DISH OF THE WEEK: Pastrami and Egg Sandwich at The General Muir
By Amanda Coyne
Growing up in New York, I attended the private school where my mother taught math. At lunch, students and faculty sat together, eating family style from a platter that was passed around the table.
Pastrami day, though infrequent, was the day I lunged for the platter with the most gusto. I would pile steaming ribbons of the salty pink beef onto a Kaiser roll, shoveling as much as I could with the flimsy plastic tongs.
When I moved to the South after high school, I quickly realized that my favorite foods from home, including pastrami, wouldn't be easy to come by. It's much easier to find a meat-and-three or some boiled peanuts (or, in South Carolina roadside style, p-nuts) than a Jewish-style deli below the Mason-Dixon line. But when I moved to Atlanta and discovered the General Muir , I knew my search for suitable pastrami was over.
Their chewy, tangy pastrami is the result of a brisket that’s cured for about two weeks, then smoked and cut to the same width as thick-cut bacon. Pastrami is rich and deeply savory on its own, but on the General Muir’s brunch menu version of a pastrami and egg sandwich, available weekends from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., takes those qualities to a new depth.
Pastrami is stacked onto slices of buttered rye bread, along with a runny fried egg. The meat and egg are covered in a blanket of melted American cheese, and the top slice of rye is given a swipe of Russian dressing.
The sandwich is stuffed to the gills; something’s going to fall out when you take your first bite, whether it’s the oozing yolk, a chunk of pastrami or a glob of melted cheese. It just encourages you to wolf the delightfully greasy sandwich down – not that you’d need any further prodding after the first bite.
The General Muir. 1540 Avenue Place, Atlanta. 678-927-9131, http://www.thegeneralmuir.com/
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