Utah, You Can Do Better Than This

Peach City Ice Cream
306 North Main St.
Brigham City, UT




Unfortunately, Utah isn’t exactly known for culinary creativity.

I mean, sure I’ve had some great Mexican at the Red Iguana in Salt Lake City. I enjoyed the heck out of the pizza at Red Rock Brewery. Devoured a decent burrito at Moab Brewery. Got a pretty awesome burger at Crown Burgers.

But when you think of Utah, does one unique delicacy or dish come to mind?

Hmmmm….

…thinking….

…um, no.

Nothing.

When Zagat did their celebrated 50 sandwiches in 50 states expose, every state was able to lay claim to some iconic must try specialty, whether it be Italian Beef in Illinois or the Hot Brown in Kentucky or the Lobster Roll in Maine.

So which sandwich did Zagat pick for Utah you might wonder?

Fry sauce.

Yeah. It’s a condiment.

Not a sandwich.

The best recommendation the foodie folks at Zagat could come up with is to try fry sauce at Artic Circle, a sprawling Western fast food chain that serves burgers and fish sandwiches.

That’s it? That's the best you can do, Utah?

Really?

Well, Suit757 can do better than that.

I was determined to find some local culinary specialty at a non-chain restaurant on my brief trip across northern Utah.

Unfortunately, my first choice of Maddox Drive-In in Perry was thwarted when I pulled up to an empty parking lot at 1pm on a Monday and found that most annoying of all neon signs fully illuminated: CLOSED.

So I texted a fellow Suit who grew up in the area.

He suggested Peach City Ice Cream up the road. However, he did add the caveat that he hadn’t been there since he was a kid.

Peach City Ice Cream is that kind of place. A local drive-in with booth, counter and car service that has been catering to generations of locals since 1937 -- and young families with rambunctious kids smearing ice cream cones all over their faces.

But Suit757 wasn’t there for dessert.

I was hungry.

I ordered the pastrami burger with that Utah-famous fry sauce, a side of onion rings and a “fresh lime”, which is a local soft drink made of…

…you guessed it…

…fresh squeezed limes.

Who knows, maybe my “fresh lime” would have turned out to be that quintessential Utah concoction that would have finally placed Utah on the Suits in Strange Places culinary map.

I kind of doubt it…but you never know.

And we never will.

My waitress never brought my “fresh lime.” Just Brigham City tap water.

Unfortunately, the burger was one of the most dried-out over-cooked slabs of beef I ever attempted to consume.

A terrible burger.

I suppose there are people out there who don’t like juicy, greasy burgers.

If you happen to be one of those people, I have two favors to ask you.

First of all, stop reading this blog.

Second, STOP ORDERING BURGERS. Because you are ruining it for the rest of us.

If a burger is not drippy and juicy, it is not worth eating.

Period.

The pastrami was okay. I mean, when isn’t pastrami okay?

But the only way I could even eat the dry hockey puck of a burger was to sacrifice my fry sauce designed to accompany my onion rings by dumping it on top of the pastrami burger.

Alright. So I know you are dying to know what this mysterious creative Utah exotica, fry sauce, is all about, right?

Are you ready?

Fry sauce is basically ketchup and mayonnaise mixed together.

Otherwise known in the other 49 states as Thousand Island dressing.

That’s it. This ketchup-mayonnaise condiment is the only unique Utah culinary creation anyone in the Beehive State has ever created.

Maybe these Mormons need to take up drinking to get the creative juices flowing a bit more.

All I can say is, Utah, you can do better than this.

Rating: Wouldn’t Wear Shirt if You Paid Me.

Big City Chaos on the Menu at the Carnegie Deli

 

Carnegie Deli
854 7th Ave.
New York, NY




Chaos. I’m not really a fan.

I deal with enough chaos in my life thanks to the collective criminal incompetence of America’s commercial aviation system.

I don’t particularly crave chaos for lunch.

But that’s what’s on the menu at Manhattan’s world famous Carnegie Deli.

The Carnegie is the perfect reflection of the city it calls home.

Intersections gridlocked with traffic.

Kamikaze turban-wearing cab drivers violently weaving through the city streets.

Sidewalks teaming with pedestrians.

A cacophony of every language known to man -- except English.

A nanny-state dictator for mayor telling us how much Coke we can drink.

A politician named Wiener who likes to email pictures of his wiener to college coeds -- and thinks this should qualify him to be mayor of America’s largest city.

Chaos.

It would be nice to step out of this big city chaos into an oasis of serenity -- if only for a brief lunch break.

If that’s what you are looking for, you might as well pass the Carnegie Deli by.

Chaos ensued as soon as I opened the front door.

In a narrow three foot wide entrance, dozens of customers are variously trying to get in, trying to get out, trying to pay their tab at the cash register, trying to order deli meat at the counter.

All I was trying to do was get a hostess to seat me.

“This way”, she barked to me and a family of seven in front of me.

Then she was gone. Weaving through the masses like a hot knife through tender pastrami.

“Am I supposed to follow her?”

The dining room was jam packed with tourists seated shoulder to shoulder on tiny little rickety chairs way too small for the supersized 21st Century diners who come to eat big at the Carnegie Deli.

Butt to butt, shoulder to shoulder, knee cap to knee cap with complete strangers all gorging themselves on massive quantities of deli meat.

When I finally caught up with the hostess, maneuvering so as not to whack anyone in the head with my brief case, she ordered me to sit at the table with the family of seven, in between a couple screaming kids.

“I don’t think so.”

Sometimes in the midst of chaos, you have to put your foot down.

“I’ll go back to the front and get back in line.”

Fortunately, that move scored me a slightly less chaotic seat crammed at a table with adult tourists and fellow business travelers.

No nonsense waiters take your order and almost instantaneously bring out plates of food piled ridiculously high as the tourist all “ooh” and “ahh”.

I couldn’t decide between corned beef or pastrami.

So I got both.

That would be the Woody Allen. Plus I asked for Swiss cheese and Russian dressing on the side -- two absolutely essential additions to any Jewish deli sandwich, in my humble opinion.

When my waiter plopped my Woody Allen in front of me, the oohs and ahhs turns to gasps of horror.

Two piles of meat each half a foot high teetered precariously, impaled with long sticks to hold it all together.

A couple slices of rye bread topped the mountain of beef, as irrelevant as a turn signal on a New York City cab.

The Woody Allen is a $25 culinary monstrosity, more than two pounds of corned beef and pastrami.

The tiny slices of bread make this a sandwich only in the sense that Suit757 is a marathon runner -- because I own a pair of sneakers.

It would be absurd to even consider picking it up and eating it like a sandwich.

But I can be stubborn about these things.

So I conducted a bit of sandwich surgery, attempting to gently remove about four of the six inches of sliced meat in the hopes that I might be able to eat what was left with my two hands and bread -- just like God intended.

The result was culinary chaos.

The tender meat just shredded into tiny pieces at the very touch of my fork.

The bread disintegrated under the onslaught of grease.

My ladling on of Russian dressing only contributed to the mess.

My waiter, looking disgusted, condescendingly threw me a few extra napkins to keep the chaos from spreading to my suit.

My table mate strangers just glanced in horror out of the corner of their eyes.

Eventually, I gave up on being stubborn and just attacked the pile of meat, cheese, dressing and bread remainders with my knife and fork like a civilized diner.

I have to say, while the Carnegie Deli may be known for the quantity of its food, the quality is outstanding too.

The corned beef was fatty and beyond tender. The pastrami peppery and hearty.

The top notch thick cut Swiss cheese broke up the meat monotony while the Russian dressing added a touch of spicy sweetness.

I surprised myself with how much of my Woody Allen I was able to consume. The meat is so light and tender, you can eat a lot more than you’d think.

In the end I ate almost the whole thing singlehandedly.

Now granted, I felt like I needed to go outside and lie down on the 7th Avenue sidewalk next to the bums and take a digestion nap.

The chaos of Manhattan was now replicating itself inside my stomach.

Meanwhile I was still facing a chaotic afternoon of two more meetings, a cab ride, three subway connections, a TSA fondling, a nine hour delay at JFK Airport and a flight home that touched down at 4:32am.

You know what?

The sliced meat at the Carnegie Deli may be fantastic, but Anthony Wiener can have the chaos of New York City.

Sometimes I'd rather just stay home.

Rating: Seriously Thought About Buying Shirt.

Spicing Things Up in Kansas

Porubsky’s Grocery
508 NE Sardou
Topeka, KS



Porubsky’s Grocery is the kind of place that makes being a Suit in a Strange place such a cool gig.

Located literally on the wrong side of the tracks, next to a rail yard, in a decidedly blue collar long-forgotten section of Topeka, Kansas, no self-respecting person would ever venture into this dive – unless there was something really special going on here.

And that, there is, my friend.

Homemade chili!

In fact, plenty of self-respecting folks do venture here every day to chow down on chili, freshly sliced cold cut sandwiches and Porubsky’s famous spicy pickles.

Porubsky’s is still a working grocery and deli where blue collar Topekans have been coming since 1947 to buy bologna, chips and pop – as they call it here in Kansas.

But on weekdays during lunch time, folks crowd into the bar/dining room next door where multiple generations of the Porubsky family serve multiple generations of loyal customers.

Fortunately, Suits in Strange Places like me are welcome too, especially after Porubsky’s has virtually gone Hollywood, with a locally produced PBS documentary being filmed about the joint. (On sale at the cash register, in case you’re interested.)

Yep. Porubsky’s lunch rush this day was a good mix of blue collar, white collar, regulars and out-of-towners. All looking for a steaming bowl of that famous chili.

Only available from October to March, Porubsky’s chili perfectly reflects its well-balanced Midwestern heritage. The beef, beans and spice are prudently balanced.

Just enough spice to perk up your taste buds but not enough to offend any delicate fly-over-country palates.

And the chili enjoys the ideal ratio of meat to beans. Just the right amount of everything. In every bite.

While there is nothing exotic or outlandish about it, I can see why Porubsky’s chili earns such wide-ranging accolades.

My pastrami and Swiss on rye was notable for its mammoth size. More than a fist full of paper thin sliced meat piled high, the sandwich was mercifully cut into halves.

Served cold, this pastrami sandwich isn’t going to make any New Yorker reminisce about Carnegie Deli or Katz’s, but it has a nice freshly sliced taste to it. And at $3.50, it’s about the best lunch bargain I’ve had in a month!

Piled high in the middle of my paper plate between my two towers of pastrami sandwich halves was a mound of Porubsky’s world renowned spicy pickles.

Marinated in horseradish, mustard and hot peppers, these pickles packed a wallop.

I’m not really a pickle guy, but I was a good sport about it and downed a few – just for you, my loyal Suits in Strange Places readers.

Considering this was the only meal I was going to get today amidst three meetings and eight hours of driving across the Kansas countryside, I considered myself lucky to have stumbled into such a genuine old fashioned outpost of good eats.

World famous chili and pickles. And enough pastrami to cater a small Jewish wedding. All for seven bucks.

Yep. This is a pretty cool gig.

Rating: Seriously Thought About Buying Shirt.

Witness the Power of Pastrami

Crown Burgers
2684 South 3200 West
Salt Lake City, UT





Sometimes you have to put in a little more effort to find unique, interesting things to eat.

Like when you are in Utah. The Beehive State is not exactly known for culinary creativity.

About the quirkiest thing you’ll find in Utah -- besides Jon Huntsman’s hair cut -- is “fry sauce.”

Now, don’t get too excited.

Fry sauce has nothing to do with novel uses for leftover fried chicken grease. That actually might be cool.

Nope. These crazy Mormons, who abstain from alcohol and caffeine, like to dip their French fries in a creamy pink sauce that suspiciously resembles Thousand Island Dressing.

Hey, work with me here.

I’m trying hard to find something interesting to write about in Utah. Not as easy as it sounds.

So in search of this crazy Mormon concoction they call fry sauce, I ventured out to Crown Burger, a local chain popular throughout SLC with burger aficionados.

The thing to get at Crown Burger is, well, the “Crown Burger,” a quarter pound patty buried under a two inch stack of thin-sliced pastrami.

Yes. You read that right. Pastrami on a burger. Brilliant!

Of course Crown Burger didn’t actually invent the “Crown Burger.” Like a lot of good ideas (and a whole lot more bad ones), the idea of piling pastrami on top of a burger probably originated in Southern California.

But who cares who gets credit?

This Crown Burger was great. Sure, the pastrami and the pile of lettuce, tomato, onion and cheese completely drowned out the taste of the burger. But if there is one thing that tastes better than flame broiled ground beef, it’s got to be pastrami.

The French fries were okay especially with a quick dip in that world famous fry sauce.

But you know what? The highest and best use of that fry sauce was as a condiment on my Crown Burger. Forget the fries. I poured that stuff all over my pile of pastrami.

And isn’t that what makes life worth living?

As we amble through this world searching for those things that bring meaning to each new day, sometimes we stumble into an experience that alters our very path of life.

That’s the power of pastrami.

Rating: Seriously Thought About Buying Shirt.