Dingfelder's Delicatessen is set up in a semi-obscure house near 14th and Pine. If you want to get that big beautiful boy you see in the photo above, you have to approach a not-very-well-marked door, greet a man sitting behind an iPad, balk at the price of the pastrami sandwich listed on a laminated page near the register ($18 for full meat, $12 for half meat), remember you're doing this for your people (and for your belly, and for the god of salt), ask him for a sandwich, and then loiter around the sidewalk while you wait for a secret pastrami master to assemble your sandwich.
About five minutes later you walk away with a giant bag of food that will absolutely satisfy your deep, spiritual desire for a pastrami on rye. (They also offer tuna salad and egg salad sandwiches for all you heathen pescatarians and ovotarians.)
For $18 (!!!) you get a mound of perfectly seasoned, tender, rough-cut pastrami on sturdy rye. I'm trying my hardest to channel my Jewish uncles when I say, "This thing is beautiful." The crust is thick with pickling spices—it's peppery, salty, coriandery, and just the right amount of fatty. They serve the sandwich with a small salad of pickled tomato and half-sour pickles, plus a tiny scoop of coleslaw. Both are necessary and perfect gestures.
One thing: For reasons unknown to me, they top the sandwich with Russian dressing, coleslaw (which appears to be made with the Russian dressing), and deli mustard. I do not approve of this treatment as a default. Pastrami, mustard, rye—that's it. Not a damning offense, just something you need to know about.
The Stranger's Eli Sanders stopped by Dingfelder's for lunch yesterday, and he backs up my all my claims.
He picked up a matzo ball soup and a pastrami sandwich and spent $27.53 before tip. "NOT what I normally hope to spend when I'm running out for a soup and sandwich, but I was HUNGRY and willing to give it a shot," he said via Slack. He also said half the sandwich is now sitting in his fridge at home, so it's like he's getting two lunches for $27, which isn't exactly felonious on Capitol Hill.
Moreover, a pastrami on rye at Katz's is going to cost you $22.45. While Dingfelder's offering isn't the behemoth you're served at that touristy deli on Houston, it's up there, and it's pretty much market rate.
As for the matzo ball soup: "They were generous with the shredded chicken and carrots in the soup, and the balls were nice," Eli said. And though he's more often a fan of fluffy matzo balls, he "devoured" Dingfelder's dense balls and was "happy" he did.
"I will have to do some kind of salt penance to make up for what I put in my body yesterday. But I don't regret it. It was good," Eli said.
I agree. As a man who likes to maintain respectable levels of internal salinity, Dingfelder's might not become a daily place for me. But I'll run to it when I'm feeling lonesome for my east coast family, or when I want a good deli sandwich on Capitol Hill for once in my life.
