that money you spent on the new smoker to be a bit of a waste.