Traveling Feast

A Facebook request for REUBEN RUN votes produced some fun commentary.

Heather Estridge and Amanda Hyman weighed in in favor of O’Doherty’s Irish Grille.

Heather: “Ok, so it’s been a while but I loved the Reuben at the Irish pub downtown, O’Doherty’s.”
Amanda: “I vote for O’Doherty’s too…I always order it when I go there!”

Amanda also added: “Latah Bistro makes a good one too.”

Next came Mr. Benson with a vote for the Wall Street Diner on the near northside:

Kevin: “Oh! The Wall Street Diner knows how to make a good one. Let me know if you need more “reviewers”. YUM!!”

Kelley Damon confesses to regular visits to the Elk Public House for her Reuben fix:

Kelley: “My vote is the Elk. I had at least 100 during my last pregnancy! Love those cravings.”

And Blythe Thimsen suggests a second possible Reuben rivalry in close proximity.  In Browne’s Addition the Elk and Cafe Marron go head-to-head across Cannon Street.  Blythe says that the Reuben at Chaps is also a contender, and this creates a parking lot sandwich smack-down between countrified Chaps and upscale Latah.

Blythe: “No need to continue the voting, I have the answer – it is at Chaps – (across from Latah Bistro)”

Any place else we need to consider?  We have seven sandwiches on the list thus far.

Today… halfway through an animated description of a disastrous Reuben experience… I realized I need to find the absolute best Reuben in Spokane.  To do this, I need your help.  Let me know what shop in town turns out your favorite Reuben.

The plan is the recruit 3-4 fellow testers and go on a REUBEN RUN at lunch in the near future.  At each place identified as having a respectable Reuben, we will split a sandwich, make notes, and then move on… testing the top 4-5 sandwiches in town back-to-back.  So I need to know where to go to find serious contenders.  You are also welcome to let me know if you want to join in.  I’ll take as many as fit in the van.

Here are the restaurants on the list so far:

• Cafe Marron in Browne’s Addition
• The Elk Public House in Browne’s Addition
• Hill’s Restaurant and Lounge downtown
• O’Doherty’s Irish Grille downtown

O’Doherty’s calls theirs a Holligan & Hannigan and notes that if you can only eat one sandwich in Spokane, this is the baby to try.  We’ll put that to the test.  Where else do we need to visit?

The place will remain nameless.  You can attempt to guess the spot if you want, but I hate ripping a restaurant by name without a pattern of bad food or horrid service.  I might make an exception for food poisoning, but today wasn’t a life or death moment so I’ll simply put it down as STRIKE ONE.

I ordered the Reuben.  My lunch companion said the house version had a loyal following and our server chimed in: claiming it was the best in town.  Curious… almost every place that puts a Reuben on the menu claims theirs is the best in town.  Note To Self: Do a Reuben run and hit all serious contenders the same day for a side-by-side comparison.

This one didn’t mess much with the formula other than to substitute thin-sliced grilled Pastrami for the original corned beef.  Standard was the Swiss cheese, sauerkraut, “our own 1000 Island dressing,” and thick slices of toasted rye.  $7.95 with bar fries, house made potato chips, green salad or coleslaw.

The problem was that what arrived wasn’t the Reuben at all, but the stripped-down sandwich one carriage return below the Reuben on the menu: a Hot Pastrami on Rye.  This baby sported the same meat, the same cheese, the same toasted rye, but no ‘kraut for kick and no dressing to ooze out between your fingers.  It took me several bites to confirm that this apparent lack wasn’t due to inconsistent application, but simply because there was no ‘kraut or dressing to be had.

If today’s visit had been for an official review, the mix-up probably would need to be mentioned.  Yet lunch was just lunch rather than a review so I simply called our server over to ask for an actual Reuben rather than the Hot Pastrami. I even felt cheerful about the confusion.  I wasn’t in a hurry, and this meant I would get my expected Reuben plus three bites of a decent Hot Pastrami for the price of the Reuben alone.

But it was not to be.

Our server promised to fix the problem, yet when she returned, it was with the same three-bites-short Hot Pastrami that had left the table seven minutes earlier.  If it is possible, the sandwich itself actually looked sheepish to be back: slightly repositioned with sauerkraut and dressing now under the hood.

Faux pas.  Big faux pas.  Big big faux pas.

Leave aside the fact that this was the one sandwich on the menu that could possibly be repackaged as an actual Reuben by adding the ‘kraut and the dressing.  I’ll grant you that, and even go so far as to say that I’d probably recycle a mistake like this at home.

But in a restaurant you just don’t do this if you expect people to come back.  Read Danny Meyers in his book on hospitality, Setting The Table, and you’ll discover that a mistake is actually an opportunity to shine.  Address a mistake with a little extra care and a restaurant can turn a customer into a regular.

But slapping a little sauerkraut and some 1000 Island on a half-eaten sandwich and sending it back out is anything but care.  It’s lazy and it felt somehow rude.  Even if the kitchen has used up the last of the pastrami and rye on my first sandwich… which is doubtful… they needed to at least ask if I’d like something else off the menu before recycling sandwich #1.

They didn’t, and what I’ll remember most about this place isn’t the decent Reuben, but the larger and disturbing fact that someone in that kitchen is lazy or stingy.  And while I don’t plan to post the name of the restaurant here with tonight’s saga of the recycled Reuben, I bet the story will come up in conversation when folks ask me about the place.  It will come up the same way I happen to mention getting food poisoning the last time I ate at the Italian place around the corner… the one claiming to be one of the top Italian destinations in the nation.

I know food costs are up these days, but today’s sandwich recycling was a stupid move even if the person who happened to get the retread entree wasn’t a restaurant critic. If you know of another spot for a formidable Reuben, let me know.