Sorry, my deli-starved landsmen, it's not the whole schmear
What do you think this is, chopped liver? Well, yeah.
I'm trying not to hold my East Coast sensibilities against the place, but Goldbergs' Famous Delicatessen — the self-proclaimed "Authentic East Coast Style Deli" in Factoria Mall — has a long way to go before it comes close to being the nosherai of my dreams.
Goldbergs' offers an enormous menu and enormous portions, all-day breakfasts (yes, there's bacon) and a separate deli. Reflecting the theater-based décor, the menu is divvied into sections with headers like "Critic's Choice Salads" and "Hollywood Hit Sandwiches." Some of it is great. Lots of it is not. And it takes multiple visits to figure out when to say "Yeah" and when to say "Feh!"
My deli dreams began in Philadelphia, home to Jack's Delicatessen. Now this is an authentic deli. Here in a faded strip-mall storefront, you eat in a cramped booth whose décor screams low-budget. Your waitress has been schlepping gorgeously fatty corned beef since long before Ben Stiller celebrated his bar mitzvah. The matzo ball soup is just like the "Jewish penicillin" Bubbie used to make. The potato latkes are Hanukkah-worthy. In the adjoining deli, friendly old guys and their well-schooled younger counterparts hand-slice belly lox, pile pastrami on rye and dish up containers of chopped liver quicker than you can say, "Yo! Can you throw in a couple of potato knishes with that?"
Goldbergs', on the other hand, takes the Jack's ideal and gives it a designer twist, an over-decorated taste of life in the cholesterol-fear-free zone. The dining-room décor is meant to evoke a Broadway theme with kitschy caricatures parading across the walls urging you to "Nosh!"
A fully stocked bar sits impressively in the midst of it all, doubling as a quick-serve counter during the lunch rush. Want an egg cream? Sorry, you'll have to try kissin' cousin, a chocolate phosphate ($2.50), though it's worth noting that the bartender mixes a swell cocktail.
A fleet of earnest but frequently ill-informed servers tend tables where the whole mishpocha gather to share platters heaped with smoked fish, French-fried chicken livers with honey-mustard (this Jew's answer to Buffalo chicken wings) and some of the best half-sour pickles I've eaten west of the Liberty Bell.
Want to see what Goldbergs' does right? Zone in on those oversized sandwiches built with hot corned beef or pastrami served on soft, sturdy, seedless rye. I'm partial to the basic hot pastrami ($8.75/half, $10.75/whole) with its peppery edges and well-marbled meat. Have the Jack's Special — thin-sliced corned beef, nice and fatty, gilded with hefty schmears of sweet chopped liver and Russian dressing ($11.25).
Try the stuffed cabbage, zaftig rolls of ground beef and rice stewed in a "sweet and sour sauce" that, just like my mother's, is tangy and tomatoey. But unlike hers, it's got a seriously smoky kick (appetizer/$6.95, entree/$13.95). The pan-fried cheese blintzes ($9.45) are properly stuffed with sweetened farmer's cheese. They're every bit as good when you take some home, fry them in butter and slather them with the sour cream provided (pre-packaged in the deli, $8.95). Don't miss the creamy "New York style" cheesecake ($4.95).
With all that Goldbergs' gets right, it's hard to understand why they get so much wrong. These guys are new to Bellevue but not to the business. Owner Steve Goldberg operates Stage & Co., with four deli-restaurants in Detroit-area shopping centers. His family history in the deli business goes back to 1962, when his dad opened Detroit's original Stage Deli. Steve's business partner Bill Goldberg is a Seattle attorney who spent a decade begging his friend to bring his business to our deli-starved neck of the woods.
While it's clear that management is working on — and slowly bettering — service on the floor, what they don't have nailed is consistency in the kitchen.
They served me mediocre whitefish salad on stale challah ($9.95). When I ordered a West Side Story (pastrami, cole slaw, Russian dressing on rye, $11.75), it was missing its cole slaw. Baked beans, offered as a sandwich side, are bitterly infused with too much molasses. My lox arrived on fluffy oversized bagels with — pishmashame! — California olives. The kreplach ($5.95), a ground beef dumpling, is doughy and spills out its meager guts with the slightest poke.
The Mark Beltaire salad ($7.95/$10.95) is a bland Jewish version of a chef's salad (envision one tossed with ranchlike "Stage dressing," with corned beef instead of ham). And while you could do worse than the Romanian skirt steak ($15.95) — a couple of beautifully charbroiled hunks of salt-and-peppered beef with a side of over-whipped mashed potatoes — the steamed carrots served with it were one-minute shy of raw.
Open only two months and slammed from the get-go, Goldbergs' obviously needs time to get things right. But — come on! If you can't get matzo ball soup right from the start (Swanson's does broth better) and if it takes 10 minutes to construct a lox-and-bagel sandwich to-go ("Do you want cream cheese on that?" You think?), you've got chutzpah calling yourself an East Coast deli.
Nancy Leson: 206-464-8838 or taste@seattletimes.com. More reviews at www.seattletimes.com/restaurants. More columns at www.seattletimes.com/nancyleson.
3924 Factoria Blvd. S.E. (Factoria Mall), Bellevue; 425-641-6622
Web site: www.goldbergsdeli.com
Deli
$$
Reservations: available
Hours: daily 7 a.m.-10 p.m. (all-day breakfast available, breakfast menu only from 7-11 a.m.)
Prices: soups/starters $2.75-$9.95, salads $5.95-$11.95, breakfast items $3.25-$12.95, smoked fish specialties $8.95-$34.95 (note: platters serve several diners), sandwiches/burgers $4.95-$13.50, entrees (served with soup or salad) $10.95-$27.95, desserts $2.25-$10.95, children's menu ($2.75-$4.75)
Wine list: a dozen inexpensive bottles, each available by the glass.
Parking: Factoria Mall's crowded lot.
Sound: soft jazz, heavy kibitzing
Who should go: Bubbie, zaideh, the whole mishpocha.
Full bar / credit cards: AE, MC, V / no smoking / no obstacles to access.