[Model D] Rubbed European-style sandwich shop to open in Corktown later this year

Corktown will soon have a new sandwich shop, but don't expect it to be anything like Mudgie's Deli. 

Partners Jason Frenkel and Abbey Markell have worked in the restaurant industry together for the past 10 years and have been planning their own concept for the past four. Frenkel spent a few years traveling for work, then decided to move back from San Francisco this past February to work on Rubbed restaurant and deli with Markell.

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[Real Detroit Weekly] Where's the (Corned) Beef?

Corned beef dinner at Dick O'Dow's. Photo by Nicole Rupersburg.

"Irish cuisine" might sound like a bit of an oxymoron – they basically just boil everything for eight hours and then pile it all together on a plate. But, you know, that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Take corned beef, for instance: brined then boiled for several hours until it turns the angry pink of a third-degree burn* but tender and juicy when properly sliced or chopped up and thrown into a hash, corned beef is the cornerstone of Irish cuisine. And, because metro Detroit is multi-cultural and we are lucky to have such diversity, the many Jewish delis in the area also slice up a mean kosher nosh of corned beef with their knishes. While some say the brines differ slightly between the two cultures, Irish pubs and Jewish delis alike will go through thousands of pounds of this stuff this week alone. But enough kibitzing; cead mile failte!

Read more.

*Note: Probably would have been funnier if I had said, "...the angry pink of a drunken Irishman." Oh, hindsight.

[HOT LIST] Corned beef

Corned beef hash at Farmers Restaurant. Covert cell phone photography by Nicole Rupersburg.

On July 5, 2011, EID ran a "Corned beef sandwiches" Hot List. It was our third-ever Hot List and a lot of you hadn't heard of us yet. This week, in honor of Detroit's Irish culture and our proud corned beef heritage, we're re-visiting and expanding this list. These Hot Lists are meant to be infinitely revisitable as new places open, others close, or we just decide we've changed our minds. Bloggers privilege! 

Detroit is corned beef country. From Sy Ginsberg to Wigley's to Grobbel's, from the Dinty Moore to the Reuben, you want corned beef – the brined brisket of the gods – you got it, kid. There are many places to buy it and plenty of ways to eat it; we fancy it piled between two slices of hearty homemade bread or fried up with potatoes, onions and lots of butter (a glorious thing called "hash").

#1 Hygrade Deli Detroit

Kick it way old school at this V-is-for-very-and-vintage Michigan Avenue coffee shop, located just around the way from the United plant, home of the Sy Ginsberg label. (Sy Ginsberg corned beef is, of course, served.) Get the "meal" sandwich – corned beef, swiss, coleslaw and dressing - on an onion roll. The pickles come from Detroit's own Topor's, also in the 'hood. 

#2 Louie's Ham and Corned Beef Eastern Market

Where do you get corned beef in Eastern Market, home to Wigley's and Grobbel's? You get it everydamnwhere. Or so it seems. And while we're inclined to be creatures of habit and run straight for Russell Street Deli, lately it's Louie's, out on the topside of the 'hood, that's calling our names.

#3 Stage Deli West Bloomfield
A legacy that began in Oak Park fifty or so years ago lives on in this OaCo staple, where you can order wines by the glass with your big ass platters and sandwiches. This place feels like like those famous New York delis, complete with luck-of-the-draw service, but much cleaner. Also, fewer European tourists.

#4 Mudgie's Deli Corktown

It's almost all sandwiches, almost all the time at this chill Metro Times' two-time "Best Deli in Wayne County" winner located in a sleepy corner of Corktown. Dig the Barrett sandwich – meat (Sy Ginsberg in the hizzouse), house made coleslaw, Swiss and thousand island on an onion roll, served warm. Will it snag the coveted "Best Deli" title for the third year in a row? With their current tour of the United States of Sandwiches (a new state's signature sandwich is featured every week), they definitely have our vote for innovation. 

#5 Farmers Restaurant Eastern Market 
Here's an insider's tip (and this goes for everywhere in Eastern Market): don't go on Saturday. Farmers is super-small (don't let that mirror running along the whole side of one wall fool you: that's a WALL) and very old-school. As in, go at about 2:00 on a random weekday afternoon and find yourself in the company of nothing but old men speaking Polish. It's fabulously drab but the food is fresh, all high-quality diner classics with HUGE portions. There are endless permutations of corned beef on the menu, but get the corned beef hash - a heaping mound of shredded corned beef and perfectly crispy fried potatoes served with two eggs on top AND a side of toast. Easily three full meals, all for $6.75. Eastern Market is just the BEST.

Bubbling under Woodbridge Pub (Detroit), Jimmy Dee's (Clinton Twp.), Russell Street Deli (Eastern Market), Avalon Bakery (Detroit), Onion Roll (Royal Oak), Lou's (Detroit, Southfield), Steve's (Bloomfield Hills), Foran's Grand Trunk Pub (Detroit), Bread Basket (Livonia), Zingerman's Deli (Ann Arbor), Star Deli (Southfield), PJ's Lager House (Corktown)

[Real Detroit Weekly] Steve's Backroom

Photo by Nicole Rupersburg.

"Steve's Backroom started as a back room in Harper Woods: in the early '80s Steve Khalil opened a bakery and deli on Kelly Rd. then decided to open a little restaurant in the – you guessed it – back room. The St. Clair Shores location is their second location, owned by Steve's cousin Charlie Raffoul.

'The general concept is essentially the same, but this restaurant and deli serves breakfast, lunch and dinner, has a full bar and is also about to expand with a brand-new upscale 50-seat bar and dining area. This renovation and expansion will also include an earthstone oven in which they'll bake their own pita bread, which means that now everything will be made from scratch in-house..."

Read the rest of the article here.

Want to see more? Check out the Flickr set here.

No Soup For You, Two Hours! Rude Food on Metromode

Long gone are the days of uppity French restaurants that treat their customers as if they should feel privileged for being permitted the honor of eating. As the worldwide hospitality industry has come to understand that the surest way to success is through quality customer service, pompous behavior has mostly become widely unacceptable. Even in the City of Light, the snooty shtick has almost disappeared entirely. Restaurants that have a reputation for rudeness are often more popular for their patented ostentatiousness than for their food; those with delicacies worth social indignity are increasingly rare.

We've all had experiences at popular restaurants that have left a bad taste in our mouths, and for some we wave those experiences like badges of honor, a show of just how dedicated we are to good food.

"I once waited almost three hours for a table at Slows," a friend told me while we were discussing our favorite Detroit diners.

When I squawked at her proud admission and asked, "But WHY?!?", she gushed, "Because it's sooooooo good."

Read the rest of this article, written by yours truly, on metro Detroit's rude food here.

It Don't Mean a Thing if It Ain't Got That Zing: Zingerman's Deli

Over the weekend I decided to do a little culture tour of Ann Arbor, that little city just on the outskirts of what is formally considered "metro Detroit" but which makes a lot of noise on the arts and culture radar. On the advice of one Ann Arborite as well as with my own limited knowledge of the area, I had a lovely little day trip (because, mark my words, A2 is a DAY TRIP--anything that takes an hour to get to is, in my book, a DAY TRIP, and not just somewhere you go for a "quick bite" or a "couple of drinks"), which ended with me at Zingerman's Deli.

Immediately upon walking in, I am greeted with their mammouth cheese counter. It's like porn to me.

I admit, it's been awhile. A long while. And I realize probably great advancements have been made in the field of sheep's milk harvesting, culturing, and pasteurization which have potentially caused an increase in price. BUT. For my favorite cheese--the one cheese I can actually clearly taste on my tongue when I think about it, the cheese that is to me like a heroin fix to a junkie--to go up $10.00 per pound from $14.99/lb. to $24.99/lb.???

Pardon my language, but are you out of your f$%#ing mind????

When the cheese monger handed me my humble hunk of Pecorino di Toscana priced at a very clearly written $14.57, the feeling I had was bittersweet. Yes, this is my favorite cheese, and I haven't tasted it is years. But Christ, $14.57??? For this tiny-ass nugget that I'll eat in one sitting????

And now I'm afraid to eat it because, well, what if? What if it isn't as good as I remember it being? What if, after paying almost $15 bucks I find out that it is not, in fact, made of solid gold? Not to mention that now I feel like it has to be some sort of special occasion cheese, that I can't just bust it out any old night. Now I have to make a big event of it...not that I'm going to share it with anyone because my God, it was 15 freakin' dollars!

Zingerman's, you've changed.

You needn't remind me of the preaching I've done about people who complain about prices and how it's neither appropriate nor accurately informed. I'm well aware of the preaching I've done in regards to this.

But this? THIS??? Inflation on cheese is a 67% increase in five years? I have a hard time swallowing that (and not just because it's so damn expensive I feel guilty eating it).

But let's further explore the goods available at Zingerman's, shall we? A wall full of olive oil from all around the world (they weren't named by Atlantic Monthly Magazine as "the country's leading purveyor of olive oil" for nothing), olive oil so rich in flavor that it puts your Meijer-bought bottles to shame. Hardly any priced under $20.00 and most hovering in the $30.00 range. While you are certainly paying more for quality (and if you've never experienced a truly fine olive oil, rest assured it is well worth the money), still--DAMN.

Moving along. Oooh, Mango Preserves! Oh. $16.00 per jar. And then there's the $27.00 pistachio butter. Not a single box of tea costs less than $11.00. Salt water taffy from France, $25.00. And just so we're clear on this, these are all standard sizes, not bulk. As much as I appreciate the eclectic array of hard-to-find imports available here, another part of me is forced to wonder who in their right mind is paying these prices for these products during these unstable economic times?

Apparently the recession has yet to affect A2.

I am a huge proponent of the Slow Food Movement. I believe in sustainable cuisine. I believe in locally-grown, seasonal, organic food items. I support artisinal products. I just can't help but think Zingerman's might be capitalizing on people such as myself who share these beliefs and appreciate the quality of finer foods but don't quite know where else to find them, or get easily caught up in the self-propelling hype machine that is Zingerman's (this is Ann Arbor, after all: safe, liberal, artsy, wealthy, white). My thing is, if you want saltwater taffy, buy Michigan-made direct from sellers like Mackinac Fudge Shop for only $8.95 for a 10-oz. bag (versus $25.00 for the French 1lb. tin--and a good chunk of that pound is in the tin, guaranteed). Is this the Slow Food Movement or the Elitist Food Movement?

And you wonder why Mercury Coffee Bar didn't make it (one of the owners hailed from Zingerman's, and they charged $7.00 for a bite-sized grilled cheese sandwich in the city of Detroit, which doesn't give two squirts about your fancy Ann Arbor food).

I will give them this, the staff is unflappably perky. (Something I would have also said about MCB.) They'll smile broadly and become your new best friend as they offer you samples of any over-priced item you'd like to try and convince you of the value it would add to your life.

I decided to give them one last chance. I was already there, after all, and hungry. After several minutes of deliberation (during which time I was offered assistance no fewer than three times), I decided on Jay's BBQ Chicken Sandwich--pulled Amish chicken in their housemade BBQ sauce with Vermont cheddar on a soft bun. BTW, no sandwich on the menu is less than $10.00, save for the one exception--our old friend, the $7.00 grilled cheese.

So what does a $10.00 BBQ chicken sandwich taste like? Strikingly similar to a $5.00 one. It was good, don't get me wrong...but it wasn't great. It didn't change my life. This wasn't the sandwich to end all sandwiches. And frankly, the BBQ sauce didn't quite live up to my $10.00 expectations. But I ate it. It tasted just fine. The pickle was good, too.

And now here I am, still trying to figure out how a sandwich, a soda (all-natural sugar cane!), and two small hunks of cheese cost almost $35.00, and feeling like something of a traitor to the local artisinal movement I so desperately want to promote. I've determined that the Zingerman's crowd is almost cultish, and those that don't follow that cult mentality are punished with feelings of guilt and are forced into questioning their own judgment...which is how I feel right now.

No thank you, sir, I don't want any Kool-Aid, I just want my cheap cheese back.

Success to Celebrate: Russell Street Deli

While several restaurants and other new businesses are floundering and reading the daily news begins to feel more like viewing the timeline of a city shutting down, it's nice to hear some stories of success.

Enter Russell Street Deli, located in Detroit's year-round farmer's market Eastern Market, which beat the odds to actually increase sales and profits. Read the article as reported by CNN here.

In the meantime, Russell Street Deli is now open at 7:00AM daily (except Sundays) for breakfast, and continues to serve a popular (and crowded, and noisy) lunch in a lively communal setting. The pulled pork and corned beef are most popular, but the menu boasts a variety of vegetarian and vegan options as well, and utilizes fresh vegetables from the Market itself in a menu that changes daily to accommodate availability.

Thanks to David at the Incorrigible City for finding this piece.