Critic's Review
Somewhere between here and somewhere else is Pastrami club. It's just south of Commercial Blvd on University; in a beat up shopping center with the kind of poorly conceived parking lots that litter this part of town. I almost got into 2 accidents in the lot alone.
First things, they market themselves as "The Original Pastrami Club", but the moniker is somewhat disingenuous. The place has changed hands several times over the years; the Sakkos owned it through 2010 and now it's owned by Jose Ortiz. There's too many people with that name to know what his background is, but I'm regularly amused by "NY Jewish Delis" in South Florida owned by people who may never have ever lived in New York.
The place looks like a Jewish Deli, where they don't re-invest much money in decor. They do have a good number of booths; no customers at 3pm, which isn't unusual.
They have a big mural on the wall that's kind of cool.
The firsts sign of trouble was the mustard; No Gulden's; national deli is a Miami based company, and you see way too much National Deli product in South Florida.
It's not bad mustard, but it just indicates to me that they're willing to sacrifice brand quality to save a few pennies. I ordered a "medium" pastrami, just to see what I'd get for $10.49. Most faux NY Deli's use the term "stuffed, over-stuffed, super-stuffed". Here they use small, medium and large. A "medium" is 7oz, which isn't particularly generous. Pastrami is about $6/lb wholesale, so you're getting less than $3 worth of meat. It comes with cole slaw or potato salad; I went with the cole slaw.
Pickles and cole slaw come out well in advance of the sandwich. 2 pickles, both were fresh but neither were good, kosher Dills.
When I get pickles cut exactly in half, I'm thinking that they come out of a jar. The cole slaw was the pulverized kind; it wasn't bad although I prefer it when it's shredded.
The sandwich came out looking like a "medium"; this is a small to me. How could you make it smaller than this?
The pastrami was good quality, and the mustard didn't ruin it the way the Beaver Creek junk does.
I'd also ordered a potato pancake, which you can include with a sandwich for the bargain price of $1.79. The potato pancake wasn't thin or greasy enough; it was too potatoey for my taste. I take my potato pancakes with sour cream, no apple sauce please.
I took 1/2 the sandwich home as I'm eating light, and they gave me a hard time about wrapping it in foil. So I had to re-wrap it when I got home.
Conclusion
My basic conclusion is that this place isn't worth the trip; They've nickled and dimed the prices where it just isn't a very good value; particularly when it's 5 miles out of the way. In the low rent district; prices need to be lower; or better yet, the portions need to be more generous. 10oz isn't "overstuffed", so for over $12 you're getting a non-overstuffed sandwich and a pedestrian side of cole slaw.