Stevens and Stevens fills us up with deli delights

[Robin Garr]

Stevens and Stevens fills us up with deli delights

The Woody Allen is a classic New York deli sandwich, peppery beef pastrami on rye bread, both made in-house.


By Robin Garr
LouisvilleHotBytes.com

Just about everyone likes a good New York deli, but judging from my mailbox, an awful lot of people around Louisville don’t know where to go to find one. Here’s the bad news: Purists, unfortunately, will have to drive 110 miles to nosh at Shapiro’s Deli in Indianapolis.

But if you’re not a stickler for 100 percent authenticity and are willing to be satisfied with consistent high quality in New Yorkish deli fare with a mix of Jewish and Italian traditions and a distinct Louisville accent, here’s your option: You can’t go wrong with Stevens and Stevens, the popular 30-year-old deli tucked into the back of Ditto’s Restaurant on Bardstown Road.

You can get pastrami or corned beef piled high on house-made wheat or rye here. You can get a Reuben! You can get hefty dill pickle spears. But you can also get ham, a delicacy unlikely to appear at a traditional Jewish deli. You can mix meat and dairy, another kosher no-no. And although you can have your deli sandwich on your choice of rye, wheat, white, french, challah, brioche, or ciabatta, I’m afraid you’ll go hungry waiting for a bagel or a bialy here.

Let’s not look on the down side. Stevens and Stevens is one excellent deli. I’m happy to drop in here and get my taste of almost-New York just about any time.

The menu is as extensive, featuring more than 60 deli sandwiches, many named after New York and Hollywood celebs from Henny Youngman, Seinfeld, and Spielberg to Dr. Zhivago, Joan of Arc, and the Phantom of the Opera! They’re subdivided by contents: corned beef, pastrami, turkey, ham, veggie and cheese, roast beef, chicken and fish, and that’s not even counting dozens of point-and-choose delights in the chilled salad and dessert cases.

Pricing is quite reasonable compared with a Gotham deli, too, with most of the sandwiches ranging in price from $4.25 (for hot grilled cheddar on your choice of bread) to $14.95 (for a couple of heavy-duty Reubens or the decidedly cross-cultural pastrami banh mi).

For an even better deal, do as we did and take advantage of the Pick Two special, which delivers half of a sandwich plus your choice of a soup, salad, or pasta dish for just $9.95. ...

Read the complete article on LouisvilleHotBytes,
http://www.louisvillehotbytes.com/stevens-stevens-deli

You'll also find this review in LEO Weekly's Food & Drink section today.
http://www.leoweekly.com/category/food-drink/

Stevens and Stevens Deli
1114 Bardstown Road
584-3354
http://stevensandstevensdeli.com
https://facebook.com/stevensandstevensdeli1

Good place. They even have matzo ball soup that is actually pretty decent. If I can get corned beer or pastrami on rye and matzo ball soup, I'm a happy camper.

[Robin Garr]

John, you're originally a New Jersey guy, aren't you? Metro NY, anyway? I am confident that you know your deli.

As a long-time deli maven (Cleveland and Chicago), I would tend more to term S&S a good sandwich place than a "deli!"

Two things just from your review:

1. You referenced the modest pricing for sandwiches. While that's true, it's tough to compare a $14.95 Reuben with 6 ounces or so of Pastrami to a $29.00 Reuben with 12-14 ounces! I think the overriding goal of a typical deli is to give every customer a heart attack within hours of eating, while at the same time having the meat so tasty and juicy that one can't stop after eating just a half!

2. You mentioned the pastrami being dry and needing mustard. A typical true deli slices hot meat, and the resulting sandwich is so juicy that an eater ends up wearing the drippings, and forget eating a pastrami or corned beef with a necktie! Yes, many add mustard and/or horseradish to enhance the experience, but it shouldn't be necessary.

Just a side note: in NYC, a "Woody Allen" is a corned beef and pastrami sandwich. It's pretty universal, at virtually all deli's!

It's just sad that this is the best we have in Louisville. A good sandwich, absolutely; a good Jewish-style deli, no way!

[Robin Garr]

Thanks, Andrew! This is why I was at pains to emphasize that Stevens & Stevens is not a NYC-style Jewish deli, by the way. But it may be enough for Louisville people. We lived in NYC for four years during the '90s, and I spent summers there as a teen-ager, so I know the city fairly well, and of course I've gone to delis. But I never really fell in love with delis or diners, sorry.

In fairness, I'd add that Carnegie and other tourist delis in Midtown expand on the model for shock value and instagrammable photos. But for what it's worth, here's a big Carnegie sandwich from The Google:

Carnegie Deli

Carnegie-deli.jpg (82.79 KiB) Viewed 2799 times

I hope you New York City food fans will get a chance to hit up Good Belly, a relatively new Jewish deli-inspired food truck.

https://www.instagram.com/goodbelly_ky/?hl=en

Still missing Ashkenaz, Bravermans and Rush Street Deli in Chicago.. had a giant blue haired waitress at Ashkenaz , that used to feed us Loyola boys and make us try stuff like tongue sandwiches "the only meat that tastes you while your tasting it". Loved that place. She always made sure finished everything on our plates. The Delis in Chicago are dwindling down now also ...
[url https://www.gothambagels.com/blog/a-bri ... hicago/url]
GG.

[Robin Garr]

I hope you New York City food fans will get a chance to hit up Good Belly, a relatively new Jewish deli-inspired food truck.

https://www.instagram.com/goodbelly_ky/?hl=en

Looking at the menu board image on their Insta, I'm going to say that pork belly and the Reuben with swiss aren't going to pass kosher muster. You're right, though, it looks NYC-style and good.

GoodBelly menu

GoodBelly.jpg (321.23 KiB) Viewed 2689 times

Sigh...I'm old enough to remember Greenwalds and Simons delis in Louisville.