Corned beef from the Sixth and Rye truck

[theyawns]

Was searching through the board to see if there were any reviews that agreed or disagreed with my assessment of the truck, and by golly, I didn't find anything. So here goes.

I'm a corned beef lover, and was really looking forward to trying out the corned beef sandwich from this truck.

When your lunch consists of exactly 4 ingredients - corned beef, mustard, rye bread, and dill pickle on the side - there is little room for error. Unfortunately, the Sixth and Rye folks used up every bit of that margin and then some. Starting with the least atrocious and working my way to the top -

The mustard was just fine. Good even. Not your typical deli mustard, so it was a little out of place on this sandwich. But I'd probably eat it on a hot dog with relish, if I could.

The pickle cost a dollar. It was a little bigger than my thumb. It was soft. And just tasted like a lot of vinegar. I prefer a crunchy, dilly, garlicky pickle.

The rye bread was stale. You serve sandwiches one day a week. There is absolutely no reason to not have fresh bread.

What laid between those two slices of stale bread was called corned beef but it would be hard to identify it as such if I hadn't ordered it. Its litany of wrong-doings should qualify it for crimes against humanity. (Ok, that's really harsh, but I'm leaving it in, well, because it sounds good.) It was so thinly sliced that it had no textural quality whatsoever, except... when you hit a piece of fat, it was inedibly chewy. Yes, I found myself actually having to pull pieces out of mouth once I realized I would choke if I swallowed what was in there. Corned beef ought to be tender and juicy. This was dry and rubbery. As for the flavor, there just really wasn't much of it. At least nothing that I would associate with a briny, spiced piece of brisket. The sandwich's saving grace was that there wasn't much of the mystery meat.

Maybe I caught them on a bad day, but I'm not sure I have it in me to even give them another shot. I've read enough reviews on yelp that resemble mine and talked to some other folks to simply forget and move on. It's too bad. Had really high expectations.

Next time it's back to Deli City or Wagshal's.

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Deli City Restaurant
2200 Bladensburg Rd NE, Washington, DC 20018

[monkeyrotica]

I'm inclined to take Yelp reviews with a grain of salt, but your experience does not seem like an isolated one.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/sixth-and-rye...

[Elyssa]

I disagree. I thought the sandwich (and the experience) at Sixth and Rye was good and a lot of fun. My only small problem was that by the time I got to the 2nd half of the sandwich it had been sitting there for some time and bread got soggy (they serve the corned beef warm and I think some of the drippings got on the bread). Soggy bread is yuck! But overall the taste was certainly there. My corned beef was thinly sliced but definitely not dry like theyawns claims.

Was it the best corned beef sandwich I've ever had? No. Was it good? Yes. Was it better than most things you can get in DC (with out leaving the burbs)? Hell yes!

Get the black and white cookie as well---that thing is delicious! And they serve Dr. Brown's cream soda...another plus on their end.

[Bob W]

Elyssa, have you tried the new location of Loeb's yet? (1712 Eye St.) I walked over with a colleague last week. I got a "Greenwich Village" -- corned beef and chopped liver.

Not that I eat deli more than once a month these days, but Loeb's certainly fills the bill.

+1 for Dr. Brown's.

[Elyssa]

I went there but got a turkey sandwich and wasn't all that impressed. But maybe I'll go back and try the corned beef.

[Bob W]

That sounds too healthy for Loeb's. 8<D Give it another shot!

[monkeyrotica]

There's an old joke... two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of 'em says, "Boy, the food at this place is really terrible." The other one says, "Yeah, I know; and such small portions."