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SudsMuffin reviews us

We got a great review from SudsMuffin. They aren’t very far from us, just over a few streets on Union where they carry, “… a delectable variety of natural and traditional bath and body products and spa indulgences.”

It seems our cheese dishes went over big (grilled cheese sandwich and the mac and cheese). It was gratifying the review talked about the food (which is all important) but also about what we’ve tried to achieve with the atmosphere and the open kitchen idea.

Thanks for coming in and giving us a try and we hope to see you again soon!

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Yes, we’ll be open for New Brunswick Day (Monday)

Just in case anyone might have wondered (because Monday is a holiday), we will be open with our regular 11:00am to 8:00pm hours. So if you’re in Uptown Saint John on Monday, drop in an see us. (Sorry, we’ll be closed on Sunday – but we do hope to be opening on Sundays soon. Really!)

With New Brunswick being the birthday kid on Monday (225 years old!), there are quite a few things going on, many of them in the Market Square area, just down the street from us. You’ll find some information at Tourism Saint John (August events). (En français? Allez ici.) It sounds as if there will be lots of live entertainment.

Also open and celebrating on Monday, and also in Market Square, the New Brunswick Museum. (Si vous préférez la page en français, s’il vous plaît cliquer ici.)

No, our French is not very good. We just thought if someone’s first language was French and they preferred seeing the information that way, it’s easy enough to link to it.

Have a great New Brunswick Day! 225 years ain’t no small thing, you know. That is some kind of history!

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Uptown or Downtown?

We saw a story on CBC New Brunswick today, Saint John urged to rename city centre ‘downtown.’ We’re curious to hear what you think. From the CBC story:

A former Saint John mayor (Eric Teed) is pushing to have the long-held expression for the city’s centre switched from the confusing “uptown” moniker to the more traditional term of “downtown.”

When asked, Liz, the owner of the Urban Deli, said, “That’s crazy!” We’ve had a few tweets from others that seem to agree.

Liz is actually very proud of being part of Uptown Saint John. Of course, she’s always been a fan of the urban core, everywhere, feeling that’s where the heart of a city should be. It’s where all the vitality of its business, culture, arts and, yes, people who live there, should be and interact.

She has some pretty strong opinions on this, particularly in the context of Saint John. When we asked her about this uptown-downtown thing she started in on how there are more important things to worry about, like the usual issues that affect any city’s urban core — housing, drugs, business support and so on.

But what do you think? Uptown? Downtown? Does it matter to you? We’d like to hear what you think.

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About our hours

A few people have pointed out that we haven’t been very clear, here on the site, about our hours. They couldn’t find them anywhere! We did have them in a post but neglected to put them up anywhere obvious. Sorry!

And thanks for the heads up. You’ll now see them posted over in the right hand column, just below our address. You’ll also see an “Hours” page up in our navigation at the top.

Also, while we close at 8:00pm, Liz says, “… As long as your food order is into our kitchen by 8:00pm you can sit back and relax … We won’t rush you out by 8. And we promise not to ask you to help close!” 🙂

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A little history on our communal table

We’ve found quite a few people interested in the story of our communal table. Where’s it from? Who made it?

Gord, who has been one of the stalwart people behind getting the deli up and running, put together a bit of information on the table for us.

Apart from the food, one of the most unique aspects of the Urban Deli, if not the most unique, is our communal table, a concept that finds its roots in Europe – food and community, natural companions.

There is a local history behind our communal Table. The wood itself is pitch pine from the United States and is reported to be between 400 and 500 years old.

It was originally a single support beam in the Saint John Lantic Sugar Cane factory, which was built in 1912 and decommissioned in 2000.

The table is made of approximately 400 square board feet of lumber. The tabletop is fourteen feet of continuous lumber, made of two-inch thick, six-inch wide single strips, which have been laminated together to create the 36-inch width. The base is made in two sections with the total weight being well over 400 lbs.

The beam was purchased from and milled by Hunter Lake Lumber of New Brunswick.

What you see today in the Urban Deli is a table commissioned and created by local carpentry artisan  (via Germany) Christoph Malinowski of CM Woodcrafters Inc.

The end result is a beautiful, lovingly made communal table, an idea that allows patrons to sit down and enjoy our Urban Deli food while also enjoying the friendly Saint John community as they meet both new and old friends.

See also:

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    Montreal smoked meat and the great debate

    You’ll find some really interesting discussions around the subject of Montreal smoked meat, pastrami and corned beef. Or, put another way, smoked meat and corned beef. And there’s a particularly lively debate about the difference between Montreal smoked meat and pastrami. Some say they’re the same thing. Some say they are very different.

    If you go by what you find on Wikipedia about Montreal smoked meat and pastrami and corned beef, you would see they seem quite different, with pastrami appearing to fall somewhere between smoked and corned (as described by Wikipedia).

    On the surface, these differences appear to be about preservative processes that came about before the refrigeration age. In one (corned), meat is preserved using brine (meaning salt) and in the other through smoking. Using these processes, particularly with smoking, it was discovered that while they preserved the meat they also did something to add to or enhance the taste. Montreal smoked meat and pastrami are both cured meat (that preservative business of brine), then smoked.

    However, it’s more likely the differences lie in the seasoning – what it is and how it’s applied – added prior to the smoking. That would be the rub used on the meat. The seasoning could be garlic, coriander, black pepper, paprika, cloves … you name it. It really appears to amount to this: similar processes, different outcomes. Few aficionados, however, confuse the two: they know Montreal smoked meat from pastrami.

    What often gets lost in the debate over Montreal smoked meat and pastrami is the importance of the bread — the rye bread. The bread is important for it’s consistency, the flour and the rye grain, and how it is sliced. But the topic of the bread is for another post …

    Of course, here at the Urban Deli we lean toward Montreal smoked meat – it’s what we have on the menu. But if you ask Michael-ann (Liz’s sister), it’s really Atlantic smoked meat. Or New Brunswick smoke meat. Saint John smoked meat … Urban Deli smoked meat!

    Why? Because we smoke it here. Yes, we have a smoker.

    We really are the Urban Deli!

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    Disclosure: why we keep saying ‘we’

    Full disclosure, of a sort.We have one full week under our belt and today we head into week two with just as much enthusiasm — and a better idea of what to expect. Last week we seemed to get busier each day with Friday probably the busiest.

    Today we thought it would be a good idea to explain a bit about why we keep referring to “we” here on the site and a bit about who “we” are.

    To begin with, the Urban Deli is the dream of, and owned by, Liz. But it’s a team of people — up front and behind the scenes. They make the deli “the deli” and so it’s best to refer to “we.”

    Maybe more importantly, however, we don’t want to bamboozle anyone into thinking Liz is doing the writing. When Liz posts something, she’ll post it as Liz. She hasn’t posted anything as yet for two reasons: she’s way to busy with all the daily running of the Urban Deli to find time to do it properly and (let’s be honest) she’s a bit shy about writing and having everyone see it. (We’re working on that.)

    I’m doing the writing and I am Bill. I have a couple of sites of my own, Writelife and Piddleville, and I’m what Liz refers to as “the web guy.” I put the site together for her and I more or less maintain it, the Urban Deli Twitter stream (@urbandeli) and the Facebook page (a whole other story!). (About the Facebook problem? See this little ramble.)

    I asked Liz yesterday how long I had known her and we figured it to be 11 or so years. (I told her it felt like a lot longer!) We met and worked together back in Alberta and, when Liz moved back east, she brought me and Gord with her. (Gord’s another behind the scenes character — sometimes in front — at the Urban Deli). I was at the deli before they began work on it (it was a disaster) and I’ve seen it transform. I speak to Liz almost constantly so I have a good idea about what’s going on and when I don’t I harass her until she gets it to me.

    Liz could tell you many stories about me just as I could tell many about her. It’s like the old Mexican stand-off thing: we can’t blackmail each other because the other knows to much about us!

    I’m essentially a writer-editor, to a large extent from the marketing side of things, with a good familiarity with the Internet, social media tools, and other tech related things. But compared to actual web designers, or programmers, I’m not really a tech guy. I guess you could say I’m an informed amateur.

    And that’s about it. I’m Bill, “the web guy.” Liz is the owner gal. The Urban Deli is a crew of people.

    And that’s why we keep saying “we.”

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