Pastrami Hunt

CA and I hit up DGS Delicatessen for lunch the other day.  I recently read this article in the Washington Post about the rise of deli meats, particularly pastrami, in the city and since then I have been craving the meaty goodness.  DGS was the closest of the bunch to the part of the city we needed to be in for other purposes so it won our patronage.   Bonus: it's on the Washingtonian 100 Best Restaurants List so we get to mark yet another restaurant off the list.

We were both very pleased with our meal.  It is incredibly rare that we both order the same thing in a restaurant - we like to order different items so we can try more stuff.  However, this time we both wanted the Pastrami Sandwich on Rye bread with House made Mustard.  Since DGS cures the meat, in house, for 8 days, it was a no brainer.  The sandwich was super tasty.  The meat had just enough fat still on it to make it nice and juicy.  My only complaint was that I felt like the bread could have been a little crispier and/or thicker.  However, I have to caveat that comment with my extreme aversion to wet bread and pre-made sandwiches.  The thought of a sandwich that was made more than 5 minutes before I ate it and some kind of liquid penetrating the bread rendering it soggy makes me gag.  You know those trays of sandwiches everyone orders for work lunches? - they're my worst nightmare.  Not that this was anything close to that, I would have just preferred a little more crunch to my Rye.  CA had no issues with the bread.

Look, I took a picture of my food.  The place was casual, so I wasn't too embarrassed.

In addition to the sammies, we ordered the Pickle Plate and a side of Fries with Roasted Garlic Yogurt to share.  The pickles were pretty darn good (although the ones we had recently at Woodberry Kitchen in Baltimore have them beat).  We couldn't identify all the veggies present but there were definitely cucumbers, carrots, an egg and we think Kohlrabi.  The carrots were my favorite with a bit of curry flavor.  I was also very happy with the fries.  They were perfectly crisp which is big deal for me.  Fries are potentially my favorite food (partly because of their association with ketchup), but I don't do soggy fries.  I actually get really grumpy when I order fries and they're not crispy because if I'm going to spend the calories, they better be good.  The yogurt sauce that came with them was a nice touch, although I did ask for ketchup and dipped equally.

Maybe we'll go on a pastrami rampage and try all five places in the article...

Julie