Langer's Delicatessen-Restaurant

• Cuisine(s): American, Deli, Jewish
  Hours: Mon-Sat 8am-4pm
  Price: $$
• Payment Types: MasterCard, Visa
  Features: Takeout, Catering, Kosher
  Serving: Breakfast, Dinner, Lunch
• Alcohol: Beer/Wine
  Reservations: Accepted, Not Necessary
  Parking: Lot Available, Validation Available

Description

In the course of the half-block walk from the Alvarado Red Line station to the old-line delicatessen Langer's, you will smell the food from a half-dozen Central American countries, pass within sight of Mexican street murals, and be offered the opportunity to buy fresh mangoes, counterfeit green cards and cut-rate cumbia compilations. Within the deli itself, you may wait for a table with customers speaking Spanish, Korean or Chiapan dialect, though probably not Yiddish. But bite into a Langer's pastrami sandwich: thick slices of hand-sliced meat, glistening with peppery fat, as dense and as smoky as Texas barbecue; thick-cut seeded corn rye, hot, crisp-crusted and soft inside, with a slightly sour tang that helps tame the richness of the meat; a dab of yellow mustard as important to the whole as a sushi master's wasabi. The fact is inescapable: Langer's serves the best pastrami sandwich in America, in a location perhaps better suited to a tamale merchant. Curbside service (call ahead). Validated lot parking (on corner of Westlake Ave. and Seventh St.) See full review.