Festivus Gastronomicus
Review: Michael’s Deli
As part of Jen’s quest to completely deplete the city of Brookline of reuben sandwiches we stopped at Michael’s Deli in Coolidge Corner to take a bite out of the city’s remaining supply.
Michael’s Deli
256 Harvard St.
Brookline, MA 02446
(617) 738-3354
(map)
So we’ve spent a year looking at the huge sign that says the Phantom rated them best corned beef in Boston and it finally broke us. After all, the Phantom knows his corned beef and the city has a multitude corned beef establishments competing for the top spot.
Not only is Boston home to the IFOCE world championship corned beef and cabbage eating contest, the Catholic Church (famous for the support of heliocentrism into the 19th century) actually suspended the Lenten requirement of abstinence for eating beef on St. Patrick’s Day this year. The title of Greatest Corned Beef isn’t exactly used lightly in Boston.
Once you get through the doors, you know the food has got to be good. You see, people in Brookline have money (it’s where JFK was born) and they wouldn’t be supporting a dingy little establishment like this unless the food was damn tasty.
For god’s sake, once I got past the counter I almost slid out the backdoor the floor was so greasy. It was a veritable kosher slip and slide.
There was some real action behind the counter where they were putting together some fine looking sandwiches. Jen and I split a reuben full of some splendiferous corned beef. Next to pastrami, corned beef is definitely one of our favorite salted, cured meats.
The sandwhiches are gigantic! I suggest splitting the reuben with another person if you go to try Michael’s out. Failure to do so may result in other types of splitting. That monster in the picture below is just one half of a full-sized sandwich.
So the corned beef really is amazing. Very beefy, very corn-ed. It’s moist and not so salty you need to order more root beer.
However, what really impressed me about the sandwhich is that they could rely on the tastiness of the corned beef alone, skimp on the rest of the sandwich, and it would be a great sandwich. Instead they serve up amazing sauerkraut, rich homemade Russian dressing, and some of the finest pumpernickel bread I’ve ever had. The bread really held together all the way until the end, even in the face of the many juices within. Bravo.
Full disclosure: Jen elected to substitute cheddar for the traditional swiss cheese. For the purists who noticed.
As you can see from Jen’s personal moment with the reuben, they definitely earned the sign out front.
Another fun part of visiting a deli in the Jewish part of town is that, if you’re a gentile, you can learn a lot by eavesdropping on other patrons during your visit to Michael’s. I learned all about celebrating Jewish New Years (Rosh Hashanah)- valuable info what with the High Holidays coming up.