Sarge's: A New York deli

A visit to an authentic delicatessen is a requirement for any well-rounded trip to New York City. Tourists in the mid-town/Times Square area may be satisfied with the shtick and excess of places like the Carnegie or Stage delis, but for my money Sarge’s, located in Manhattan’s Murray Hill neighborhood, is the undisputed champ.

Open 24/7, and with a full liquor license (a rarity in NY delis), Sarge’s offers a timeless deli experience. The establishment is a literal depiction of “Old School”, having operated in the same location since 1964. A tiered-display of pastries and decadent cakes greets customers. An adjacent meat counter offers take-out options for all of Sarge’s meats and side dishes. The opposite wall, behind the cashier, is a collection of autographed celebrity headshots that span the life of the restaurant and act as a walk down memory lane.

Though the kitchen itself is not considered kosher, as a full diner menu is offered, Sarge’s serves all of the favorites in the delicatessen/”Jewish Soul Food” lexicon. Traditional delicacies such as a nova lox platter and smoked whitefish appear on the breakfast menu. Knishes and kugel are available as side dishes, and there is ruggelach for dessert.

Start your lunch, dinner or late-night snack with a steaming bowl savory chicken broth, accompanied by a choice of rice, noodles or matzo-balls. Sandwich options are many and include everything from corned beef and salami, to chopped liver and tongue. Ingredients can be mixed, matched or combined, depending on personal tastes. Of note, Sarge’s is one of the last delis in New York to make their own pastrami on premises, and it shows. Their pastrami sandwich is a signature dish that stands out in a city full of competitors. An order of a single golden brown potato latke perfectly accompanies any sandwich and is easily big enough for two. Wash down the meal with a homemade Green River or chocolate egg cream, and momentary Zen can be achieved.

Sarge’s is a quintessential New York deli. Stick with the comfort food and you won’t go wrong. When a diner next to us ordered the “salmon filet”, we were certain that he was not from New York and fairly positive that he was not even from earth. This is one meal where you can be forgiven for telling your diet to go to hell.

Launch Pad Tip: You’ve landed late at Laguardia and you’re starving, but don’t want to settle for the $11 Toblerone in the hotel room honor bar. Have your taxi driver take the Queens-Midtown tunnel into Manhattan. You will emerge at 3rd Avenue and 37th Streets, less than a block from Sarge’s. Even with luggage, it’s just another short cab ride to your hotel.

Clean up on aisle 59th street

You won’t see piles of garbage on the street when you watch an episode of Seinfeld or a Woody Allen film, but when space is precious compromises must be made. This is by no means the fault of modern-day New Yorkers. By American standards, New York is an old city originally laid-out by planners who could never in their wildest dreams have imagined a metropolis of 8 million people. Building the city with a secondary web of service alleys never occurred to them, or was deemed impractical. As late as the mid-nineteenth century, Fredrick Law Olmstead was able to transform a 140 square-block swamp at what was then the northern end of Manhattan into the wonder that is Central Park, but by that point New York was developed too far for a retrofit.

If you’ve never been to New York, it is impossible to prepare yourself for the sight of garbage lining virtually every street in the city. Each night an armada of trucks set out to collect the refuse, but over the course of the day, truly heroic piles of seeping waste can accumulate on the curb. This takes some getting used to, particularly the first time you step around one of these temporary hills to enter that chic restaurant you read about in Zagat.

Yet, as the world “goes green”, New York might be a perfect example of what we truly face as a society. In Chicago, we have the luxury of filling our dumpsters and keeping our trash largely out of sight. In New York, every day is a visual lesson on how much we consume and discard. 5¢ refunds on glass bottles aside, recycling can only take us so far. As landfills reach capacity and new projects face opposition at every front (“not in my backyard”), how do we cut down on the amount of garbage we produce in our everyday lives?