pastrami – Michael Eats

Tasty Sandwiches at The Carbon Snack Bar

Published on November 8, 2025 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 460 King Street West, Toronto
Website: https://thecarbonsnackbar.ca/

I’ll admit that when I walked into The Carbon Snack Bar — a casual, take-out version of The Carbon Bar around King and Spadina — I almost walked out. All the sandwiches are pre-made and sitting behind glass looking sad and clammy, and I thought, well, nuts to this.

But hey, I’m here, so… sure, why not? I went with the pastrami on rye (“Thin-sliced pastrami, pommery aioli, pickles, sauerkraut, rye”) which the woman behind the counter popped into an oven of some sort to heat up.

I don’t know what kind of magic that oven was doing; it couldn’t have been in there for longer than a couple of minutes or so, and yet it came out fully warmed through and toasty on its exterior.

It’s a quality sandwich. It’s a bit more heavily-topped than I normally prefer for pastrami (with good quality smoked meat like this, all you really need is a bit of mustard), but I can’t deny that it’s tasty. It’s got a nice richness from the meat and the cheese that’s cut nicely by the pickles and sauerkraut, with an extra punch of flavour from the zingy, garlicky aioli.

As for the pastrami, it’s tender, well-spiced, and has a noticeable smoky flavour. I wish that they served a simpler sandwich with the stuff, but this one is tasty enough that I can’t complain (too much, at least).

Quality Pastrami at Linny’s Luncheonette

Published on May 18, 2025May 18, 2025 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 174 Ossington Avenue, Toronto
Website: https://linnysluncheonette.com/

Whenever there’s a new deli specializing in pastrami or Montreal smoked meat, I sit up and take notice. We have a handful of quality restaurants like this in the GTA, but not nearly enough. There should be one on every block, and there’s what? Like maybe five or six?

The menu here is extremely simple. They serve pastrami, a couple of other sandwiches, and a few sides. It’s also take-out only, so if you don’t get one of the two small picnic tables out front, too bad. Take your food and walk.

The pastrami is quite tasty. The spicing on the meat is weirdly restrained, though, which dials down the flavour and holds the sandwich back from greatness. But otherwise, everything here is exactly where it should be, with thick, hand-cut slices of ultra-tender beef on perfectly-fresh rye bread with just the right amount of mustard (I find a lot of places tend to over-mustard their sandwiches, overwhelming the beef, but here it’s just right).

I will say that although the borderline bland spicing is a bummer, the meat has a distinctly smoky flavour that goes a long way towards mitigating this. And it’s still a great sandwich — it’s just that everything else about it is so stellar that its lack of seasoning stands out more than it would otherwise.

I also got a side order of the coleslaw, which is a great zippy counterpoint to the very heavy sandwich (albeit a little too heavy on the onions for my personal preferences).

Tasty Deli Sandwiches at Rose and Sons

Published on March 20, 2018 by Michael Nusair1 Comment

If you were lucky enough to try Caplansky’s at its original digs in the Monarch Tavern, then you’ll know that it was truly something special. One of the things that made their smoked meat stand out was its intensely smoky flavour. This was greatly diminished once they moved to their permanent location and had to start making the meat in greater quantities (and of course, in a sad turn of events, Caplansky’s is now gone altogether).

Well, it looks like Torontonians craving that unique smokiness now have somewhere to go, because Rose and Sons was recently transformed into an old-school deli, and they’re serving up pastrami with a distinctively smoky flavour.

It’s actually quite good — I got the hot pastrami sandwich, and my only real complaint is that the meat should have been a bit fattier (they called it medium, but it was much closer to lean).

That’s an easy fix, though: I’ll ask for it fatty the next time I go, because there’s definitely going to be a next time. It’s a great sandwich, with perfectly thick slices of tender, smoky, nicely spiced pastrami.

I also tried the potato and onion knish, which didn’t fare quite as well. I think this might have been the second or third knish I’ve had in my entire life, so it’s possible that I’m just not a fan — but this was dry pastry encasing bland, crumbly potatoes with a slightly oniony flavour. It desperately needed a gravy or some kind of sauce, or really anything to give it just a little bit of moisture (not to mention flavour). I didn’t care for it.

Zelden’s Deli & Desserts

Published on March 6, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1446 Yonge Street, Toronto
Website: http://zeldensdelianddesserts.com/

I’d have a pretty hard time narrowing down a top five list of my favourite dishes, but certainly, deli sandwiches — pastrami, smoked meat, etc. — would be on there. There are few things in life more satisfying than a really good deli sandwich.

Zelden’s is the new kid in town in the Toronto deli scene (such as it is), so obviously I had to give them a shot.

Their specialty is pastrami, and the sandwich comes piled high with meat. The mustard’s on the side, which is correct. It’s always better when you get to apply it yourself, because a lot of places tend to slather it on in gobs, which completely overpowers the meat.

It’s a very good sandwich, but sadly, not great. The meat has a good proportion of fat, and the spicing is perfect — it has a satisfying peppery kick that doesn’t overwhelm. But the meat probably needed to cook for another hour or so. Some slices were okay; others were rubbery. You know that thing where you can’t quite bite through the meat in a sandwich, and it pulls out from the bread? Yeah.

I also wish the meat were sliced by hand instead of by machine, because I find that the thicker, slightly irregular slices of hand-cut pastrami tend to be more satisfying. But then again, in this case the meat was so tough that it really needed to be sliced as thinly as possible. It probably should have been thinner.

It’s a shame, because it otherwise seemed like top-notch pastrami, so I’ll definitely have to give Zelden’s another shot at some point.

The fries were quite good, at least.