Table at Third & Fairfax is a weekly dining column in 2023 where Food and Drink editor Patricia Kelly Yeo will eat her way through the Original Farmers Market. Each column will drop on Thursday for a week-by-week recap of her journey through the classic L.A. tourist attraction. Last week, Kelly tried Patsy D'Amore's Pizza.
In recent weeks, I've begun intermittent fasting, which means my hunger reaches near-uncontrollable levels by the time I walk into the Farmers Market for my weekly visits, which I schedule mostly for lunch. This week, strolling through the East Patio, is no exception. The May gray overhead seems to have dispersed the tourists, though there's still a handful of diners at Monsieur Marcel. Today, I know exactly where I'm headed: Phil's Deli & Grill (est. 1934), an old-school lunch counter serving all-day breakfast, sandwiches and other classic diner fare.
Despite plowing through five different sandwiches last week, I'm still drawn to the idea of a thick, juicy heaping pile of pastrami with a side of French fries, so I know I'm basically starving. Phil's Deli is mostly known for its Philly cheesesteaks, patty melts and the pastrami special, which combines pastrami, coleslaw, Swiss cheese and thousand island dressing—in other words, what's probably a pale imitation of Langer's famous #19.
I perch on a stool next to a woman reading Arsenic and Adobo, a Filipino American culinary mystery novel and consider the plastic-covered menu in front of me. Across from me, two men who clearly work in entertainment talk loudly about a show one of them used to work on. Still, I feel married to the idea of pastrami, which I haven't had in over a year, maybe even two. (In fact, I've never even been to Langer's, which I think is a perfectly fine way to live, if you ask me. Los Angeles is full of amazing places to eat, and you don't need to experience them all.)
After a few minutes, I order the pastrami sandwich on a French roll with Swiss cheese, mustard and mayo ($13.45), then turn the entire thing into a combo with fries and a can of ginger ale (an extra $4). For good measure, I throw in a six-piece order of chicken nuggets ($7.95), since that's what I'm really craving. Here's a disturbing fact about (meat) sandwiches, charcuterie, hot dogs and even chicken nuggets most people willfully ignore: According to the World Health Organization, there's strong evidence that processed meat, as well as red meat, cause cancer, although "these risks are small."
In what feels like no time at all, a female server drops off my sandwich, fries and ginger ale, then a large white plate topped with chicken nuggets. I'm on the phone, however, trying to wrangle a reservation at Henry's Cuisine in Alhambra for the weekend. Squeezing a dab of ketchup onto the plate, I take a bite of my first nugget. Warm, crunchy and processed beyond recognition, they taste vaguely like a frozen chicken nugget brand I loved as a child. Still on the phone, I eat a few of the pale golden fries as well.
The sandwich, however, remains the focus of the meal, and this column. Thinly sliced and laced with glistening stripes of fat, the beef pastrami is juicier than the variety you'll find at nearby Canter's, though it might not upstage Johnny's in West Adams or Johnnie's Pastrami in Culver City. It certainly doesn't hold a candle to the pastrami at Wexler's, but the smoky, peppery quality of the meat still satisfies. It's easy to understand the enduring appeal of Phil's Deli, and while the heavy diner fare isn't something I'd eat everyday, the sandwiches here make for a solid in-the-area option at the Farmers Market.
Meals from Table at Third & Fairfax fall into three categories: Skip It, Worth Trying and Must Have.
Vendor: Phil's Deli & Grill
Order: Pastrami sandwich combo; six-piece chicken nuggets
Verdict: Worth Trying. Phil's churns out solid, reliable diner fare, albeit at slightly inflated prices.