The Rachel is a supernova of pastrami. Concentric circles implying the ever-expanding cosmos (waistband) and ripples of plasma that give birth to universes (burps).
The Reuben at Stein's Market & Deli, from structural and culinary standpoints, doesn't suck either. A friend in the know suggests the Kelly, so I'll have to venture that one next time.
Stein's is one of those New Orleans places that is not-New Orleans in nature - somewhere in this Mimmo Rotella masterpiece of a message wall is a sign that chuckles, "Wanna po-boy? Go somewhere else!" - but absorbed into the patois, bent around the curves of the city.
Take this exterior shot: I've been trying to be more conscious of my photo editing lately since I'm going to be teaching it in the fall and it is virtually impossible to get things lined up.
The whole experience is warped space-time, how you have to bend around the crowded aisles and are pretty much forced to brush against every single person in the place. How there isn;t enough seats at the two little tables and you are wondering how you are not going to get Russian dressing all over the car and then in a quiet whoosh, that one yahoo stretched out reading the paper moves on and you can sit in communal victory. And then they call your name and you brush against each one of these people back to the vanishing point where the sandwiches come out.
I"m getting busy on Gas Station Boudin, my next book about hole-in-the-wall South Louisiana restaurants. Holla atcha boy if you know a place I need to know about.
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