Tag: The Deli

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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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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.

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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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    Thank you for yesterday, today and tomorrow

    If our posts read a bit schmoozy these days it’s because we have oodles of people to thank and we’re a bit giddy with all that has been happening.

    Yesterday we opened and now that we’re in business it’s time to get down to the real business of serving up food and being a rock solid restaurant people want to come back to. You could probably call the next little while our “beta” phase as we tweak this and that and make changes based on the feedback we get.

    As we’ve probably mentioned, there are far too many people to thank to list. We’ve had so much help and so many good wishes it’s more than a little humbling. Liz would like to mention Hillary (the Urban Deli’s manager), Alan and Eli (the guys cooking up the food – that’s Eli in the picture) and everyone in the kitchen and on the floor helping her provide the best service possible (one of her obsessions).

    You’ll notice that while it took a while to get our menu posted, it’s now up and in a number of formats. There’s the Menu page. Then there’s the “prettified” .pdf format (in the right hand column), part one and part two. And then there is one other .pdf format version, that is strictly a text version for a printer friendly version.

    If you’re scratching your head about desserts (like My Saint John was), that is a work-in-progress (the downside of a beta phase). But they are coming – we hope to have those available in about a week.

    If you have some time, please pay us a visit today. Drop by for a bite!

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    A bit of entertaining

    deli_front01_300Tonight we’ll be entertaining a number of people we’ve invited to the Deli for a little evening sampling of some of our menu – yes, we do have one (ta da!) and we’ll be posting it shortly.

    We’ll have things like Montreal Smoked Meat – we are a deli, after all.

    But also our split pea with ham soup, roasted garlic and artichoke dip – seasoned pita chips for dipping, our schnitzel sandwich – breaded pork, warm sauerkraut, swiss cheese and dijon aioli … and so on. (All those we’ll be on our regular menu.)

    deli_walk01_300And we’re still busily working for tonight’s entertaining and for our Monday opening.

    It’s beautiful in Saint John today now that the fog has lifted. It’s so nice we noticed on King Street today that across from us there’s a crosswalk sign and the little guy appears to be walking, with a determined stride, right to the Urban Deli!

    Maybe he knows something …?

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    Because you asked, our hours will be …

    Dan left a comment asking what our hours would be so we went to Liz and asked, “So, what will the hours be?” (We thought it would be good to know when we’d be working.)

    So here they are, though this is tentative. (see update at the end of the post). Hours (for the first week, at least):

    • Monday – Saturday 11 a.m. –  8pm

    And that’s the plan. We’ll try to make these official very soon, so we don’t have to say “tentative” anymore. Think of the Deli, when it opens, as being in a “beta” stage, as the software people like to say. As we get feedback from people, we’ll likely make changes to make it better and as close to what you expect as possible.

    An update:

    Thanks to the comments, we realized we should provide a more for information on our hours.

    One of the reasons we say “tentative” is because things like the hours the Deli is open could change. Originally, Liz had the Deli going to be open till 11:00pm. But we decided to have it 8:00pm, at least for the first week, to get a sense for how things are operating and what people like and/or don’t like, and what is actually practical.

    After the first week, Liz is thinking of having the Urban Deli open till 11:00pm Thursday through Saturday. It’s a bit of a balancing act though between what people would like and what the economics allow us to do. But we definitely would like to be open and available later in the evening for those people looking for somewhere to drop in after a show or other engagement.

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    Yes, we have an opening date

    With so many things that can (and sometimes do) go sideways, we’re been reluctant to nail down an opening date. We’ve had a few in mind, but they all depended on certain things being done, delivered, installed and okay-ed etc. We were worried we’d announce a date then have to apologize and postpone it.

    Well, now we can say when we’ll officially open: July 13 (that’s a Monday).

    The sigh of relief you may have heard was probably from Liz, the owner and mastermind behind the Urban Deli.

    Although it’s only mid-week, it’s been going great. This has been inspector week: fire, health, city and so on. So far, the fire and health people have been in and everything’s thumbs up.

    So all systems are go as we make our way to the opening: July 13.

    We hope to see you here (Urban Deli, 68 King Street, Saint John). We’re very anxious to hear what you think, what suggestions you may have and so on. And if you think something is not quite right, could use some tweaking or whatever, please be kind! 🙂

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