Mort's NY Style Deli - Lancaster
I saw a recent mention of Mort's New York Style Deli in Lancaster and I'm wondering if anyone has been there. If so, how'd you like it? And, more importantly, is it REALLY a NY style deli, or is the name just a gimmick to get people in? I'm looking for great corned beef & pastrami sandwiches, sour/half-sour pickles on the tables, a good bowl of matzoh ball soup (okay, maybe not in today's heat), and a great potato knish. What are my chances of finding all that at Mort's?
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Just returned from a trip to Carlisle, Mechanicsburg, Landcaster with a family lunch at Mort's for seven adults and two children.
The two kids were so hungry upon arrival that they would have been happy with a frozen hotdog; however,of the adults we are talking about four who get to Katz's and Carnegie and Harold's deli at least several times each year. Sorry to admit that none of us found Mort's abpnywhere in the same league. Better than Subway.....yes. Better than Quiznos......yes. But on par with one if the top five NY or metropolitan delis.......sorry but not here in 2012!
Sorry as we wanted to find a great deli experience but maybe for the hinterlands thisis as good as it gets but not nearly good enough when youv'e seen Paris or NY
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re: cwdonald
Hate to sound like a spoiled primadonna about our meal at Morts but the food was not quite what we hungered for.
The storefront was clean, neat, and pretty new. The service was fine.....not quite the brusque attitude that you still encounter at some of the NYC delis but perfectly welcoming.
The kids were perfectly happy with hotdogs but didn't appreciate a shared potatoe salad. The adults concentrated on the holy grail of pastrami, corned beef, and chopped chicken livers. All of us had the fresh rye which was good; flavor and texture spot on but hand sliced a bit irregular in thickness affected the bite or chew.
Corned beef and pastrami were tepid at best. While more generous than a chain sandwich shop Mort's sandwiches were by no means the towers that you can share with spouse and a friend coming out of Katz's or Carnegie or the skyscraper coming out of Harold's.
Great Pastrami is haunting; hot, very juicy, fat soaking into the bread and the smell of pepper, coriander, mustard and pickling spices that can be enjoyed from across the room.
In fact my quintesential memory of great pastrami involved having a pre-theater pastrami at Katz's with a shared mountainof fries,,,,,the sandwich so huge that I could only manage to consume half; (spouse and couple friends in the same situation) so we head into Broadway theater for a matinee performance of Cats with a bunch of foil wrapped brown baggies stashed beneath our seats. By intermission, the phenomenal smell of still warm pastrami was wafting about for a dozen rows in all directions.....and we literally declined a bunch of offers from salivating theater goers to buy our leftovers. That haunting smell is a fundamental part of great pastrami.
I wish I could report that Mort's has that dimension. It doesn't. Hotter, fattier, juicier and more perfumed were the expectations that we found short.
Meanwhile the corned beef seemed a bit chewy and dry. Chopped chicken liver had very good flavor but a grainy texture that wasn't appreciated.
For me the rye bread was a highlight but doubt I would travel 150 miles for the bread.
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I haven't been. I did read the following story on the meats that they serve.. Hebrew National. That's fine for the franks, but I would want house made corned beef and pastrami.
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re: CindyJ
Cindy you might enjoy this latest coverage in the Inquirer about the restaurant. Only thing that struck me as odd was the description of the egg cream.. with real eggs. Thats a first for me.
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re: cwdonald
CindyJ
Jul 26, 2012 05:53 AM
"Rounding out the basics are egg creams made with the real deal, raw eggs"
HUH??? As one born and raised on the streets of Brooklyn, I'd say any attempt at NY authenticity just went out the window. Anyone familiar with the "real deal" knows that an egg cream contains neither eggs nor cream.
By the way, was that in today's Inquirer or only in the digital version? The food section of my paper was missing today.
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re: CindyJ
Actually, if you look at wikipedia, the original eggcreams from back in the 1800's had raw eggs. I believe that the recipie changed because of either the NYC food codes or fear of liability fromthe use of raw eggs.
Probably a taste no living New Yorker has tasted.
I will seek out Mort's the next time I return home to Lancaster County just to see what a 'real egg' egg cream taste like
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re: brookquarry
I find that explanation quite apocryphal. There is no citation for the assertion that egg creams used to have eggs. Sounds like pure speculation.
Regardless of whether it is true, if you want to create what is an authentic egg cream from modern standards, you use good seltzer, chilled whole milk, and good chocolate syrup. I really am not interested in having chocolate egg nog.
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re: brookquarry
CindyJ
Jul 27, 2012 06:51 AM
I've just looked through several of my NY-centric cookbooks ("New York City Food" by Arthur Schwartz; "2nd Ave. Deli Cookbook" by Sharon Lebewohl; "New York Cookbook" by Molly O'Neill; "The Brooklyn Cookbook" by Lyn Stallworth; "Welcome to Junior's" by Marvin and Walter Rosen) to see what they had to say about egg creams. While there are differences about the process of creating the drink -- some prefer to add the milk to the chocolate syrup, stir, then add seltzer; others prefer to add the chocolate syrup at the end, etc. -- there are two points that are made in each of these books: (1) an egg cream contains neither egg nor cream, and (2) the only ingredients in an egg cream are whole milk, seltzer and chocolate syrup, preferably Fox's U-Bet. It was a drink created in NYC, likely on the Lower East Side in the early 1900's, and was a staple at candy store soda fountains throughout New York's boroughs (with a large Brooklyn following).
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