You can’t plan an adventure… however, sometimes a half-baked idea and a lack of planning can lead to adventure. Take, for example, the idea of having a pastrami crawl across New York city, with a goal of trying to sample as many unique preparations as possible. This is clearly not the most refined concept… and if it was thrown together a couple of days beforehand, based upon a page torn from a magazine, it would have to lead to some sort of adventure, right?

I grew up with Nick and Ethan. Nick lives in New York city, I live down in DC and Ethan lives in Seattle. However Ethan is in NYC doing an internship, meaning that if I shipped up we could have a little reunion. While it would be great to simply hang out, Nick happened to come across an article New York Magazine listing 3 different, innovative versions of the pastrami sandwich. Nick had a minor obsession with pastrami in high school, that was only briefly interrupted while he dabbled in vegetarianism.

So with a goal in mind, all we had to do was to completely avoid any advance planning. Luckily this comes natrually to all of us and it present no challenge. I was able to take a bus from U Street , a few blocks from out place in DC, directly to Brooklyn, where I met up with Nick. Know It Express is a great bus line, anyone heading between DC and New York should give them a try. Going straight to Brooklyn made things quick and painless. The Wi-Fi didn’t hurt either.

Nick is a most awesome photographer and we swung by his studio in Brooklyn, where I helped him setup for a shoot. If anyone out there is looking for some great food or product photography, give him a shout; especially all you high end-magazines… I am sure you are reading Cookography. If anyone does, I will post the photos here on Cookography, I am sure that is enticing!

In order to make sure we had enough energy for the cross-city tour, we stopped for tacos at Loading Dock Tacos on the way to his studio. I went for the carnitas tacos and was not disappointed. Once we got to his studio, we got to work setting up a set. He was trying to capture cool splashes. My “job” was to drop coins into a glass while standing above it on a ladder. I think it could serve as the basis for a fun drinking game.

Once we got the shot all setup we headed out for the first stop on the tour, Momofuku Milk Bar. Ethan was busy toiling away and missed out on this stop. Milk Bar is the latest in David Chang’s New York empire. All of his place are rather hot. We were reminded of this by a rather douchie guy in front of us who directly asked for an order of all of the trendy items.

Milk Bar has a random smattering of desserts, shakes, rolls and buns; all uniquely themed. Perhaps the most unique is Cereal Milk. It is essentially cereal blended with milk and sugar. Clearly a sound foundation for night of constant eating, or at least that is what Nick thought when he ordered a large bottle of Corn Flake Cereal Milk. It isn’t. My poorly considered decision was ordering a slice of Crack Pie, which is essentially butter and sugar.

The reason we went to Milk Bar was to get their Pastrami & Rye Croissant. It is a flakey croissant, made with a rye dough, stuff with pastrami, sauerkraut and a thousand island dressing. Everything there seems to be prepackaged, but made rather recently. The sandwich is definitely a success. It has all the flavor of a classic rueben, but it packaged up in hot pocket style convenience. All of the greasy yumminess of the pastrami and croissant combine to make a rather heavy meal though. Add in a little Corn Flake Milk and some Crack Pie and began seeing a potential flaw in our grand plan. We full bellies, we left Milk Bar and vowed to be much more sensible at out next stop and split a sandwich.

Before heading on to our next destination, Food Parc’s RedFarm Stand, we had to meet-up with Ethan. After a bit of prodding we were able convert him from his state of usefullness to our cause. RedFarm Stand is part of a modern food court inside a Kimpton hotel. It opens onto a courtyard with a really large TV. The night we were there they had a film showing. Anyhow, the reason we went to RedFarm Stand is becuase they have a pastrami eggroll. Intreguing, isn’t it? We wiser and just got a single roll to split. After we figured out their futurisitic ordering system we were sitting in front of some deep fried pastrami goodness. Instead of following the rueben flavor profile, they added in asparagus, which ended up being a great addition. The asparagus, in addition to lightening out the flavor, makes you feel a little healthier because you see it bit of green in the middle of a deep fried meat treat.

So far the crawl had been a stunning success. We managed to grab two of the last three croissants at Milk Bar, and figured out the ordering system at RedFarm Stand. However our luck was about to take a turn for the worse… and send us in some unplanned directions.

The next stop in our tour was No. 7 Sub for their smoked-meat sub. This sub is piled with meat from Mile End Deli (more on this later), Chinese mustard, ruffles potato chips and litchis seasoned with ginger and chili peppers. It is just around the corner from RedFarm Stand, and supposedly open til 6, however when we got there the lights were out and no one was home. After asking around we found out that they had run out of bread. Ugh!

With things spiraling out of control, we clearly needed to take a break. We headed over to the Astor Center for some cocktail and food sampling. More on that in another post, but suffice to say we left recharged and reenergized, and really full.

Our next stop was away from reinvented fare and back to the basics… Katz’s Delicatessens. Katz’s is a traditional Jewish New York deli. Whether it is the best or not, is for the New Yorkers to argue, all I know is that it is pretty damn good. I am going to guess that there are and were better than Katz’s, but it has survived and transitioned from traditional to a tradition. They smoke their own pastrami and hand carve it. The slices are just the right thickness and it is nice and lean. Katz’s customers are a lively mix of tourists and regulars, all of them salty.

When you walk in everyone has to get a ticket. When you order, they mark down what you got and you pay when you leave. Having just gorged ourselves during intermission, we walked in planning on just splitting a single pastrami sandwich. Ethan secured us a table and Nick and I waited in line, marveling at the countermen’s surgical slicing precision. We will never know if it was the intoxicating smell of smoked meat or spirit of the crawl taking over, but we ended up with 3 sandwiches instead of one; 2 pastrami and a hard salami. The pastrami was spectacular, meaty, yet tender, with no gnarly, fatty bits. The pickles it comes with, a mix of half and full sours, were pretty good in their own right.

We amazingly finished everything except half a salami sandwich. It would later turn out that this half of sandwich was the Sandwich Half of Destiny. It was about 5 blocks after leaving Katz’s that the Half’s destiny called. It was there that we realized we had left it on the table. The trot back to retrieve it set in motion a series of events that would forever change The Crawl.

After retrieving the Half (of Destiny) we returned to our plan of walking across the Williamsburg bridge towards Ethan’s house and a bar called Dram that he wanted to check out. Just before we started across the bridge Ethan checked his phone and saw a text from Nick’s wife saying he had left his phone at Katz’s. We were too far and too lazy to walk all the way back so we got a cab. While we waited in the cab, Nick jumped out and got his phone. Due to some one-way streets the cab was only able to get us 2 blocks from the entrance to the bridge.

As we walked the 2 blocks to rejoin our original course we came across our destiny, the acclaimed restaurant WD-50. As further proof of this being our destiny, we were quickly seated at a table in the bar area on a busy Friday night… and they had corned duck, on a rye crisp, with purple mustard, and horseradish cream on the menu. As everyone knows, corned meat is pastrami’s best friend. It was quite splendorous. Of course not wanting to shirk our destiny, we also order the veal brisket, which comes with fried ricotta, honey dew, and black olive .

Had we not left the Half of Destiny we would have been half way across the bridge before we found out we had also forgotten Nick’s phone. Without our complete forgetfulness and utter lack of planning we would have never wandered into WD-50. Destiny, I say! Further proof of this is that the bar had Glen Breton Rare… a Single Malt Whiskey from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. The very same distillery Carolyn and I visited and stayed when we toured Cape Breton.

Remember, about 1000 words ago, when I used some foreshadowing around Mile End deli, well that is because they end up being the final stop of the night. They are a Montreal Style Jewish Deli, serving their taking on smoked meats. What that actually means? I have no clue. That is because even though the Google auto-restuarant summary assured us that it was open til 11, it in fact closed at 10. Montreal Meat will forever remain a mystery.

Despite this anti-clamatic ending, The Great NYC Pastrami Crawl was a huge success. A couple of old friends got to tromp around New York, sampling a variety of meat, leaving no sandwich half or cell-phone behind. To toast our success we finished up at Dram. The wood-paneling makes the place look sort of like a sauna, they serve delicious cocktails and they have a kayak hanging over the bar. Hurrah!