Katella Deli Offers Some of the Kindest Cuts--and a Bakery, Too

Perhaps it was the well-stocked bakery counter that inspired one rather jolly customer to hum a few bars from “If I Were a Rich Man.” Or maybe it was the hanging salamis. Whatever.

No matter how you slice the rye, the Katella Deli and Bakery in Los Alamitos is definitely an eye-opener, a huge, bright and spotlessly clean operation divided into an enormous bakery section, a sports bar, a food-to-go counter and a sit-down restaurant.

Much of what you’ll be tempted to order from the large menu will be on display behind the Macy’s-window-size glass counter. We’re talking real deli stuff: python-wide stuffed kishke, oversized potato knishes, enough cold cuts for a Barbra Streisand fund-raiser, rainbow-colored salads and, let’s not forget, plenty of breads, bagels and pastries.

Holiday season finds this bakery at its most colorful, with endless trays of red and green Christmas cookies, Hanukkah cakes, Oreo-topped chocolate cakes, foot-high butter cream triangles wrapped in chocolate and unctuously thick strudels and tortes in a myriad of shapes and hues. Most food critics make it a point to avoid these pastry counters. I sort of peeked at it through my fingers.

The to-go counter is, er, sandwiched between the bakery and restaurant sections. Anything available from the regular menu can be packaged to take out, mostly in plastic foam containers typically double-wrapped in plastic bags should the going get leaky. With this stuff, it often does.

Three of us took home a feast so large it bordered on the obscene, for slightly less than $40. The first course, a bowl of chicken kreplach soup, retained its heat and richness over a 20-minute ride. Such sandwiches as a rather bland roast turkey, and a too-thinly sliced but otherwise flavorful brisket of beef, did not.

Two of the main dishes had to be reheated altogether, rendering them less crisp than the kitchen created them. Katella Deli’s roast chicken is a generous portion put up with a calorific square of noodle kugel, the Yiddish take on bread pudding. The house potato pancakes are wonderfully eggy and oniony, but obviously better eaten hot off the griddle.

One dish that does travel well is kosher-style chicken in the pot (the menu says kosher style because the chicken used here is not strictly kosher) that easily serves two. It’s meaty chunks of boiled chicken, fluffy matzo balls, a doughy kreplach (kind of a Jewish ravioli) with a toothsome meat filling, noodles, vegetables and a rich chicken broth.

Another dish that does not travel well is a seven-layer cake, a high-rise chocolate torte with a Hungarian pedigree. The frosting got stuck all over the sides of the pastry box and had to be scraped off. Hardly a great loss. After a bowl of kreplach soup, the last thing I need is seven layers of fudge icing.

* KATELLA DELI AND BAKERY

4470 Katella Ave., Los Alamitos.

(310) 594-8611.

7 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily.

American Express, MasterCard and Visa.