2nd Avenue Deli

After the 2nd Avenue Deli moved from 2nd Avenue to midtown east, I decided to trek on over and give it a try. The deli is now located on 33rd and 3rd (they moved because of a rent hike or something) Side note: I went with Chris when the restaurant first moved locations, so this took place quite a while ago. I’m trying to clean out my entire queue of pictures/posts, so some of these may be from a little bit ago.

When we arrived at the table, the waitress brought over lots of pickles, fried chicken skins, and cole slaw:

The full sour pickles were the best, then the cole slaw, then the half sour pickles, and my least favorite from the bunch were the fried chicken skins – they tasted like oily and crunchy pieces of fried paper.

Chris ordered the pastrami sandwich:

When we ordered the pastrami sandwich, the waitress asked if we wanted to order the lean pastrami sandwich instead of the regular option. We went with the regular pastrami sandwich to get the full 2nd Avenue Deli experience. The pastrami was loaded onto two small pieces of rye bread with a little mustard (similar to what they do at Carnegie Deli and Katz’s). The meat was a little overwhelming; why do you have to put SO MUCH MEAT on a sandwich? Can’t you just make a normal-sized sandwich that can actually fit into my mouth?!

I ordered their matzo ball soup:

The matzo ball soup came with noodles, one matzo ball, and some sliced carrots. The broth was very comforting, especially because it was very cold when we went AND I may or may not have been fighting a cold at the time.

At the end of our meals, the waitress brought along two free egg creams:

Egg creams don’t actually contain egg or cream; they’re made from seltzer water, milk, and chocolate syrup. You pour milk into a glass, then some very bubbly seltzer (it would probably be great with the Sodastream), and then add in chocolate syrup, which you stir in. I really disliked the drink when I first had one, but they kind of grow on you (although I would never seek one out).

2nd Avenue Deli’s matzo ball soup was definitely worth a visit, but nothing else on the menu intrigued me and the overall feel of the restaurant was a tad greasy.