A Tale of Two Reubens

[Jay's]


[Tremont's]

For my money, the best cultural reference to the Reuben sandwich, which is, besides the Primanti’s Pastrami & Cheese, the greatest sandwich of all time (and definitely the greatest widely-known standard sandwich form out there) comes from the movie Quiz Show.

Richard Goodwin, the kind-faced FCC investigator played by Rob Morrow, and quite obviously a Jew, is eating a Reuben in Charles Van Doren’s country club dining room. Van Doren (Ralph Fiennes), who is being fed the correct answers to the questions on a carefully-orchestrated TV quiz show, is the subject of Goodwin’s investigation into fraud in TV.

The tension between them is palpable, down to their very physically opposing appearances, but Goodwin breaks it by quipping, between mouthfuls, of the restaurant -- “they have the sandwich but there doesn't seem to be any Reubens.” It’s maybe the best veiled joke about anti-Semitism I’ve heard in a film, but I bring it up just for the purpose of pointing out—Hey, that’s always the way it goes, isn’t it? It’s how I imagine Italian guys feel when they try to get pizza in a place like Baltimore. The product is there, but where the hell is the schlemiel what’s supposed to have invented it, huh?

A few weeks ago I was covering the design competition for the University of Baltimore’s new law school building (at the UB student center, of course), listening to all these world-class architects like Moshe Safdie and Dominque Perrault, and it was all really interesting, but MAN was I hung over. A not-so-frequently-seen old friend had been in town the night before, we’d gone to trivia night at Max’s, yadda yadda yadda, I drank a lot. On a weeknight. So sue me.

My prescription, which worked amazingly well, was to go to Jay’s Carryout on Charles Street, and eat a big plate of grease, and when I saw the Reuben on the menu, I said why not? This was a surprisingly passable sandwich (it’s the top one in the photos), with not too oily corned beef and tart, probably store-brought Russian dressing. The best part about it was the kraut, though, which definitely was not canned, although I can’t imagine a grease hole like Jay’s making its own cabbage products. Boar’s Head, maybe? The main problem with it, however, and what kept it from being good, was the lack of what Henry Hong would call “uniform meat distribution.” This specimen did not have it. I was choking on monster-size bites of corned with very little of anything else in them, and dammit, I didn’t like it.

Then, a few days ago, I decided to test a theory put forth by my colleague “Brendarita” Kearney, that the Reuben at the Tremont Grand hotel’s deli, which is right next to our office, is the best sandwich in the city. Now I have to admit, this was a good sandwich. It was crisply toasted, not limp and damp like a lot of Reubens, and it had some fine quality meat in it. My qualm was with the kraut. Way too briny, not enough pure vegetable flavor. And it cost me like $7.95, and for that kind of money, why am I not eating an Attman’s Nosh on Rye?

Who knows? Not me.