One growing category of Seattle restaurants is the “East Coast deli,” typically some sort of New Yawk theme park that serves sandwiches that are basically a wall of pastrami or Boar’s Head meats. I Love New York certainly does lay it on thick—it’s a veritable anthropology lesson on the types of foods your average big-city Jew takes for granted. There’s lox, pastrami, and whitefish salad. There are smears of chicken liver added to already formidable sandwiches: the “Hester,” our favorite, has turkey and pastrami and chopped chicken liver on house-made Zissel rye. Kosher franks are imported from New York, as are the meats, lox, pickles, mustard, and cheesecakes.

Some cranky ex-New Yorkers can’t really understand what the fuss is about: the whitefish salad isn’t all that, it’s not entirely clear why you can’t make cheesecake here in Seattle. But I Love New York makes very good sandwiches, and does so in an area of downtown where it’s difficult to get a decent lunch. The breakfast sandwiches (available until 11 am) are great: what does an egg and cheese on a roll need? Why, pastrami, of course. And we will admit that it’s nice to be able to pick up rugelach, matzoh meal, and an overstuffed sandwich in one outing.

Beyond that, what can we say? It’s just a freakin’ deli. And to be honest, some of the transplants on our panel actually don’t love New York that much.