This morning Shruti and I were discussing how Shooting the Moon (a strategy in the card game Hearts) can be applied to various situations. For those of you not in the know, shooting the moon is when you do so badly in Hearts (by taking every penalty in a round) that you actually do better. That is, if you take ALL the penalties, rather than take the penalty points you have all the penalty points subtracted, which helps. Well, later in the day I had lunch with a friend at The 2nd Ave Deli The 2nd Ave Deli, and it occurred to me that many kosher and kosher-style delis try to shoot the moon with their service; I'll explain...

The kosher/kosher-style delis try to represent a traditional New York deli experience, which they think requires providing obnoxious service, and perhaps it does. Some restaurants purposefully have obnoxious service, however, that doesn't mean the service is bad, you just need to play along. For instance, Tim told me about The Elbow Room in Downtown Vancouver The Elbow Room, they actually say on their website "Food and Service is our Name. ABUSE is our game (so have some fun!)" They do things there like ignore customers until the customer freaks out. In other words, The Elbow Room, is shooting the moon with their service. It's so bad, it's notably good!

On the other side of the coin is when we went to Sarge's. The service is there is horrible; but it's not on purpose. I believe they purposefully don't care, because they're trying to give you some type of experience, but the result is just dreck.

I had dined at 2nd Ave Deli many time when it was on 2nd Ave & 10th Street. The food was consistently good, albeit insanely over-priced; resulting in a mediocre value. Equally mediocre at 2nd Ave Deli was the service. I remember one time Jessica and I stopped in two years ago (or so) and we had to ask three times for water.

All that seems to have changed at the new location. It's still as small and crowded as the old location, even though the space is more long and narrow than square, as it used to be. However right from the beginning the experience was better. While waiting, two maitre d's checked on us, even clearing space for us to sit while waiting, the first told us it would be 10-15 minutes. No more than five minutes later, we got a table.

We sat down and within seconds had our pickles and cole slaw, nothing new there. No bread though, which I recall always getting when at the old location. But something new this time, when we got our menus we also got a dish with something brown in it -- my eyes lit up -- it was griven and shmaltz-sauteed onions! Yum. We gobbled up the Jewish Amuse Bouche. Humorously, I had just made griven for the first time in about a year a few days ago. My friend had the classic pastrami on rye; I had the combo pastrami and corned beef on rye. When I asked for it hot our great waiter said "of course." The right answer.

After we finished, our waiter gave us each a complimentary shot of egg cream; we clanged the shot glasses in enjoyment of the perfect end to the meal. As another sign of perfecting their customer service, when our waiter returned my friend's credit card, he thanked him by name. All class.

So the new 2nd Ave Deli found a new formula: the food and decor of old school New York deli, but rather than trying to be so bad their good; they're just great. And at $21pp, including tax + tip; we were both stuffed and really happy. The value is all there. I recommend you go!