altered states
señor member
...without dripping mustard on fellow commuters.
Having happily and voluntarily banished myself to Staten Island several years ago, the one big bummer I encountered was a severe shortage of good, casual restaurants like I was used to in Manhattan and Brooklyn. There is good food here in the UnBorough, but usually you have to dress up (i.e., not stumble in with sneakers and t-shirt) and pay a lot for it. Yes, chain restaurants abound, but as we all know, chains are for prisons.
What you don't often get are surprises.
Yesterday I was returning a cable box in a godforsaken shopping center in the middle of the island, far from my funky North Shore nabe. Sorry if I'm offending anyone, but this place is why people make fun of Staten Island. It's right near the Mall - yes, the one directly across the street from recently-closed Fresh Kills (aka The Dump You Can See From Space). Traffic, ugliness, SUVs, bad hair, bad drivers, bad attitudes, and sprawl, sprawl sprawl. Fifteen minutes there made me want to gouge my eyes out.
...but I digress. After dealing with Time Warner Cable, we were starving, but didn't feel like waiting til we got back to our usual places in our own nabe. On a previous trip, I'd discovered Jade Garden in this same strip mall, a deeply weird, 60s-style Chinese restaurant with an overwhelming Tiki theme. Fun for a lark, but once we'd been there and gotten the post card we didn't feel the need to go back. Plus, we weren't in the mood for Chinese.
Nearby we saw the sign for Golden's Deli and figured it was worth a shot. Our other immediate options were the aforementioned Jade Garden, McDeath and Ruby Tuesdays, so it wasn't a tough decision. So we walk in and see... an actual 1940s subway car. Not a reproduction, mind you (I asked) - a real subway car. The deli that surrounds it is fairly large, with a small section of takeout seating on one side of the car and a larger dining room on the other. Basically it looks like a subway rammed through the back of the restaurant and stopped. The inside of the car has been refitted with cozy booths, and luckily we were there on an off hour so we had most of the place to ourselves.
Just as important, the food was GREAT. I had a pastrami sandwich, the GF a hot dog and a knish (shiksas... oy). All were on par with my beloved 2nd Ave. Deli and better than Katz's. (I could go into a long thing here about how properly-cooked pastrami doesn't need visible fat to taste good, but this post is long enough). Pickles were plentiful and fresh, and waitress was appropriately grumpy for a Jewish deli, without being schticky about it like at Carnegie.
For people in other boroughs or vistors to NYC, it's a really tough call. SI is the sticks to begin with, and this place is deep into the Island and you could take up half a day just getting there by public transport. However I think train maniacs who enjoy food in any way should absolutely just suck it up, take the Ferry and get on the bus, or drive and consider the $10 bridge toll a tithe to the gods of random weirdness. For others, perhaps a lunch detour while driving to/from Jersey? (Most people's excuse for having "visited" SI.) It's at most a 10 minute diversion off the SI Expressway (278).
As for me, I really can't believe it's taken me so long to find this place. I will be back often.
http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/3/28782/restaurant/New-York/Goldens-Deli-Staten-Island
Having happily and voluntarily banished myself to Staten Island several years ago, the one big bummer I encountered was a severe shortage of good, casual restaurants like I was used to in Manhattan and Brooklyn. There is good food here in the UnBorough, but usually you have to dress up (i.e., not stumble in with sneakers and t-shirt) and pay a lot for it. Yes, chain restaurants abound, but as we all know, chains are for prisons.
What you don't often get are surprises.
Yesterday I was returning a cable box in a godforsaken shopping center in the middle of the island, far from my funky North Shore nabe. Sorry if I'm offending anyone, but this place is why people make fun of Staten Island. It's right near the Mall - yes, the one directly across the street from recently-closed Fresh Kills (aka The Dump You Can See From Space). Traffic, ugliness, SUVs, bad hair, bad drivers, bad attitudes, and sprawl, sprawl sprawl. Fifteen minutes there made me want to gouge my eyes out.
...but I digress. After dealing with Time Warner Cable, we were starving, but didn't feel like waiting til we got back to our usual places in our own nabe. On a previous trip, I'd discovered Jade Garden in this same strip mall, a deeply weird, 60s-style Chinese restaurant with an overwhelming Tiki theme. Fun for a lark, but once we'd been there and gotten the post card we didn't feel the need to go back. Plus, we weren't in the mood for Chinese.
Nearby we saw the sign for Golden's Deli and figured it was worth a shot. Our other immediate options were the aforementioned Jade Garden, McDeath and Ruby Tuesdays, so it wasn't a tough decision. So we walk in and see... an actual 1940s subway car. Not a reproduction, mind you (I asked) - a real subway car. The deli that surrounds it is fairly large, with a small section of takeout seating on one side of the car and a larger dining room on the other. Basically it looks like a subway rammed through the back of the restaurant and stopped. The inside of the car has been refitted with cozy booths, and luckily we were there on an off hour so we had most of the place to ourselves.
Just as important, the food was GREAT. I had a pastrami sandwich, the GF a hot dog and a knish (shiksas... oy). All were on par with my beloved 2nd Ave. Deli and better than Katz's. (I could go into a long thing here about how properly-cooked pastrami doesn't need visible fat to taste good, but this post is long enough). Pickles were plentiful and fresh, and waitress was appropriately grumpy for a Jewish deli, without being schticky about it like at Carnegie.
For people in other boroughs or vistors to NYC, it's a really tough call. SI is the sticks to begin with, and this place is deep into the Island and you could take up half a day just getting there by public transport. However I think train maniacs who enjoy food in any way should absolutely just suck it up, take the Ferry and get on the bus, or drive and consider the $10 bridge toll a tithe to the gods of random weirdness. For others, perhaps a lunch detour while driving to/from Jersey? (Most people's excuse for having "visited" SI.) It's at most a 10 minute diversion off the SI Expressway (278).
As for me, I really can't believe it's taken me so long to find this place. I will be back often.
http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/3/28782/restaurant/New-York/Goldens-Deli-Staten-Island
