Famed entertainment and music industry analyst and commentator Bob Lefsetz spent his birthday celebrating the happiest way he knows – with a Langer’s #19 sandwich!<\/p>\n
You want a #19.<\/p>\n
I have birthday traditions. You know how institutions of higher learning have all those rules you\u2019ve got to follow for no good reason other than everybody before you did the same damn thing? Well, I\u2019m my own stuff-shirted traditionalist, it all hearkens back to\u2026<\/p>\n
1977.<\/p>\n
Yup, that\u2019s when I went to Langer\u2019s and on to C.C. Brown\u2019s and \u201cAnnie Hall\u201d on my birthday.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the tradition, hot pastrami, hot fudge sundae and a movie\u2026or two or three.<\/p>\n
Langer\u2019s?<\/p>\n
What kind of country do we live in where the best pastrami sandwich is not in New York but Los Angeles?<\/p>\n
Yes, all the critics agree. It\u2019s the hand-cut meat. The rye bread.<\/p>\n
And the cole slaw, Swiss cheese and Russian dressing.<\/p>\n
Huh? How can you taste all those flavors, that\u2019s a mishmash akin to an everything bagel!<\/p>\n
Only it\u2019s not.<\/p>\n
I worked my way up to the #19, Langer\u2019s legendary sandwich.<\/p>\n
At first I only got the pastrami, then the swiss cheese, then I remembered the sandwiches in the mountains, i.e. the Catskills, with cole slaw, and I went for the whole shebang and that\u2019s what I have every April 22nd, the #19. And it couldn\u2019t have been better yesterday.<\/p>\n
And just because I was overdoing it, I had the crinkly fries too. Or should I say KRINKLY fries? And of course a Dr. Brown\u2019s Black Cherry. Come on, you can\u2019t eat at the deli without it.<\/p>\n
And the Russian dressing is oozing out of the sandwich, but the crunch of the bread is so satisfying, it\u2019s a modern mouth orgasm and a return to my youth all at once.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n