Last Day in the East

Tuesday, on their last morning in NYC Plot and Duck met The Great PD on the lower east side for lunch at Katz's, completing the Big Apple Trifecta: Pastrami, Pizza and Bagels. These are fluid categories, to be sure, and Plotnik would accept other entrants into the Best Bagel category in particular, but any NY bagel is better than any other bagel, just as any East Coast pizza is better than any West Coast pizza. And Katz's is just Katz's. Year after year, since 1888, no other deli can match it.

There used to be a valid argument concerning the pastrami at the Second Avenue Deli, but then old Mr. Lebewohl was murdered by burglars in 1996 and they had to close his deli. Though Plotnik prefered Katz's even then, Ducknik was partial to the Second Avenue. Now even Duck says Katz's is the best. And it is.



Remember it's a West Coast guy who's telling you this. He's not one of these guys who thinks the world begins at the Hudson River and ends in Queens. At Katz's the counter guys toss you a few slices while you wait just to get your taste buds in gear and it's thick and tender, with enough fat for a burst of flavor and a crusty, almost burnt surface made from herbs and coriander seeds. Sure, it costs ya: $14.95 for a sandwich now and worth every cent.

Plot has already told you the best pizza in the world is at Di Fara's. But you never saw the photo. Here it is.



Plotnik had heard about Di Fara Pizza but never tasted it until this trip. Man. How do you take ingredients as simple as cheese and crust and tomato sauce and make it taste that good? And we're not talking about a velvet rope place with a line of hipsters three miles long waiting to get in. You'd pass this place a zillion times and never stop if you didn't know.



Not to slight Saint Plotniko: you cannot beat the tortillas from La Palma or the tacos at dozens of taquerias or the incomparable sourdough bread, and Shmalifornia cuisine/wine pairing has been adopted by the rest of the country for good reason: it tastes fantastic. Stiletto City has amazingly good sushi in Little Tokyo and entire blocks of fabulous Armenian and Thai and if you want a deep fried Twinkie you can always hit the boardwalk at Santa Cruz.

But here is where the rubber meets the road: Plotnik would stand in line for an hour in the rain waiting for the pizzeria to open and then wait another hour for it to come out of the oven. Happily. And he and Ducknik would schlep their heavy suitcases up and down countless subway stairways to get into Manhattan before their plane took off, just to split one Katz's pastrami on rye for lunch and take another on the plane for later.

He wouldn't work that hard for a loaf of sourdough or a spicy tuna roll.

(That meaty photo above was taken at seat 19-C on Virgin America VX95 JFK-SFO. The guy sitting next to Plotnik had thought he was pretty smart to order himself an airplane mystery meat sandwich and Plot waited 'til the guy was all done before he unwrapped his pastrami. You should have seen the look on Dude's face hahahahahaha.)

---

Plot and Duck are home now. Here is a word to the wise: If you ever want to have a great time, take a three year old to see dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum. Buy her a $4 chocolate chip cookie afterwards. Have her 'read' you Aladdin before you kiss her good night (she's memorized the whole danged story but pretends to read it and even turns the pages in the right places).

Tell her you'll miss her but come back really, really soon.

She got a bite on her finger and it was bothering her, but all you have to do is kiss it and that will make it all better.

When you get home, sit back and think about her laugh, and that will make you laugh too, and that will make everything all better.