San Diego Spotlight : A Corned Beef on Rye That Comes Close to the Ideal

Should you decide to light a lantern and go in search of an honest corned beef on rye, don’t go after sundown on Friday, since the deli that serves the best one, Western Kosher in La Jolla, unfailingly closes in time to observe the Jewish Sabbath.

The search for the great-deli-in-the-sky (in San Diego, that is) goes on, and if we seem fated never to have anything remotely resembling the ultimate among such restaurants--the Carnegie Delicatessen in New York--it is at least possible now to find decent corned beef and pastrami, as well as numerous other specialties from the grand repertoire of Jewish delicatessen.

In terms of taste, Western Kosher comes closest to the ideal, because of its adherence to strict, glatt kosher dietary laws and to the carefully produced foods specified by these laws. However, Western Kosher primarily is a grocery and meat market that offers sandwiches and a few other items on the side, and the menu is too limited to qualify it for membership in the delicatessen class.

D. Z. Akin’s near San Diego State University, on the other hand, has the requisite menu, size, noise and crowds. Although firmly in the Jewish cooking tradition, this immense restaurant--which has expanded twice in the past two years and always seems jammed to the ceiling with eager fressers --does not make any effort to follow the kosher laws. The food sometimes is good, sometimes lackluster, but always is served with nearly overwhelming generosity, a fact that surely contributes to the lines that frequently form at the hostess desk.

Western Kosher has placed a few red vinyl booths, evidently salvaged from an old-line coffee shop, at the front of the establishment to provide a utilitarian environment for those who choose to eat their corned beef, pastrami, tongue, chopped liver or lox sandwiches on the premises. There is an effort at decor, however, in the form of a mural of Jerusalem’s Wailing Wall behind the counter, and a mural of La Jolla Cove above the booths.

The cases that display the meats also offer a few other items, including noodle kugel (pudding) and knishes, or fat, round pastries here stuffed with a minced meat filling or with kasha, the buckwheat groats beloved in some parts of Eastern Europe. Another basic requirement, chicken noodle soup--garnished or not with matzo balls--also is available.

Proprietors and New York emigres Saul and Mabel Cohen actually offer optional lettuce and tomato garnishes with the corned beef on rye, a gesture that, if made in New York, might result in expulsion from that city. A corned beef (or pastrami) sandwich consists of three things and three things only: corned beef, sliced as thinly as possible, mustard and the very best rye bread. This is an immutable law. However, the offending garnish is only an option (it was explained some time ago by one of the Cohens with the words, “Well, the people here ask for it . . .”) and Western Kosher does in fact pile together a most impressive stack of bread, meat sliced ravishingly thinly and good, strong smears of mustard. The cole slaw and dill pickle on the side are both fully flavored; a genuine kosher dill is hard to beat.

It should be noted that kosher meat is fully trimmed of fat and that, thanks to a preliminary soaking in salted water, has a special, quite agreeable texture and flavor not found in other meat. This basic sandwich costs $4.99; double and triple-deckers that combine various ingredients go for up to $7.99.

Los Angeles emigres Debi and Zvika Akin opened their D. Z. Akin’s in the early 1980s as a smallish venture aimed at filling San Diego’s delicatessen void. They unquestionably planted their effort in fertile ground, and, several expansions later, the place includes full-service bakery and deli counters as well as a couple of large dining rooms done in the austere, timeless, Formica-clad style typical of such establishments. There is a constant bustle of servers and guests, and the experience, entered into with a willing frame of mind, can be rather fun.

The menu takes up seven large, closely printed pages and is a basic encyclopedia of Jewish delicatessen, American home cooking and coffee shop and drug store soda fountain fare. There are immense platters of lox and smoked whitefish; omelets that crowd the edges of the plate, including a Reuben number that combines corned beef and sauerkraut; rather good chopped chicken liver, flavored with plenty of onion and mounded mountainously on plate or bread; bowls of chicken soup that float matzo balls the size of grapefruit; kasha varnishkes (buckwheat groats and bow tie pasta) with gravy; egg salad (how often do you see that these days?); blintzes; potato pancakes; 103 sandwiches, and meat loaf.

If you want corned beef, better to order the corned beef hash than the sandwich because the meat used for the latter on two visits was objectionably fatty. The hash, however, golden and crusty, topped with a pair of poached eggs and sided with a toasted bagel, was somewhat definitive of happiness at the table. This definition did not extend to the accompanying hillock of so-called home-fried potatoes, a burned but somehow soggy mockery of the real thing.

The potato knish actually is cut from a loaf--the serving is about the size of a brick--rather than fashioned individually, and has a texture also reminiscent of building materials. But the stuffed cabbage roll, gigantic and delicately sweet-sour, is excellent and can be appreciated to the last bite, if you can eat quite that much. The huge assortment of cakes and pastries requires a little thought because some of the fancier-looking items can be rather dry and heavy. The carrot cake, thickly paved with cream cheese frosting and walnuts, is extremely moist and far preferable to its grander siblings on the tray.

Western Kosher

7739 Fay Ave., La Jolla

454-6328

Open Monday through Friday

Sandwiches $4.99 to $7.99

D.Z. Akin’s

6930 Alvarado Road, San Diego

265-0218

Breakfast, lunch and dinner daily

Sandwiches $4.95 to $8.95

Credit cards accepted