CORNED BEEF/PASTRAMI REVIEW: Pastrami Queen Midtown

My search for the best corned beef/pastrami in New York continues….

SADLY, PASTRAMI QUEEN MIDTOWN IS NOW CLOSED.

Since I have written this article, this location of Pastrami Queen has closed.

Call me old-fashioned but I think a Jewish deli should be just that. Old fashioned. Old musty booths, slightly dirty floors, waiters who look like they have been there for centuries. That’s part of the charm in my opinion.

That’s why the new location of Pastrami Queen seems a bit anachronistic. It’s inside a trendy hotel in Times Square, has colorful flowers on the wall, and the waiters are fresh-faced actor types. When my fried ordered coffee with milk, the waiter explained they were kosher and so offered oat milk instead. Seriously – oat milk!!

But just maybe this kind of modern reinvention is what we need to keep the Jewish deli alive.

With all my cynicism aside, the food and the new Pastrami Queen is just as good as it should be. It was actually better than my initial impression of the original location all those years ago.

Now I am not nearly as close to the corned beef/pastrami world as I was back then so I may be slightly easier to please today since I haven’t had one of these gutbomds in quite a while.

My combo sandwich was served overstuffed but not nearly as over-the-top as the presentation at some delis. It featured soft caraway-studded rye bread and two meals’ worth of meat. And that meat was served warm and had a buttery tender experience.

The corned beef was especially flavorful with a hint of rye sweetness somewhere in the pickling. I do still feel the pastrami could have featured a bit more pepper and smoke, but the restrained fattiness complimented the saltier meat nicely.

We also had a homemade baked knish which was as good as anything my grandmother might have made. The truth is I don’t think my grandmother ever made knishes. But these were good – fluffy with a browned puffy crust.

Despite my nostalgic yearnings for a Jewish deli that feels like a Jewish deli, this will have to do. It made me miss the dearly departed Edison Café but it is an inevitable modern sterile replacement with worthy food. Things could be a lot worse.

Does Pastrami Queen in Midtown have the best corned beef/pastrami in NYC? I’m not rating the ambiance here so for the meat sandwich alone, it’s a solid 8 out of 10 and will work for the tourists that are too scared to venture downtown or into Brooklyn.