Day 5 - Sandwich of Champions

15:30
Just as we’re due to head home, our body clocks have adjusted. It’s ever thus, on these short, transatlantic jaunts. We’re still up and out in decent time, headed into Manhattan for half a day’s gallivanting. We start at Katz’s Delicatessen. I’ve been meaning to eat here since my first visit to New York back in the 90s, and Ali has has been dreaming of their sandwiches for the past 20 years.

The ordering process is part of the experience. There are 7 ‘cutters’ behind a counter, who make your sandwich. Behind each of them is a vast, heated chest, containing countless pastramis, slabs of corned beef, breasts of smoked turkey, briskets, and so on. I go for the all-time classic - pastrami on rye, with mustard and Swiss cheese. Vicki goes for a Reuben. Ali’s order is the same as mine, and Karin has a chicken salad sandwich. Pastrami has quite a lot of natural fat in it, which is part of what gives it its sensational flavour. If you want particularly fatty bits of pastrami, you ask for your sandwich to be juicy. My cutter grabs a fresh pastrami from behind him, and starts slicing thick slices. He pops a couple onto a small plate for me to snack on while he’s cutting. Folks (rightly) talk in hushed tones about the knife skills of a sushi chef, but the meat cutters here have got a skillset all of their own, and equally (to my view) impressive.

We find a table to park at while we eat. Holy shit - the sandwiches are sensational. The meat is rightly the star of the show, but the collective wouldn’t be nearly so impressive without the perfect bread, the right mustard, and the oozing cheese. It’s just an incredible combination of flavours and textures. I try a little of Vicki’s Reuben, and it’s also smashing. The corned beef has a *little* less flavour than the pastrami, but the Russian dressing is punchy, and the sauerkraut excellent. The sandwiches are BIG. Ali and reckon about 300g of meat per serve. We're certainly pretty well full by the time we finish. Ali has also bought a Celery Soda, which is a traditional accompaniment. It’s interesting - hints of sweetness, but with a savouriness that doubtless comes from the celery. If you blindfolded me, I’m not sure I’d have guessed it was celery flavoured, but it makes sense to know it is.

Last item on our list for the trip is a walk through Central Park. The weather is just about playing ball. There’s some light mizzle in the air, but no downpours expected. We enter the park at the South West corner. The supertall residential sky-scrapers we could see on Saturday from the top of the Rockefeller have their top floors shrouded in cloud. We make first for the building that was used as Sigourney Weaver / Rick Moranis’ apartment block in the original Ghostbusters movie. From there, it’s a very short amble to Tavern on the Green - also featured in the same movie. The views from Sheep Meadow to the South are quite something. We stop for a quick coffee, before heading up through Strawberry Fields to the Dakota building - home of John Lennon, and the building outside which he was so sadly murdered.

We’ve an hour before we need to head back to our apartment, so pop into Malachy’s - an Irish bar Vicks and I visited on our last New York trip. We spend a fun hour chatting away to the bar dude, who is maybe 70 odd, and who has some stories to tell about his many years working in the bar.

23:30
We pit-stop for 30 minutes at the apartment. A quick change of clothes, a freshen up. The drive out to JFK is much smoother than on arrival, and we’re dumped (technical term) at the terminal by 16:00. The security queue is a little lumpy, but not disastrously so. Airside, we find a bar in which to make a base camp, which is right next to our departure gate. A couple of hours pass in a haze of white wine (for me), and we board on time, a little before 19:00.

JFK is JFK, so we push back on time, but it’s a good 1/2 hour before we take off. Once airborne, the person in front of me once again reclines their chair to the max before we’re at cruising height. I no longer care. I had a burger in the airport, so I’m not hungry. I focus instead on Sauvignon Blanc.Meer informatie