It isn’t easy to stand out in the prepared foods section at the Westside Market on 110th Street and Broadway if you are a new product, specifically owner Maria’s new Kobe-style beef pastrami, roast beef, brisket, corned beef, and pot roast. How do you compete with rows and rows of everything from soups in rainbow colors (beet, green pea, papaya/mango) to fire-roasted peppers to grilled seafood salad (giant tentacles included)?
The way to do it, it turns out, is to elevate yourself miles above everything else. Make sure a thin plexiglass sheet in the front is the only thing between you and your potential eaters, and allow the steam from the water heater on which you sit to lift delicious wafts of smoke-y pepper and slow-cooked onion-y brisket through the bustling 24-hour market.
Westside is the first market to offer these meats warmed, ready to put into a sandwich or carry home, according to distributor Frank Valenza, the man from Kobe-Frank, who dreamed up these deli uses for American Kobe-style waygu cows. Gourmands of a certain age will remember Valenza from his glory days at The Palace.
The black pastrami crust was perfectly textured and seasoned and the meat had a beautiful gradient of color from the inside out. The thin slices I ate with rye bread, arugula and spicy mustard (a gift from the meat slicer) were deliciously greasy and salty, but I am not aching to taste the thickly-sliced and discolored slabs they had sandwiched between gravy-soaked mashed-potato balls and sad-looking vegetables in the prepared meal fridge.
The corned beef could have been saltier, but the texture was properly chewy and the color a warm light red. The onion I saw (but didn’t taste) slopped over the brisket had done its invaluable job steeping the meat with sweet, onion goodness. The meat was a little dry – easily fixable with a plop of juice to pour over the top, but be sure to ask for it if you are ordering a brisket sandwich or slices to go.
The roast beef was beautiful and rare, but too fatty for me. I found it both tough and slippery, and the taste of fat lingered in my mouth long after the beef was on its way to digestion. Also, even the generous bottle of antibacterial liquid on the counter didn’t help degrease my fingers. – Talia Berman
Westside Market, 2840 Broadway at 110th Street, 212 222 3367. Roast beef, corned beef and pastrami are $12.99/pound, pot roast and brisket $9.99/pound.
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