About a month ago I spent a weekend with a few of my good friends in Montreal. We explored the city, went to museums, even spent a rambunctious evening watching the Stanley Cup in a crowded bar. But, as one might expect, I was focused on sampling the city's finest sandwiches.
The smoked meat sandwich at Schwartz's Delicatessen on Blvd. Saint-Laurent is one of the best sandwiches that Montreal has to offer. It is the quintessential Jewish deli staple: bountiful layers of smoked meat on top of rye bread. The meat is smoked for over a week in a blend of special spices, and the result is a succulent taste that rivals the pastrami on Rye at Katz's in Manhattan. I did have issues with the yellow mustard, however. I believe that such a high quality meat deserves a more grainy, textured mustard, or at least a mustard with a tangy flavor, like Dijon mustard. The mustard served at Schwartz's was watered-down and added nothing to the flavor of the sandwich. I expected better.
Overall though, the smoked meat sandwich at Schwartz's was delicious, and I highly recommend it to all future visitors of Montreal. I still prefer the pastrami on rye at Katz's, but at only $5.50 (Canadian) the Schwartz's sandwich is a much better value (a similar sandwich at Katz's runs for around $12).
One final note: The walls of Schwartz's, similar to those of many other famed, historic establishments, are covered with pictures of celebrities who at one point dined here. On Schwartz's website (http://www.schwartzsdeli.com), it emphasizes that celebrities like Celine Dion and Halle Berry once gorged themselves on these sandwiches.
My question is: Why should we really care? Is Halle Berry really more of an authority on jewish deli cuisine then the average Jew in Brooklyn? Celine Dion may bring me to tears with her beautiful singing, but is she really someone to be trusted on the subject of smoked meat? I'd be much more impressed if someone like Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto had endorsed the place; that guy's a culinary mastermind.
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