RESTAURANT REVIEW : This Pastrami Spices Up Local Fare : Marion’s in Ventura serves a giant, juicy version of the classic for $5.95. The menu is fairly limited but the Reuben shows potential.

Downtown Ventura is an unlikely place to run into a good pastrami sandwich.

This spiced-meat portion of the American culinary legend comes to us via Eastern Europe, actually southeastern Europe, since Romania is rumored to be its point of origin.

The beef brisket was doused with pickling spices for preservation back in the days before refrigeration. That spicing has continued and even crossed continents and oceans. Today, the United States is full of delis, joints--even real restaurants--where one goes just for the pastrami.

In Los Angeles, it’s Langer’s on Alvarado Street, or maybe even Nate & Al’s in Beverly Hills.

And it’s difficult to even consider pastrami in New York without envisioning the Carnegie Delicatessen (but definitely not the delicatessen of the same name in Beverly Hills) or, perhaps, the Stage Deli.

Now, in Ventura--on a Thompson Boulevard corner nestled alongside the freeway, in a location where Mexican food was dished up for at least the last couple of decades--can be found a good hot pastrami sandwich.

Marion’s Pastrami Express is serving a giant, juicy pastrami sandwich for $5.95 that will get even better when the Express realizes that it needs better rolls than those now being used.

The meat is so tender--from its exceptionally thin slicing, they say--that it sort of falls apart inside your mouth.

They serve a ton of it and, although the beef is lean, there’s just enough fat to make it interesting.

Although its menu is very limited, Marion’s does boast a few other items besides the pastrami. The hot dog ($1.75) is fairly good, the hamburger ($2.45) is all right, and the side orders are passable, the unfortunate exception being cole slaw, which is horribly overdosed in mayonnaise.

The seasoned fries ($1.50) with Lawry’s seasoned salt, have great flavor, but the potatoes themselves are mushier than they should be.

A Reuben sandwich ($5.39) does show potential. It’s got the basic savory, spicy pastrami, the required thousand island dressing and sauerkraut. The rye bread can use some lessons from one of those places like Langer’s or the Stage. Let’s get to it, guys.

What else would you possibly drink with a hot pastrami sandwich except beer? (Well, perhaps a Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray tonic or creme soda, which you will not find here.) I’d go for the Mickey’s Malt Liquor on tap ($1.25), although there is also Miller Lite and Budweiser ($1.25 cup).

Pastrami lovers know all too well that there is more than just meat and bread to a real pastrami sandwich. In fact, there are those who insist that it isn’t a pastrami sandwich if it doesn’t have Gulden’s mustard.

Well, Marion’s has this and several other mustards on the counter, but the one I enjoy--please don’t lynch me, you traditionalists--is the Beaver sweet hot variety, which has a dollop of honey in it.

Marion’s itself is mostly patio. The furniture is bright orange picnic tables under Pepsi and Heineken umbrellas, with a lone pink plastic flamingo surveying the scene from the center.

Pretty basic, but then they won’t be lining up for the decor; it’s the pastrami that will be pulling them in.

Details

* WHAT: Marion’s Pastrami Express.

* WHERE: 204 E. Thompson Blvd., Ventura.

* WHEN: Open seven days, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.

* COST: Lunch or dinner for two, food only, $6 to $13.50.

* ETC: No credit cards. Beer and wine. Call 653-0652.