Diving Into The Sailor Sandwich

I had no idea the sailor sandwich was a Richmond-area delicacy. Oh sure, I knew they were sold here — I saw ’em on menus around town, at least occasionally (more when I was younger than now, but I guess that’s partly because I don’t go to diners as much anymore). But I guess I just kinda thought they were everywhere. That is, until Jim emailed me at the top of this month and asked if I wanted to make my triumphant return to the tribunal in order to write about a sandwich that came from my hometown. Hey, why not?

What’s even crazier for me, and what made me want even more to write about it, was that the sailor sandwich was originated at The New York Deli, located in the Carytown neighborhood of Richmond. I have a history with Carytown and the New York Deli — I used to work for several years at a bookstore located in this hippest and most upscale of Richmond shopping districts (it went out of business, as all three of the bookstores where I’ve worked over the years have done). And I used to go to The New York Deli regularly, about a decade or so ago.

But before I give you any details on that fact, I need to tell you about The New York Deli, as it exists today. I always joke about the Deli in its current form, and the joke goes something like this: “You know how sometimes you go to a bar or a restaurant, and it’s called The Tire Factory because it’s in a fancy restaurant in a building that used to be a tire factory? The New York Deli is a fancy restaurant in a building that used to be a deli.”

That’s not entirely fair — after all, when the current management took over the New York Deli, they not only kept the same name but several of the most popular menu items, and hired some of the kitchen staff to ensure that the recipes and preparation methods got passed on.

That said, I went to the old New York Deli a couple times, before current ownership bought and gutted it in 2005. And it looked absolutely nothing like the current version of the Deli. When you walked in the front door, there was a deli counter along the left side wall where you ordered. The ceiling was low, the lights were bright and fluorescent, and they served you your food on a paper plate. You could then walk through an archway into the right half of the restaurant and sit in a metal chair at a pressboard table and eat your sandwich. Or you could take it with you, as most people did. 

There’s a place very similar to the old New York Deli in Carytown now; it’s called The Eatery, and like the original deli, it’s been there for decades. Here’s a picture:

By comparison, the current New York Deli has high ceilings, soft lighting, and a long bar on the left when you walk in, and it takes up the entire half of the space that used to be where the deli counter and register used to be. On the right side, where you used to sit at crappy table and use crummy paper napkins from a metal box, there are marble-top tables with fancy place settings and cloth napkins. The current New York Deli looks like this:

I used to go to this place a lot about ten years ago, when I worked down the street, but not because I worked down the street. No, it was because my best friend had a regular DJ night at the place every Sunday. A whole bunch of us would gather over there at 10 PM on those nights, and hang out at the table next to the DJ booth, yelling random requests at Eric and dancing when he played Justin Timberlake and Michael Jackson. Usually we closed it down… and then I had to get up at 8:30 AM and walk right back to Carytown to open the store. I always felt like crap on Monday mornings.

Anyway, that story should tell you what a hipster bar-crowd place it’s become since its transformation. It probably helps even more for those of you who aren’t from Virginia to know that bars are legally required to make 40% of their monthly revenue from food sales, so anyplace that wants to serve liquor also has to be a restaurant. When my wife and I stopped into The New York Deli on a Monday night, we were the only people on the restaurant side of the establishment for the entire hour or so we were there. The bar had at least a dozen people hanging out at all times. 

None of this information is likely to make the current incarnation of The New York Deli sound like it has very good food, and I definitely went in feeling a little skeptical. Like, “OK, I’m gonna eat this sandwich at the place that originated it… but it’s not really the same place, and it probably won’t be as good as it would have been.”

Fact is, though, I don’t know how good it would have been. I ate at the original New York Deli a time or two, but I never ordered the sailor sandwich. It just isn’t anything I would have ordered if someone hadn’t put the idea in my head. I’m hardly an aficionado of charcuterie — I spent a decade vegetarian, and only really started eating sausage regularly a few years ago. A sandwich made from pastrami and knackwurst wouldn’t exactly catch my eye.

The fact that it has hot mustard on it certainly gave me a reason to anticipate the taste experience, though. I love hot mustard, aka brown mustard, aka spicy mustard. That last is what they call it at Subway, where I get it on my veggie subs every damn time I go to that place. (And I love Subway. If I ever make it back here again, I’ll write another “Crap Eater” confession about their sandwiches.) So I figured if nothing else, I’d enjoy the sauce.

There are two other ingredients on a sailor sandwich: Swiss cheese and rye bread. It’s served open-face, on toasted rye bread. Based on what I’d read about it online, I expected it to be a huge messy calorie-bomb. Which, don’t get me wrong, I was up for, but I thought I’d have to eat it with a fork.

I was surprised — not unpleasantly so — to be served a perfectly normal-sized and not at all messy sandwich. It was held together by a toothpick, but I almost instantly realized that if I pulled the toothpick out, I could easily convert this sandwich to a regular closed-face (if that’s what you call it…) sandwich by slapping the bottom slice of rye bread onto the top of the rest of the sandwich. So that’s what I did. And then I took a bite.

I was hoping I’d like the sailor sandwich, but what I got from my first bite, and every bite after, far surpassed my expectations. It was juicy and meaty, in perfect proportion to the dry crispness of the rye toast. The cheese was certainly there, but not thick enough to compete with the delicious meat. And the tang of the hot mustard (which, to a seasoned habanero fan like myself, isn’t really hot at all) was the perfect flavor contrast to kick the whole thing up to the next level. 

My wife had ordered a more conventional burger, but she gamely tried a bite of the sailor sandwich. She said it wasn’t bad, that she wouldn’t mind eating it if it were served to her, but that she wouldn’t order it herself. She is definitely not a mustard fan, so this wasn’t surprising. I’m sure she’d eat happily eat a sailor sandwich without mustard, but I really think that’d be defeating the purpose — what really makes this sandwich great is that contrast between the savory smoked meats and the tangy hot mustard. Without the mustard, there’s nothing to distinguish the sailor from a regular old pastrami.

I was somewhat afraid The New York Deli’s staff would forget about us once our food was served, since the action was undoubtedly on the bar side, but we got great service, and both enjoyed our meals thoroughly. We’d certainly go back if it was a slow restaurant night and we were in the mood for a fancy dinner. And you know what? If we do go back, I’m gonna order the sailor sandwich again. As it turns out, it’s delicious.