Has anyone been to Kaufman's on Christmas day? I'm doing a combination Xmas brunch and birthday lunch for my lox-loving daughter and wondering if bagels and lox would be feasible.... if I can get away with not serving the usual Polish food.

Thanks, Jen

Pie-love wrote:Has anyone been to Kaufman's on Christmas day? I'm doing a combination Xmas brunch and birthday lunch for my lox-loving daughter and wondering if bagels and lox would be feasible.... if I can get away with not serving the usual Polish food.

I don't know about Kaufman's, but I bet New York Bagels and Bialys will be cranking out fresh from the oven bagels. Kaufman's probably has a better selection of lox, but you can buy that ahead of time elsewhere. Not just the freshness, but the huge selection of bagel varieties makes NYB&B worth the extra effort. Now for Rye bread, Kaufman's Dark "Pump" is a winner. You know, that sounds like a good idea, maybe I will add fresh Xmas morning Bagels to my Festivus traditions, along with the traditional Pakistani xmas dinner.

Fresh Farms has been selling Vita lox for about $12/# now for a couple of weeks.
It comes frozen in about 2-3 # packs, so i purchased two and keep in my freezer and unthaw when I need some to go with New York Bagels.
Not quite Russ & Daughters but it's a heck of a lot cheaper!
New York Bagels also sells lox and I purchased some to compare to the lox Kaufmann's was selling and I really couldn't tell much difference. It's probably Vita or ACME anyway.-Dick

d4v3 wrote:

Pie-love wrote:Has anyone been to Kaufman's on Christmas day? I'm doing a combination Xmas brunch and birthday lunch for my lox-loving daughter and wondering if bagels and lox would be feasible.... if I can get away with not serving the usual Polish food.

I don't know about Kaufman's, but I bet New York Bagels and Bialys will be cranking out fresh from the oven bagels. Kaufman's probably has a better selection of lox, but you can buy that ahead of time elsewhere. Not just the freshness, but the huge selection of bagel varieties makes NYB&B worth the extra effort. Now for Rye bread, Kaufman's Dark "Pump" is a winner. You know, that sounds like a good idea, maybe I will add fresh Xmas morning Bagels to my Festivus traditions, along with the traditional Pakistani xmas dinner.

New York Bagels & Bialys has been my Jewish Christmas day tradition for years. It's almost always busy that morning as it's one of the only options around.

spinynorman99 wrote:

d4v3 wrote:

Pie-love wrote:Has anyone been to Kaufman's on Christmas day? I'm doing a combination Xmas brunch and birthday lunch for my lox-loving daughter and wondering if bagels and lox would be feasible.... if I can get away with not serving the usual Polish food.

I don't know about Kaufman's, but I bet New York Bagels and Bialys will be cranking out fresh from the oven bagels. Kaufman's probably has a better selection of lox, but you can buy that ahead of time elsewhere. Not just the freshness, but the huge selection of bagel varieties makes NYB&B worth the extra effort. Now for Rye bread, Kaufman's Dark "Pump" is a winner. You know, that sounds like a good idea, maybe I will add fresh Xmas morning Bagels to my Festivus traditions, along with the traditional Pakistani xmas dinner.

New York Bagels & Bialys has been my Jewish Christmas day tradition for years. It's almost always busy that morning as it's one of the only options around.

Thank you for the suggestions-- I think we may have a new Xmas day tradition in the making!

Kaufman's was very quiet at 8AM today, Christmas Day, but we scored a bunch of bagels, a pile of lox, and some cream cheese-- made a great Christmas brunch. Thanks, LTH.

I had the same idea and stopped by New York Bagel two days ago (Christmas Eve) about 3pm for some salmon. The line was about thirty folks deep and even if two thirds of them were just waiting with someone else, I didn't have that long and turned right around.
Bonus: If I go back and buy it this weekend, I won't have to share with my family!

My son and I stopped in at Kaufman's at lunch time on Christmas Eve and the place was hopping. We picked up a big sandwich to split and rye bread, onion rolls, corned beef, pastrami, and turkey. Also we never leave without at least one tub of their excellent chive cream cheese. We skipped their lox, which is very good but very pricey, in favor of some Costco wild smoked salmon (not as good but far cheaper). The tasty sandwich (corned beef and chopped liver with onions and horseradish on rye) is one you can only share within the family; it's great to have our boy home from college! Our whole family enjoyed our Christmas Day of deli food and a good movie.

Kaufman's has cronuts! And they're really good! Nicely sweet, and surprisingly light. $3.50 and worth every penny. (At least, to those who aren't horrified by $3 donuts. )

Sometimes they have chocolate or raspberry varieties. Today they had plain ones:

Kaufman's will have hamantaschen in soon -- maybe tomorrow. This is for the yeast version; I didn't ask about the cookie dough style.

George R wrote:Kaufman's will have hamantaschen in soon -- maybe tomorrow. This is for the yeast version; I didn't ask about the cookie dough style.

A few days ago they only had the cookie dough style (which I prefer) and only in the mini size.

Today they have the yeast dough style, full size. Pictured below are poppyseed and apricot. (The latter are topped with almonds.) Not pictured but also available are cheese and prune.

was up in the area so I popped in for a late lunch -

Went with my own creation: Deckle cut of corned beef, swiss, Russian dressing and slaw on rye - works:




in the area again ill go back.

jimswside wrote:was up in the area so I popped in for a late lunch -

Went with my own creation: Deckle cut of corned beef, swiss, Russian dressing and slaw on rye - works:




in the area again ill go back.

So, would that be considered a rachel with swiss? I like that. I'm going to go that.

jimswside wrote:Went with my own creation: Deckle cut of corned beef, swiss, Russian dressing and slaw on rye - works:

And this is why Kaufman's is not considered a kosher deli.

One thing I like about Kaufman's is, I'm constantly finding and trying new items there, even though I've been going there regularly for decades. For example, I'm generally not fond of chicken salad, so I had never tried theirs. (I'm not crazy about the typical chicken salad elsewhere, with its diced lumps of dark and light chicken, and excessive amounts of dressing and extraneous ingredients like celery, grapes, and who-knows-what.) I recently tried the chicken salad at Kaufman's and I really like it. It's almost entirely white-meat chicken, shredded/pulled, with barely enough mayo/dressing to hold it together. Yet another excellent item from Kaufman's.

The plate design/artwork made that all white meat chicken salad taste better.

Wouldn't have been right on a fish plate or some other dish with say a nautical theme.

I was in Skokie on Sunday so I was excited to be able to stop at Kaufman's. Unfortunately, look at what I ended up with. No, that isn't bacon. It's supposed to be pastrami. Now, I like a little fat with my pastrami, but I find this totally unacceptable. I would have driven back there to complain but it's about a 90 mile round trip for me. It would cost me almost as much to drive back there as I paid for the pound of fat not to mention the 2+ hours of driving.

midas wrote:I was in Skokie on Sunday so I was excited to be able to stop at Kaufman's. Unfortunately, look at what I ended up with. No, that isn't bacon. It's supposed to be pastrami. Now, I like a little fat with my pastrami, but I find this totally unacceptable. I would have driven back there to complain but it's about a 90 mile round trip for me. It would cost me almost as much to drive back there as I paid for the pound of fat not to mention the 2+ hours of driving.

I understand that it's a bit on the fatty side but as I told my urologist during a fluoroscopy, "I'm sure there are some people who would pay extra for this."

=R=

You can get fatty or lean pastrami at Kaufmans. There might even be a medium fatty option, but its been a while since I've been up there.

Kid Charlemagne wrote:You can get fatty or lean pastrami at Kaufmans. There might even be a medium fatty option, but its been a while since I've been up there.

There are 3 grades for corned beef but for pastrami it's only regular and lean. I like a little fat so I always order the regular. But I'd like a little pastrami with my fat.

Midas, unfortunately, your pastrami was sliced with the grain and that's why it looks like bacon. It should've been correctly sliced against the grain. The parallel lines running along the fat seam and the meat are known as the grain. The only possible way to save your pastrami, if you still have it, would be to steam it. Serving cold pastrami like that is inedible.

CSD

chicagostyledog wrote:Midas, unfortunately, your pastrami was sliced with the grain and that's why it looks like bacon. It should've been correctly sliced against the grain. The parallel lines running along the fat seam and the meat are known as the grain. The only possible way to save your pastrami, if you still have it, would be to steam it. Serving cold pastrami like that is inedible.

CSD

That's not the "only" way, crisp it up in a skillet and put it on a burger. Thank me later.

chicagostyledog wrote:Midas, unfortunately, your pastrami was sliced with the grain and that's why it looks like bacon. It should've been correctly sliced against the grain. The parallel lines running along the fat seam and the meat are known as the grain. The only possible way to save your pastrami, if you still have it, would be to steam it. Serving cold pastrami like that is inedible.

CSD

Nah, I just pulled about 90% of the fat off and ate what was left. Unfortunately it took me longer to prepare the sandwich than it did to eat it.

As far as how it was cut, honestly, I never could figure out the grain stuff myself. But you would think a place like Kaufman's would know how to slice the meat. At those prices, they should.

I love this place -- even ordered trays here for my family's 'Very Jewy Christmas' celebration, as I often do -- but things were more than a bit amiss today. Even though I'd placed my order right after Thanksgiving, they called me today at noon to inform me that I'd have come an hour earlier to pick up since they were going to close at 2 instead of 3. Fine but why they couldn't have called earlier in the week is beyond me. I pretty much had to drop everything and run out to get the order.

When I arrived, I was told that the 3# of Spinach Rugelah I'd ordered were not on the order and were never baked. Strike 2 - grrrr . . .

Last and most egregiously, the ~30 feet of sidewalk that runs along the entire front of the store to both sides of their parking lot had not been shoveled. Instead, it was a hard-packed, slippery stretch of peril. I'm sorry but there's just no excuse for this, unless you just don't care about your customers. Really disappointing to have this experience from a place I usually support so strongly.

=R=

spinynorman99 wrote:

chicagostyledog wrote:Midas, unfortunately, your pastrami was sliced with the grain and that's why it looks like bacon. It should've been correctly sliced against the grain. The parallel lines running along the fat seam and the meat are known as the grain. The only possible way to save your pastrami, if you still have it, would be to steam it. Serving cold pastrami like that is inedible.

CSD

That's not the "only" way, crisp it up in a skillet and put it on a burger. Thank me later.

Of course, any time you can melt that much fat into the meat, it will be a big improvement.

CSD

Jazzfood alerted me to this very nice piece, posted at NPR.org, that delves into the history of Skokie's bagel culture, Kaufman's and New York Bagels & Bialys . . .

at NPR.org, Amanda Leigh Lichtenstein wrote:Kaufman's owner Dworkin believes a good bagel is bound by ritual and process. Whether eaten warm out of the oven with a little butter, or toasted with a schmear of Nova lox, chive cream cheese, and thinly sliced onion, cucumber and tomato, a bagel "is not a bread doughnut!" as Dworkin notes. "It should be dense, it should be crusty, it should be chewy."

Skokie, Ill., Has Great Bagels — And An Even Better Story Behind Them

=R=

I just got home from Kaufman's, and it breaks my heart. The great food is all still there. But I walked in at 10 a.m. on a Saturday morning and I was the only customer there. During my 15 minute visit, only two more customers entered. It would be such a shame if we lost Kaufman's.

Remember, they're still open! They've removed the tables so there's no dine-in. But you can go there, or phone in your order. I'm sure they can bring your order out for curbside pickup. And I'm guessing they have delivery arrangements too.

And they have a sense of humor:

nsxtasy wrote:And they have a sense of humor:

Thanks for the chuckle!

nsxtasy wrote:I just got home from Kaufman's, and it breaks my heart. The great food is all still there. But I walked in at 10 a.m. on a Saturday morning and I was the only customer there. During my 15 minute visit, only two more customers entered. It would be such a shame if we lost Kaufman's.

Remember, they're still open! They've removed the tables so there's no dine-in. But you can go there, or phone in your order. I'm sure they can bring your order out for curbside pickup. And I'm guessing they have delivery arrangements too.

And they have a sense of humor:

Thanks for the reminder. I recently bought several dozen of their wonderful hamantashen, but it doesn't take much encouragement to return. I think at least a corned beef sandwich is in order.

I drove past Kaufman's today, and there's a big sign on the door that they are now temporarily closed.