Ben’s Best – Delivery & A Challenge!

Sometimes I get sick.  I hate when I’m sick.  I really do, because I live alone and take care of myself and sometimes when I’m sick I get completely, thoroughly fed up with my whininess (internal as it may be)… and because I seem to get one of two kinds of sick: the more prevalent one, I believe because of all that I do choose to consume, is tummy troubles.  Can’t eat.  Blegh.  Haaate that. 

The other kind requires a special diet of just soup, soothing-to-my-throat, no fried foods, less oil, and basically, mostly bland foods… because I can’t talk.  People, I can’t talk.  For those of you who have never met me in person, this might be like, whatever, but reading this blog must have alerted you to the notion that I really like to talk and it’s all I do all day.  Sincerely.  I’ve been coughing and uncomfortable and unhappy and just blegh. 

At least I can still eat.  After reading BeerBoor’s write up of Pastrami Queen, I realized I really wanted some, well, pastrami.  Luckily, in my neighborhood exists a place called Ben’s Best, and they do pastrami mighty fine.  They also do a wonderful chicken noodle soup labeled Jewish Penicillin, so, hello, obviously I needed some of that. 

And it turns out they also deliver, although for a $5 delivery fee 🙁 , via SeamlessWeb.  The website said it would take 45-60 minutes to deliver to me, but I want what I want, so I placed my order and began my impatient wait.  They arrived in 20 minutes.  (I’m also curious; so if there’s a $5 delivery fee, does that count as tip for the delivery guy?  I still tipped him, but I’m curious what the $5 fee actually goes to pay.) 

My quart of chicken matzoh ball soup was first order, to soothe my throat. 

Mm, matzoh! 

Sweet, sweet broth that soothed my achey throat on its way down into my tummy.  Love, love, love.  (Also, love Chinese soup spoons for drinking soup, otherwise you don’t get enough in those stupid tablespoons.  Ha!) 

I also ordered an appeteaser of goulash because I’d liked it so much last time – and I liked it this time, too – but I was a little confused when it arrived in a pint container with no egg noodles and with big, fat slices of fresh carrot, not topped with frozen peas & carrots like last time.  I’m not complaining, but this was definitely a different experience from ordering and eating it at the place, which is always of interest to me.  I mean, why else review a place I’ve already done twice at the restaurant, but now review delivery?  For the differences, obviously! 

Big, tender chunks of beef, sweet tomato broth, lovely carrots… I still like this.  I ate this for breakfast one morning without any noodles or carb to sop up the juices, and won’t make that mistake again, as delicious as it was… yum. 

Last, but not least.  The pastrami platter.  $14.75

3 green pickle halves and 3 weird green pickle halves (I’m sorry, I don’t remember the names!).  Yum.

Deli mustard, a must for pastrami!

A half pint container of…

housemade cole slaw 

another half pint container, this one of 

housemade potato salad

six slices of rye bread, waiting for me to toast 

And the jewel!

PASTRAMI.

A lovely container packed with the delicious, fatty, yummy, flavorful meat.  Seriously?  This made many a meal for me – 3 full sandwiches, plus each container of salad, so, so, so yummy.  And, by virtue of how many meals it made for me, very much worth the price tag, because not all of us want overstuffed sandwiches. 

Terrible photo but you get the idea – one of the sandwiches was toasted rye, smeared with the mustard and topped with sliced tomatoes from my CSA and then pastrami that had been heated in such a way to make it no longer kosher (oops). 

Yvo says: So very worth it, so very yummy, so very awesome.  I’m still confused about the delivery fee of $5 and hope someone will be able to explain it to me – perhaps someone from Seamless Web, or someone from Ben’s Best themselves – but other than that, I highly recommend getting a platter delivered today, when you’re sick, whenever… cuz it’s good eatin’ and it lasts a decent amount of time.  Unless you stuff your face constantly, which hey, reading my site makes it completely a possibility that readers are bigger pigs than I am…
highly recommended

While writing the above, I decided I really wanted Ben’s again (and I’m still sick, so my sore throat really wanted more soup).  I glanced through Restaurant.com and discovered that for $2, I could procure a $25 off $50 gift certificate for Ben’s Best so… off I went to eat $50 worth of food

As I pulled open the door, I saw this sign.  A challenge!  I quickly took a photograph and emailed my friends… and at this moment, at this writing, I have a friend who is dying to tackle this challenge, but our schedules have not quite matched up in order for him to come out and do it.  I have faith he will complete this easily… afterall, this is the same guy who ate a huge burger in 4 minutes.

The first thing I ordered was Cel-Ray, after TT told me that it was quite good with cured meats.

Uh, he lied.  I’m OK with celery, but this tasted like a very mild ginger ale with a lingering celery finish.  I think I’ll pass on that next time… 

My dining companion, knowing how much I adore the matzoh ball soup, ordered his own bowl.  Yum.

Not to be outdone, I ordered my own bowl of chicken noodle soup (not wanting a matzoh ball). 

Chunks of chicken and loads of fresh dill, a sweetness to that broth, I can’t emphasize enough how much I love, love, love this soup. 

Of course your standard pickles and cole slaw – I’m always slightly irked when only the weak-green-colored ones arrive, since I like the crunchier ones.  But not that big of a deal, and the cole slaw is really, really tasty. 

Next, an order of the stuffed derma, which I thought was stuffed skin of some sort. 

There didn’t appear to be a casing of any kind, but the texture of this was like stuffing, but mixed with more liquid and packed together.  Interesting enough, I suppose…

made even better by this intensely rich gravy that came on the side.  Holy.  Is there schmaltz in there?  I believe there is… 

I’m not a huge fan of their big potato-wedge fries, but I didn’t order these and I’m sure they were perfectly enjoyed with the gravy.  Since we both ordered deli meat platters, we had our choice of potato salad or fries, and I chose the potato salad, so my dining companion opted to order what I didn’t: fries. 

Corned beef platter for my dining companion, which was cotton candy soft, but not quite as much oomph as he’d have liked.

Pastrami for me, which I happily shared with my dining companion after the corned beef wasn’t entirely to his liking. 

The potato salad was tasty as usual. 

Five slices of rye bread for our platters. 

And because I keep hearing how awesome they are, I added on a crisp frank.  WOW!  This kosher, all-beef hot dog had so much snap to each bite, I could easily eat this entirely without any sort of dressing.

But since it was brought to me already, I added relish and onions.  Yum.

All this food came out to about $50 with the discount (including tax/tip).  My biggest “complaint” here would be that the platters definitely seem more worth it if you order them to go or for delivery, as above – more bread, and more stuff with it that you might not necessarily eat if you’re at the restaurant, but if it’s in your fridge and you’re anything like me, it’s getting eaten.  I definitely recommend getting gift certificates from Restaurant.com for this place, which takes the price from reasonable to really cheap, and eating here because um, the food is awesome, hello. 

Love love love.  Nom.