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Manny's corned beef is available at Fresh Market supermarkets (at least, it is in Northbrook).

Apparently, Manny's corned beef (and a few other items) is now being offered through 'Tastes of Chicago' -- along with Hackney's products. Received this message earlier today:

Manny's Combo via Tastes of Chicago

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I just wanna live until I gotta die. I know I ain't perfect but God knows I try. --Todd Snider

Twitter: ronniesuburban

In the never ending quest for home cooking outside the house, I find the deepest veins of gold mostly at Latin and Asian Places. I know, I'm preaching to the choir on this one.

This week was my first lunch visit to Manny's, after a very happy breakfast visit last year. What really struck me was how very good all the food was. Back when aspiring presidents were 'a choice not an echo', Jewish deli food really wasn't so good once you reached beyond corned beef and pastrami. If you wanted good kishke, or chicken soup with matzo balls, or flanken (short ribs) there was one relative or even a shirt tail relative you could rely on for one or more dishes.

Manny's, however, breaks the mold. What a treasure.

That said, I find my preference falling on the pastrami side of the street. That, and kishke with the real beef gravy.

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Chicago is my spiritual chow home

Manny's corned beef or pastrami is nothing special. I've ordered sandwiches for carry out, and they were as dry as a popcorn fart. Manny's doesn't even get close to the level of Jake's or any variety of New York deli's. It's overloved because it's the most visible and one of the few real deli's that we have in Chicago. As far as their other products (I've heard the oxtail stew is good) I don't know, but the corned beef and pastrami are a waste of time, based on a quality and price standpoint. Same with the roast beef.

And don't even think of going to Manny's at Midway. I grabbed a sandwich from there a couple of weeks ago figuring it would be serviceable meal on the plane. No dice. Rubbery, fatty corned beef; I felt like I was in a "Three Stooges" episode where they bite into a shoe and just look around at each other while chewing and chewing endlessly. Threw it out after a couple of bites.

I thought the corned beef a little dry too. But excoriating a juicy pastrami sandwich for being greasy is much akin to knocking Marilyn Monroe for being voluptuous.

Just moments ago i finished a Manny's fly by Midway pastrami sandwich here on the plane. Although I've often had worse airport food, I've never had better. My bona fides: bridge and tunnel raised in the heart of the golden age of NYC deli's. In the last year I've had Sarge's in NYC, Langers in LA, Kenny and Zuke's in downtown Portland and Manny's. All good. None perfect. The best: the one that serves it the way you like.

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Chicago is my spiritual chow home

I didn't say anything in regards to the pastrami being greasy. I just saw it as being uneventful.

As far as my airport experience, I stopped at Manny's at about 8:00 p.m., not exactly prime time, so that could explain the rubbery corned beef that may have been sitting there for quite some time (it wasn't in a steam table, it was in a container of warm water). Then again, if it's that bad, they just shouldn't be serving it. Then again, after I saw them pulling it out of the water, I should have walked away.

Don't even want this image in my mind.

i took my elderly neighbor to the doctor today. Along the way we started talking corned beef. She is a regular at Jake's, but was going on and on about Manny's. When her children or nephew come up from Chicago they are apparently not let in the door without bringing up some corned beef from Manny's. On the way home I took her past but not in to the House of Corned Beef, so I know she will be comparing that soon.

I am glad it is not only me that thinks that Manny's serves a bone dry corned beef sandwich. Even at the restaurant, its dry when you pick it up at the counter. Manny's serves some other great food(soups, tuna and carved beef sandwiches as well as super hash and plate lunches), that it is easy for me to pass on the CB sandwich.

Like the kids say, you're doing it wrong. 1/2 and 1/2 and ask Geno to slice your CB (to order) fatty.

I've had better CB at the Midway branch than the flagship. Damnation by faint praise, maybe.

The NY nostalgia is largely misplaced. Very little to love at most places these days. As a rule, deli sucks in 2012.

Yes. Ask for what you want. Most non-LTH-types consider lean corned beef the ideal, so that's what you get if you don't speak up.

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_________________
I just wanna live until I gotta die. I know I ain't perfect but God knows I try. --Todd Snider

Twitter: ronniesuburban

Followed Jeff's (and my own) advice earlier this week and asked Geno for some of the fatty stuff. He was happy to oblige. He forked a whole brisket out of the steamer, artfully liberated and trimmed the point in about 20 seconds, and sliced me up one helluva sandwich. Fwiw, he told me that's also what he prefers . . .


Corned Beef Sandwich on Rye (fatty by request)

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_________________
I just wanna live until I gotta die. I know I ain't perfect but God knows I try. --Todd Snider

Twitter: ronniesuburban

Gino will also make a killer (almost literally) combo of fatty CB and pastrami for you upon request--a near-perfect yin & yang--if he hears you while flashing his knives and talking a mile-a-minute. When he's putting on a show, I take a step back for safety & just watch. Heaven help you if TV cameras are around for this spectacle. But Gino's a really good dude, and the aforementioned combo and a burnt-end roast beef sandwich on a kaiser roll are two of the best sandwiches Chicago has to offer, period.

These sentences mean the same thing.

. . . or you could have him slice it to order rare off the bone, preferably on an onion roll, and you have another "best." To make it a quartet, Manny's is also one of the few places around to offer a boiled brisket (also on onion roll). That's one reason they've got the horseradish on the many of the tables.

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"The fork with two prongs is in use in northern Europe. In England, they’re armed with a steel trident, a fork with three prongs. In France we have a fork with four prongs; it’s the height of civilization." Eugene Briffault (1846)

Manny's is a really cool old-school place which I'm glad exists, but just as soon never eat at again. The light-up Manny's sign is one of the greatest in a city full of great restaurant signs, while the massive hand-written menu board is a work of art in its own way. Upon finding out I had just moved to town from Indianapolis, the friendly manager engaged me in a very entertaining conversation about Indy's December blizzard, which then moved into a discussion of the best places to go sledding in Chicago. The Catholic Bears-jersey-wearing family I sat next to was equally friendly. All this doesn't change the fact that the corned beef was one of the driest sandwiches I've ever eaten.

It wasn't that it was too lean, either, because there was plenty of marbled fat. It's just that the beef was so overcooked that the fat couldn't save it. Each slice was splotches of tasty fat surrounded by chalky dryness. Trying to find something positive to say here… OK, the squirt bottle mustard on the table was very good, and so was the dill pickle.

Honestly, I am the kind of guy who if you put a big pile of sliced meat in front of me, I'll eat it and at least marginally enjoy it regardless of quality. So did I enjoy the Manny sandwich? Kind of. But not nearly $13 worth of enjoyment.

I really like everything about Manny's except the food.

I want to like Manny's. I have been there twice, with maybe a year in between and both times my corned beef sandwich was not good. They were gristly and chewy. I was so disappointed but the dog seemed happy. Not sure that I will give them a third chance.

My go to place now is in Des Plaines across from Lutheran General Hospital. It is called NY Bagels and Bialys. The corned beef sandwiches are stacked high with thin corned beef, pickle and potato chips (or potato salad) on the side. Add a Dr. Brown's black cherry and I am a happy camper. They will also make you a decent Reuben if the ovens are not being used for baking at the time It is pretty much a take out place although they have one or two tall tables if you want to eat in. Very small deli with only a few items.

I also like their mini-bagels. Nice staff too.

I think all's you would have to do is have Gino drizzle or pour some of that au jus on the corned beef, fatty or lean, to do the trick. Yes, I KNOW it's mixing roast & corned beef. So what? Think outside the box for once...

But having eaten there almost every weekday for 10 years (our office was next door), I can say that Manny's is SO much more than the CB. Without even looking at their extensive menu, just on memory, I would rank the corned beef hash among the best I've ever had, the short ribs with carrots and prunes fantastic, and even the kishke was a treat. The julienne salad--a lot of stuff in a bowl with some of that thinly sliced rare roast beef and some Catalina dressing--is something I've replicated at home. And as an Italian person with Italian kids, I can say their 'Jewish spaghetti' was among their favorites that Manny's served up.

I love Manny's. I've been going there since I was 3, but I don't always get the corned beef. Their steam table items speak to me on an elemental level. I've long been on record as being a fan of Manny's short ribs.

Manny's Short Ribs


Also, if corned beef is on your mind and you don't like the sandwich, try going for breakfast for some of their stellar corned beef hash.

Manny's Corned beef Hash

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Steve Z.
Photographer/Pseudojournalist

"The only time to eat diet food is while you’re waiting for the steak to cook." - Julia Child