Nosh pit

Considering how large our Jewish community is, not to mention Jewish roots in the development of our Valley, this is a surprisingly poor town for delicatessens. Half of the delis here specialize in mulched turkey and coleslaw with enough sugar in it to make my teeth hurt. Getting a decent rye bread, such as the venerable Fred’s corn rye from LA, is just about impossible.

But true Jewish deli food is actually disappearing all over this country. In the ’60s, a boy could eat stuff like p’tcha (jellied calf’s foot) or schav (sorrel soup), two dishes from a bygone Fiddler on the Roof culture, in almost any American city.

Furthermore, pastramis were hand-carved by countermen that you tipped for extra meat. Today, sandwiches come stuffed with soulless machine-sliced meat, and have all the charm of Lunchables.

I’m not losing heart, though. Deli Den, on the city’s far north side, has swatches of the old-fashioned deli magic, despite the fact that their meats are sliced by machine, as they are in every other deli in town. They make lots of their own food from scratch, such as fat, tasty potato pancakes, matzo brei and hearty soups. Okay, so the pastrami at Carnegie Deli beats anything here, but it is almost twice the price. Even for someone like me, living in faraway Green Valley, it will be worth the occasional drive up here for a nosh.

Deli Den is a bright, square storefront, where you sit on straight-backed chairs with the deli case and pastry counter in full view. The service is good, but a few staffers don’t seem to know a knish from a piece of kishka. Pastries such as rugelach and seven-layer chocolate cake are made on the premises, not bought from a commercial bakery, and taste fresh and delicious.

My favorite meal here is actually breakfast. On a recent Sunday, my wife and I feasted on a large smoked-fish platter, which the menu blackboard referred to as the “small” platter. House-baked salmon, good-quality Nova lox and two giant hunks of smoked whitefish we couldn’t finish came along with ripe tomato, purple onions, cucumber slices and olives. A toasted bagel of your choice, with cream cheese, is included at no extra charge.

Deli Den also makes its own potato pancakes, or latkes as they are known in the village, from scratch. I like them because they are thick and moist, but crunchy around the edges. That’s probably from grating the potato, not pureeing it in a food processor, if you want to try this at home. I’m less enamored of their matzo brei, essentially an egg-and-chopped-matzo omelet, served pancake-style. This one just tastes like an omelet. That is around two parts matzo to one part egg, fellas, not the other way around.

Lunches here can be quite good, and less than half the price of what an equivalent would be in a deli on the Strip. The best deal might be the soup and sandwich combo, a cup of soup and a generous, well-stacked half sandwich. The deli meats are from New York Meat Co., and they aren’t bad. The pastrami is lean, with a nice pepper crust, and the brisket, tender and flavorful, is served steaming hot.

And Deli Den makes excellent soups. Usually, at this combo price, you have to pay a supplement for the chicken matzo ball soup, but not here. This soup is loaded with white-meat chicken, a few noodles, carrots and celery in a nice broth. The matzo ball is under all the other goodies, and it’s reasonably light, not ponderous as in some restaurants. The cabbage soup, often served on weekends, is also fine, a meaty soup with some sweetness, and quite a lot of ground meat, like you’d get in a traditional Jewish stuffed cabbage. I’ve also had the velvety cream of turkey soup here, which I also recommend highly.

Not everything here is quite up to snuff. The chopped liver is bland; it needs some salt, and maybe a little chopped egg, not to mention losing the food-processor texture. (Hand-chopped liver, for the record, is becoming as rare as hand-cut pastrami.) And my corned beef sandwich had very little flavor. Beyond that, though, this place is basically a find.

Most of the traditional Jewish pastries are available, and quite good. There is an oblong-shaped strawberry shortcake layered with tasty whipped cream that they make here, and a black-and-white cookie made for them, frosted half-moon-style in chocolate and vanilla. I would also come back here for mandel bread (think Jewish biscotti studded with almonds) or rugelach, cream-cheese pockets stuffed with apricot and raspberry, sold by the pound.

Deli Den may be found wanting when compared to the delis of my youth, but in terms of a neighborhood deli, it’s as good as we have at the moment. I guess I’ll just have to steam my own pastrami if I want a hand-sliced sandwich in this town.

Deli Den

6640 N. Durango Drive, 450-3353.

Suggested dishes: soups, cup, $4.95, bowl, $5.95; assorted fish platters, $14.95-$18.95; potato pancake, $2.95; rugelach, $9.95 per pound.