Definitely feel hella gypped. Robbed, I should say. It's safe to say that my suspicions of this dinky place producing the world's best pastrami is more of a pipe dream than reality, so I took it with a grain of salt. But let me just say that there's no grain of salt big enough to prepare me for the biggest pastrami disappointment of my life.
I don't know why I even ate here multiple times, maybe hoping that somehow the next thing I order will be as magical and amazing as the legendary hype that besets this place. I'm pretty skeptical about places named after their name sake product, because it usually sucks or pales in comparison to something else they offer: Tea Barrel for snacks instead of tea, CPK for pasta instead of pizza, Boiling Point for ice cream sammiches instead of hotpot, and Souplantation for salad instead of soup: those are just a few examples of this phenomenon. And I'm even More skeptical of places self-proclaiming World's Best at anything, which is just asking for trouble, aside from being gauche and outright arrogant.
The first time I came here was with some friends, and they got the chili cheese fries and shiatsu like that, and lucky me got orange bang (I actually got black pepper beef chow mein from Baccali). Somehow, during the good time I was having, I forgot how blasé the chili was in my friend's food. The fries were okay, though, but nothing to write home about. Is the chili the crappiest I've had? Maybe not that crappy, but still wouldn't feed it to anyone I cared about, let alone recommend it. I'd rather go to Pharoh's Burgers for chili cheese fries anyway. But still, I left the place feeling positive (overall).
So, foolish me, decided to come back one day. This time I came alone, and had their roast beef burger, dipped: it was soggy, unappetizing, didn't smell like anything, beef didn't taste like anything, wasn't very tender. I was in awe--but for the completely wrong reason. The "jus" looked paler than it should, but it didn't taste like anything. It probably sucked out what little beefiness the roast beef had left. I've had disappointing roast beef before, at restaurants and at Subway and Quizno's, but there's no doubt in my mind that the Hat disappointed me more than Subway And Quizno's combined, then squared.
Needless to say I've never been back, but lucky me (sarcasm), one day the sister decided to buy some shiatsu from the Hat for the whole family! This time I got to try the pastrami, and holy crap, it was AMAZING--in its lack of flavor. It was juicy, moist, tender, pink--all the things pastrami should be--but that's it. Notice how there's no kind of flavor listed. Sure, you may find the essence of pastrami deep down in there if you go flavor diving deep, deep down, but you shouldn't have to for real pastrami. Even Subway pastrami actually tastes like pastrami, and the World's Best tastes like nothing? SAD. Classic example of quantity over quality: so what if it's loaded with pastrimi?
The pastrami at the Hat is nothing but a pile of texture. I get the same problem with Island burgers having patties that don't taste like anything, serving more as texture to the burger, rather than a major component. Only problem here is, there's nothing but pastrami in the pastrami sammich! Aside from that hint of watered down mustard...
It goes without saying that a place this small can't possibly mass produce anything of quality. Pastrami takes a long time to make, and undergoes a long cooking process with at least two cooking techniques. Obviously, they don't have the real estate to undertake such a task. Everything I've had here was literally a hot mess, a big, fat, wet hot mess. "Bland and insipid" is too nice a description for the product that comes out of this place: instead, tasteless makes its way onto the scene! I'd much rather spend 3 bucks at In-N-Out on a good, cheap burger than 8 bucks on any combination of crap here. I'm glad they don't cater.
However, if you think water is jammed-pack full of flavor, then THIS is the place for you! read more