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New York deli offers visitors a spice of life

North America » United States

By Marc Atchison

The staff at the Carnegie offers you big welcomes and sandwiches.

NEW YORK - It’s not even lunchtime and already the sidewalk outside the Carnegie deli is lined with patrons, mostly tourists, waiting to get a seat in the landmark restaurant at 55th and 7th.

The entrance is guarded by a man exhibiting the sensitivity of a drill sergeant – he shouts orders to an army of servers as they acrobatically weave about the cramped eatery balancing plates stacked high with food.

“How ya doing?” Sanford (Sandy) Levine asks a couple.

“Come here,” he orders and we follow him to a wall lined with black and white photographs of the many Hollywood and Broadway personalities who have eaten here.

The more famous of the stars are elevated to “sandwich” status by the restaurant, meaning certain sandwiches bear their names.

Levine, a fixture in the deli for decades, says the most famous sandwich is the Woody Allen, named after the diminutive actor/director who has visited the restaurant on many occasions.

“Susan will take care of you,” says Levine who tells a frail-looking woman with a heavy Bronx accent – she could be a character in one of Allen’s New York-based films - “these people will share a Woody Allen because they have to save room for our famous cheesecake.”

Susan, a wisecracking “70-something” who looks like she was an original staff member when the deli opened 30 years ago, arrives back at our shared long table a few minutes later with a sandwich stacked high with roast beef and pastrami. “My gawd! That sandwich is almost as tall as Woody Allen,” says our neighbor with the thick British accent.

We struggle to finish the mouthwatering oversized sandwich but we do manage to soak up the coleslaw Susan insisted must accompany a Woody Allen and which is now dripping down our chins. Time for the cheesecake, announces Susan who deposits a huge slice of golden cake crowned with large strawberries before our bulging eyes.

Patrons line up early to get a table at the famous deli.

The cheesecake lives up to its reputation as being the best our mouths have ever welcomed and we tell Susan we wish we could take some home.

“No problem. Take this to the front and they’ll wrap one up for you to go. We sell many cheesecakes and sandwiches for takeout – they even sell online,” says Susan rolling her eyes.

As we waddle back to the entrance, Sandy Levine peers over the crowd and shouts: “Have a great day and come back soon.” We tell him we might be back for desert after the Broadway show we planned to attend the next night.

“Good idea,” says Levine who tells us the deli is opened from 6:30 a.m. to 4 a.m. every day of the week.

“We close for an hour and a half so Susan can get her beauty sleep,” laughs Levine, well out of earshot of the feisty server.

We collect our cheesecake ($39.95), pay for our wonderful lunch and smile at the sign hanging near the exit that says: “Till we eat again.”

INFORMATION

- The Carnegie Deli is located at 854 7th Ave.

- It’s opened 7 days a week from 6:30 a.m. to 4 a.m.

- Average price of a meal is $25.

- Other sandwich suggestions that come highly recommended are: Tongue for the memories (tongue, corn beef, Swiss cheese); Nova of a Sunday (featuring Nova Scotia salmon); Fifty ways to love your liver (chopped liver garnished with a hard boiled egg); The egg and oy! (chicken salad).

- To order cheesecake for shipment to Canada, call 1-800-334-5606 or go online www.carnegiedeli.com

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