A Taste of New York

Expensive. Not authentic. The Reuben was toasted not grilled. No wonder they’re gone.

I rate this spot a 1.7. This place was AWESOME when they first opened. The first few times my coworkers and I would share the sandwiches, which were hefty enough to feed two average female appetites. The pastrami was mouth watering, thinly sliced and served on white bread (I don’t like rye). Their pickles are THE BEST! Thick slices and very crisp, crunchy and perfectly pickled! Service was so-​so. not too attentive.
However, this place has done a complete 180 flavor-​wise since. Sandwiches = crappy, but the pickles are still just as good. The last time I went was probably the summer of 2007, where I was completely disgusted with how bad the meat was. It was undercooked. The pastrami was of poor quality and it almost tasted old and cheap. I ate half of my sandwich and didn’t bother eating the other half. I am never going back to that place, even if I heard they had opened an evening restaurant.
Today I heard that the restaurant is closing. I thought for sure it was because of the bad food here, but heard thru the grapevine that it is because other «private» reasons. I would have given them only 1 star, however they USED to be good and they got their pickles right, so that sorta counts, doesn’t it?

I think it’s the closest I’ve ever came to having an orgasm with a sandwich. This behemoth pastrami sandwich comes with 11 oz. of meat, potato salad and a big deli pickle. Be prepared to take a two hour nap after that. I think I actually slept three hours but eh, who’s counting?
Now, I’ve been told that several of the cast members from the hit show «Lost» frequent this wonderful establishment so you might get lucky and bump in to one of them.
I’ve seen these monster cheesecakes which they serve as well but I haven’t had the pleasure of trying one of those yet. I’m sure it has something to do with the fact that after eating the sandwich nothing else will fit in my happy tummy! Anyway, check it out… you will be so happy you did.

A New York deli in Honolulu? My wife and I took a chance and decided to go, upon a recommendation by the book «Oahu Revealed».
We were pleasantly surprised after tasting the VERY delicious reuben pastrami sandwich! The sandwich was served with a choice of chips or something else (i forget, we chose the chips!).
We thought the thrill was over until we tried the cheesecake: 1 pound PER SLICE. You read that right. Rich and delicious as New York cheesecake was meant to be. As a matter of fact, the waitress told us the recipe was taken directly from a famous cheese cake shop in NY.
The atmosphere is casual and the place suitable for familes and children. Parking is available on street or the large parking lot outside for a small fee.
Even though the taste was delicious, the prices were a little too high to be justified in my opinion, so 4 stars is given. ie. $ 10 for the cheese cake slice, and about $ 17 for the sandwich.

PASTRAMI. One of my favorite food groups. I absolutely LOVE pastrami. So when I went here with my boyfriend one afternoon for lunch and ordered the pastrami sandwich I was in heaven. The sandwich was so ginormous! And so was the slice of cheesecake! Whoa. As big as the Big Apple. And then some. I love the pastrami sooooooo much i’ve ordered it by the LB. for homemade sandwiches and salads. Mmmmmm!

Warning, I AM from NY and live here now. It’s NOT a taste of NY, lol. But it’s decent if you want a big sandwich fix, kind of overpriced.

We decided to eat there one afternoon to see what the dealio was on this monster cheesecake.
So, first we ordered sandwiches. While we waited (and it was quite a wait), my daughter ate a pickle from the pickle jar that was on the table so by the time she got her hot dog that was bigger than her face, she couldn’t finish it. Our sandwiches came and I wasn’t sure who was going to win, the sandwich or me. H’s sandwich was monsterous too. It had all kinds-​o-​meat in it. It was kinda gross to look at, but tasted really really good! I ordered the corned beef and it was good too.
Ok… so then we were sickly full but we HAD to see what the big deal was about this cheesecake. No one ordered it while we were there, but we did. We waited a while and then noticed the manager sitting at the table next to us with a big ol’ cheesecake infront of him. He brought it over to us and said, «You’re the first people to order the cheesecake today. If you can finish the whole thing, it’s on me.» Oh, hellz ya, you asked the wrong people’s man. We are piggy pig pigs and we will eat it even if we’re gonna die from that monster sandwich we just ate.
The cheesecake… eh… was a-​ight. I’ve had waaaay better cheesecake from Jack in the Box… for real. Once again, bigger doesn’t mean better. I don’t know what the hell people were raving about… the blueberry filling on top tasted better. It lacked flavor… it was a whole lotta nuttin’. In any case, we still finished cuz I think it was the better deal to NOT have to pay for it. right?
The mostest stars were for the yummy sandwiches. *word*

6÷10÷07: Checked this place out with my wife after a co-​worker recommended it. We went on a Sunday night and had alittle trouble finding parking. The restaurant shares a large parking lot with numerous stores — we were excited, generally this is a good sign if there are alot of people around. Entered the restaurant after walking thru an alley like entrance way. First impression of the restaurant was that it felt more like a bar than a sit-​down place, walls are painted orange and blue (like the NY Mets I guess). We were seated at a table next to a window with views of a basketball court and school. We were there for the sandwiches and were surprised that they had a wide variety of specialty steaks, not something I expected. Steaks were pretty expensive (I think they were between $ 25 and $ 40). Anyways, My wife and I ordered sandwiches for dinner (she got the reuben and I had the roast beef). The waiter brought out a huge tupperware of pickles, we devoured a couple, they were great. Sandwiches came our pretty quickly, portions were large, coleslaw was excellent (we ate only half of the sandwiches). The Reuben was a bit saucy, but otherwise she loved it. My sandwich was also really good, not dry at all. We took home a cheesecake (homemade, plain) and ate it later that night, it was really good — very creamy and not too sweeet. Overall we enjoyed it, alittle more expensive than what I expected (each sandwich was $ 15, cheesecake was $ 10 per slice).

Generally I have two beliefs about food — Hawaiians should not try to cook east coast food and everything from New York is Bad (especially during baseball season).
However, there is always a diamond in the rough and A Taste of New York is one of them. Sure they dont sell pizza and the place is way too colorful and friendly to ever be a real New York Deli — but they make a good effort. A taste of New York sells monster sandwiches, cheese cake and while you are waiting you can have all the Kosher pickles you could possibly want. What should you know about A Slice of New York — the sandwiches are packed with 11 ozs of meat, the cheese cake is so big that they have a special container to store it and you are still in Hawaii so a reuben will cost you $ 17.95 and a slice of cheese cake will cost you $ 11.50 (but, honestly, it’s almost worth it).
Insider note: dont try the Alex Rodriguez unless you want to spend the rest of the day crying aimlessly that no-​one likes you — but you still wont suck it up and leave.
Insider note II: dont eat too many pickles — even though they are free, the dill tends to upset the stomach after a while.

We were so hungry this afternoon after a kid’s birthday party so were cruising around trying to find a place to eat at. A Taste of New York came to mind and I really felt like something pastrami. So we entered this little deli style restaurant and were greeted by the friendly staff.
The menu was certainly New York-​ish with sandwiches named after celebrities such as Bill Cosby, Sarah Jessica Parker and Derek Jeter to name a few. Naturally, the pastrami sandwich and Reuben were featured. Since I was craving pastrami, I ordered the pastrami on rye (hey, how else are you gonna have pastrami?), but the half order. Hubby wanted that too so the server suggested that we get a whole order, split it and if we wanted separate sides to just order an extra side.
I was watching the orders come out and they were just HUGE! The sandwiches were stacked about 3 – 4 inches high as there was just a lot of meat in ‘em. When our’s arrived it was the same, just overflowing with pastrami. My biggest disappointment came in the form of the rye bread. It was the loaf form which had been sliced and it was obviously WAY too soft to hold all that meat. The whole thing fell apart very quickly and the bread got soggy. Still, I enjoyed it. The coleslaw side was above average and so was the potato salad (made with red potatoes and skin attached!).
My little guy had a hotdog (what else is new?) which he devoured in minutes.
The best thing about this place is the atmosphere and the tupperware on every table filled with kosher pickles. It’s your’s for the taking! Yummy! We were saving for dinner tonight so passed on the New York style cheesecake. That too was an enormous slice enough to satiate 4 people!
Definitely a keeper!