 |
 Gordon Geoffrion, deli guy at Manhattan Deli in Willoughby Hills, slices up hot corned beef for one of the restaurant's lean, thick and tender corned beef sandwiches. |
Whenever you want hot corned beef on rye, matzo ball soup or chopped liver, look no further than Manhattan Deli in Willoughby Hills. Just slide into a booth and you’ll be instantly transported to New York, without the accent. You’re on your own with the liver, but I can tell you about the rest.
The deli counter provides entertainment for customers as they enter the restaurant. Diners can pick out dessert or watch the meat slicer deal out piles of corned beef while they wait to be seated.
Neon, echoed in the sign in the front window, lines the soffits all the way around the restaurant. It shines off the green vinyl booths beside faux-marble Formica walls. The store-front location, deli counter and drug store-style bar add to the casual atmosphere.
In addition to what you’d expect – obscenely huge corned beef and pastrami sandwiches on rye – you’ll find much more. The deli serves breakfast, lunch and dinner. Omelettes, steaks, pasta, seafood (lox, pollock and more), chicken dishes, more liver (yuck), and even an Oriental stir fry or three, make for a busy menu.
No fan of soup
Besides a liver pate (did I say yuck?), the selection of appetizers is quite ordinary – chicken fingers, mozzarella sticks, breaded mushrooms, wings and potato skins ($5-$9). However, there is one of note and that’s the Reuben skins – potato skins stuffed with corned beef, sauerkraut and Swiss cheese, served with Thousand Island dressing and sour cream. Four good-sized skins are $6 and delicious.
I was told by a reliable source that the matzo ball soup (cup $2, bowl $3) was great. Maybe I’m just not a fan of matzo ball soup, but I was less than excited by it. Chicken broth with tiny shreds of carrots and a big ball of, well, dough, didn’t entice me to eat more than just a few bites. (Editor’s note: Obviously you didn’t grow up with matzo ball soup. The subtlety of a rich chicken broth paired with tender dumplings made of matzo meal, egg and chicken fat brings glowing memories of supper at Mom’s kitchen table.)
In case you didn’t get enough corned beef last month, then this is a good place to satisfy that craving for a while. I for one didn’t get my fill, so I ordered a corned beef on rye with Swiss and a side of fries. The beef was tasty and plentiful, the fries a bit on the soggy side. I forgot to order the lean version, but there was hardly any fat on my sandwich.
One of my guests ordered the J.C. club with plenty of honey-baked ham, crispy bacon, lettuce, tomato and mayo on white toast. She must have liked it as she ate the entire triple-decker sandwich, minus the crusts.
My other guest ordered the hot roast beef sandwich. No scrimping on meat here either; she said the roast beef was tender and juicy. She also was quite pleased to discover the mashed potatoes, served with a near lethal amount of wonderful, terrible, gloppy brown gravy on the side, were homemade and not instant.
Also on the menu you’ll find 10 salads, eight omelettes, somewhere around 35 sandwich combination plates (served with a choice of coleslaw, potato salad or French fries) as well as wraps and burgers.
Other selections we didn’t try but really would have liked to were the homemade corned beef hash, corned beef & latka – corned beef sandwiched between two homemade potato pancakes – and the Cajun chicken fettuccini.
The service was friendly, not hard-boiled like you’ll find at another area deli I could name but won’t. I’ll give you a hint though – you’ve seen it on the news lately.
Decadent desserts
Carried away by the fat of it all, we decided to go ahead and order dessert. I wanted to try the cheesecake, which I’d heard is absolutely marvelous, but sadly they were out of both New York-style cheesecake and a special Bailey’s cheesecake our server raved about.
We consoled ourselves by sampling a cream puff (at least six inches high with three of those inches from the cream), a high hat and a pistachio torte, all homemade and all decadent.
You can bring the deli back to the office. Place your order at www.ordereats.com in the morning and pick it up just in time for lunch. You can also call in an order to (440) 585-1177 or fax to (440) 943-TOGO. They also do tremendous party trays.
Manhattan Deli is located in the Shops of Willoughby Hills at Bishop and Chardon roads. It is open Monday-Thursday from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., Friday 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., Saturday 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Sunday 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Laura Freeman writes regularly about restaurants for the Lake County Business Journal. Lfreeman@lakebusinessjournal.com.
|
