Quote:
Originally Posted by El Diablo
Nothing against Irish pubs, but they’re places that have some food for people who go there to drink. Jewish delis have food for people who go there to eat.
Definitely this. If you got a mediocre/bad Reuben at an Irish pub, it wasn’t because it’s hard to make a good Reuben, it was because they use a lot of crappy pre-made ingredients in the kitchen.
You’ve got roughly three tiers of corned beef:
Tier 1) In-house/homemade: brined in your walk-in/refrigerator. This is less trouble, relatively speaking, at a restaurant than at home, since there’s usually enough space available in a walk-in, but not too many places that have a Reuben as a menu item (of the bar/pub variety) are going to be striving to produce top-quality food.
Tier 2) Pre-brined: comes brined. This tier has some variability; restaurants are going to be getting whole briskets rather than just a point or flat. IME the pre-brined whole briskets are better. Inability to control the brine, brining time, and transit time between brine and cooking means Tier 2 will never be as good as Tier 1, but you can still get a fairly good product from this category.
Tier 3) Pre-cooked: I mean, there might be something in this category that’s OK, but not AFAIK. A lot of bad Reubens are going to be bad primarily because they’re using this stuff.