Sammy’s Roumanian

Back in Los Angeles but I’m still digesting our meal from last night. For our final New York feast we went to Sammy’s Roumanian Steakhouse on the Lower East Side. Have you been to this crazy Jewish hangout? I’ve been going to Sammy’s for about 25 years and I love it but I fully understand why many people I know would run screaming from the place if they were forced to eat the food or participate in the nightly festivities.

The décor of Sammy’s evokes your parents’ 1960s rec room. Yellowing photos of overfed patrons line every inch of wall space along with stapled business cards for companies that no longer exist. Crepe paper streamers hung during Golda Meir’s reign as Prime Minister add to the festive fluorescent-lit mood. On every table you’ll find bottles of good old-fashioned seltzer and large pitchers of golden chicken fat, also known as schmaltz. That should give you an indication of the food to come, delicious as hell but truly a lethal cholesterol orgy.

Kendall and I would walk to Sammy’s from L.A. just to get their chopped liver, surely the best in New York (especially after the unfortunate closing last year of the Second Avenue Deli), if not the world. The waiter mixes it up tableside, combining the perfectly cooked chicken livers with slivers of white radish, blackened fried onions as only your great-grandmother could make, and a generous helping of the golden schmaltz. Oy vay iz mir! Other sides included mouth-watering sour pickles and pickled tomatoes, roasted peppers, and an eggplant salad that contained enough garlic to disable the entire population of Transylvania.

Here is my sister Sue, her husband Jeff, and their two kids following the agony and ecstasy of the appetizer course! They may look terrified and ill, but they were in heaven from these delicacies. For our main course, we had garlic-infused skirt steaks that were so huge they hung off the plate on both sides and yummy boiled flanken nestled in a thick mushroom barley sauce. Other specialties of the house include a garlicky sausage called karnatzlach, fried kreplach, latkes, broiled liver with unborn eggs (!), kishke, sweetbreads, lamb chops, and other dishes cooked with copious amounts of chicken fat and onions. Oh God, it hurts so good. Can somebody put the paramedics on speed dial?

The entertainment at Sammy’s is straight out of the Catskills. The same guy has been playing that electric piano for decades and his shtick is so bad it's great. It helped that we came straight from seeing the new Mel Brooks musical based on his film “Young Frankenstein.” The play received lukewarm reviews when it opened last week (what did the critics think they were going to, Strindberg?), but I loved every second of it, especially Andrea Martin as Frau Blücher. That woman is so funny she can walk across the stage without saying a word and slay the crowd. Megan Mullally was a wonderful choice for Dr. Frankenstein’s society girlfriend and she handled Mel’s raunchy lyrics with great aplomb (in one scene she had to sing the word “tits” around 20 times). Sutton Foster was fun as the cheerful sex kitten/lab assistant Inga and Shuler Hensley was the perfect monster. It was only Roger Bart in the lead role that seemed to be having a bit of a hard time but he made the best of it. It can’t be easy being compared to Gene Wilder who was so brilliant in the movie.

The broadness of Mel Brooks was the perfect primer for the frivolity of Sammy’s which included Irish waitresses singing Yiddish ballads and a full hora with happy patrons smashing into tables throughout the packed restaurant. Our goyishe friends Ellen and Greg, who had just gotten married, joined us at Sammy’s before leaving on their honeymoon in South Africa. They were feted by our Catskills comedian who sang a few verses of “Get Me to the Shul on Time” for the couple who then shared their first chicken fat-induced dance as husband and wife. From Poughkeepsie to the Lower East Side in less than 24 hours—quite an accomplishment! The management sent over some warm-from-the-oven rugelach for the bride and groom and we had New York Egg Creams all around, complete with U-Bets chocolate syrup. By the end of the evening, we felt bonded with everyone in the place and like we were all family. Indeed, I left feeling the same way I used to after all family dinners—stuffed to the gills, nauseous, my ears ringing from the din of loud Jews, and my sides aching from laughter. What more could you ask for?

Luckily, Kendall and I were sitting next to some Chasidic men on the plane this morning. I don’t think any Gentiles could have handled the scent of garlic, onions, and chicken fat coming out of our pores.

Comments

[Arlene]

Danny, I'm sitting here licking my lips and dreaming about all this food that you are describing! It all tastes so wonderful. I feel like I just left my aunt's house. Is this restaurant anywhere near Chicago, I want to go right now!!

[By Jane]

oh wow you're such a tease....!

[churlita]

It all sounds so wonderful I love those Kitschy places. There's a Mexican restaurant in San Francisco that has all it's seasonal decorations up all year long and Mariachis that come to your table to cheese out on you.

[Judy]

The last time I was at Sammy's, it felt like I was at someone's Bar Mitzvah. You remind me I inherited my mom's meat grinder...the same one I used to watch her use to make chopped liver. I used to make it a long time ago...I have good memories of my mom rendering chicken fat and taking the onions and gribbenes( not sure of the spelling) out as it was still cooking on the stove.

[OldOldLady Of The Hills]

I'm sure it must be hard to be thinking of Thanksgiving Dinner after the feast at Sammy's, but tomorrow is another day, as Scarlett liked to say...LOL!

I Wish you both a VERY VERY HAPPY THANKSGIVING, DANNY, and I hope your "DAY" IS FANTASTIC!

[Pearl]

If the restaurant had a "hechsher" I'd be there in a " New York minute"!...Does it?

I love the comparison to the Catskills-- I can relate to that, having gone to a couple of the big resorts a few times. As a teen, I'd sit at the teens' table and the kids would order several entrees and try a bit of each. Fress and ess...is and was the order of the day. As for the entertainment-- you either loved it or hated it.

Hope you have a great Thanksgiving with your family, Danny.

[Rurality]

Schmaltz! I thought it was just a slang word. Thanks for the education. :)

P.S. There is no such thing as too much garlic.