Lefsetz Letter: Langer’s #19 for Birthday Lunch

Famed entertainment and music industry analyst and commentator Bob Lefsetz spent his birthday celebrating the happiest way he knows – with a Langer’s #19 sandwich!

You want a #19.

I have birthday traditions. You know how institutions of higher learning have all those rules you’ve got to follow for no good reason other than everybody before you did the same damn thing? Well, I’m my own stuff-shirted traditionalist, it all hearkens back to…

1977.

Yup, that’s when I went to Langer’s and on to C.C. Brown’s and “Annie Hall” on my birthday.

That’s the tradition, hot pastrami, hot fudge sundae and a movie…or two or three.

Langer’s?

What kind of country do we live in where the best pastrami sandwich is not in New York but Los Angeles?

Yes, all the critics agree. It’s the hand-cut meat. The rye bread.

And the cole slaw, Swiss cheese and Russian dressing.

Huh? How can you taste all those flavors, that’s a mishmash akin to an everything bagel!

Only it’s not.

I worked my way up to the #19, Langer’s legendary sandwich.

At first I only got the pastrami, then the swiss cheese, then I remembered the sandwiches in the mountains, i.e. the Catskills, with cole slaw, and I went for the whole shebang and that’s what I have every April 22nd, the #19. And it couldn’t have been better yesterday.

And just because I was overdoing it, I had the crinkly fries too. Or should I say KRINKLY fries? And of course a Dr. Brown’s Black Cherry. Come on, you can’t eat at the deli without it.

And the Russian dressing is oozing out of the sandwich, but the crunch of the bread is so satisfying, it’s a modern mouth orgasm and a return to my youth all at once.

Click here to read the entire article – it’s fantastic!

Thank you, Bob, for including us in your birthday celebrations, and please say hello next time you are in so that we may thank you personally for this wonderful piece – The Langer Family