AUSTIN: THE KOSHER STORE AT THE H.E.B.

Whenever we are in Austin, we make sure to eat at the Kosher Store’s deli. The Kosher Store is a store within a store, and it has a kosher sit down deli. The food is fresh and usually quite good, if a bit strange. We just can’t wrap our head around pastrami with guacamole and/or sprouts! Hmmmm, they might as well offer it on white bread with mayo!!

Other than that, however, we do enjoy the food. They tend to favor very large slices of toasted rye bread instead of fresh. Sandwiches are large and always tasty. We like the so called Reuben sandwich: corned beef, 1,000 island dressing and sauer kraut. The other day, we stopped for lunch and had a great Reuben and a side of fries. The fries were not quite crisp, nor were they hot. We were quite surprised.

We went again on another day, and ordered the same sandwich. Some time later, they came to tell us that the deli man made the wrong sandwiches- he made pastrami on toasted rye with cole slaw. We said that it was ok and that we would eat it. BIG mistake. The pastrami was low grade and not from brisket. It was tough and chewy. In addition, they did not drain the cole slaw so the entire sandwich sat in a sea of liquid, making the sandwich soggy and unappetizing. That time we ordered the spicy fries. They were crispy but not hot.

We wonder what went wrong. Prices have gone up quite a bit since we were last here in January. And the quality seems to have gone down. Bummer.

It is still a place we would go to eat, but we will be very careful about what we order.

If you guys at the H.E.B. are reading this- get your act together and go back to being the superior deli you have always been.