Fat Kid Reviews: Leger's Deli

As I was growing up some dear friends of my family owned a deli. Their ownership of it is a thing of the past now, but it left in me a particular fondness for "deli" food. Because of this long history of sandwich consumption I really love a nice local (even if franchised) sandwich shop.

Now I came to Leger's on the raving suggestion of my dear friend and sometimes contributor "Drasago". He found the place wandering around on his lunch and after eating immediately texted me. So I decided to give it a go on one of my Fridays. This was another place that I'd drive by a hundred times, and was always looking for an excuse to try out.

First impressions upon entering? It was a sandwich shop. The kind where the guy behind the gives you a sample of his meat because he's just that proud of it. Very friendly without being pushy. The guy was mellow, sort of blue collar energy and obviously loved his job. As I was sitting there waiting he brought a piece of corned beef, He told me about the local butcher who makes all the corned beef and pastrami they use. And man... was it delicious.

I ordered two sandwiches. His weekly special (which that week was a Reuben) and the "Kitchen Sink". I'll start with the latter.

Every place like this has a sandwich like the kitchen sink. I've seen it called the "Garbage Sandwich", or the "Po'Boy" or some variation on the theme. Some places will even give you the history of the term "Po'Boy" when you order it. But basically it's a bunch of meats and cheeses on a sandwish. This one in particular had turkey, roast beef, and ham with provolone, cheddar, swiss, and american cheese. And they were fantastic. I could close my eyes and pick out each individual note of the symphony in my mouth. It was a fantastic sandwich. Which segues perfectly into the next sandwich.

I didn't know what a perfect Reuben was until I had that special. I didn't realize that the thing wrong with so many Reubans I had had was that they had too much meat until I had this sandwich. It has become the template by which I gauge other Reubens. It was magnificent.

I enjoyed it is what I'm saying there. If that wasn't clear.

Now, the one problem and it's not really a problem, is that he has a weekly special that they rotate in and out. The Reuben was one of those so there's no easy way to tell when the next time it will be available is. Aside from physically asking. And where's the fun in that?

See you in the Chow Line,
-The Fat Kid 

Fat Kid Reviews: Pizza Rev

There's a couple of places around the valley that are working with this same idea. The "high-end but affordable" pizza. Upon entering that was definitely the theme of the place, from the decor to the menu. Though not wood or coal fired they had a nice big pizza oven right there to be seen. We had come for an early lunch so Chef Fatty and I were basically the only ones there. The service was personable and they were willing to modify our pizza slightly (I have to be careful about my spinach intake for health reasons). 

We got their sausage pizza with white sauce and the Mediterranean (sans spinach). They were out to us at fast food speed and smelled quite delicious. It's a thin crust pizza with some nice toasted char from the big oven. The cheese was a nice rich buffalo mozzarella and the white sauce was well seasoned but combined with the cheese and other toppings was quite rich. Almost too much by about half way in. It was at this point that we realized that we'd picked up two of the same kind of sauce.

Now... we realized that for the sake of review this was a problem but the lady behind the counter was exceptionally kind and gave us a little sample of their red sauce. And that was the point were this went from a decent but overly rich pizza to something fantastic.

Their red sauce is dynamite.

It's bright and fresh and incredibly delicious. Dipping the over rich white sauced pizza into it? Hindu Holy Cow. It was SO good. Now I admit I have a soft spot for that mix of marinara and Alfredo sauces but this was a really good combination, just fantastic.

Now for the critiques, the pizzas were a little small for the price point but you're really paying for the time in the oven and not the size. The toppings were of a nice high quality but a little sparse on the actual pizzas.

But personally I think that's sort of a wash as getting that perfect bite of the two sauces and the cheese and sausage or olives? That was totally worth it.

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See you in the Chow line,
The Fat Kid