Amazing Salmon Belly, Oil-Cured Sardines, Lox, Herring and Rockin' Breakfast! - Gjusta

[A5KOBE]

@Gr8pimpin

A question, please. Do you know if they sell it by the pound for takeout or do you have to order one of these platter-thingies?

Their bread sounds great, but I’m thinking I’d pig out and slap some lox on bagels from Belles or somewhere and go for that true taste of home.

Some tips:

(1) walk in and grab a number - to the right just before the cold case

(2) Gjusta bagels are pretty awesome, can get them all in one shot

(3) the fish platter is amazing because it is served with a variety of fish, great bread and their amazing condiments, yes you can get a platter to go.

(4) order some of their bagels and fish to go along with a slice of carrot cake

(5) prime rib butcher

(6) take a gander at their salad case, order up one if it looks good or the worker says it’s good

[Chowseeker1999]

@A5KOBE

Some tips:

(1) walk in and grab a number - to the right just before the cold case

(2) Gjusta bagels are pretty awesome, can get them all in one shot

(3) the fish platter is amazing because it is served with a variety of fish, great bread and their amazing condiments, yes you can get a platter to go.

(4) order some of their bagels and fish to go along with a slice of carrot cake

(5) prime rib butcher

(6) take a gander at their salad case, order up one if it looks good or the worker says it’s good

Hi @Gr8pimpin,

Yes, what @aaqjr @A5KOBE said. You can get their selection of Fish by the pound. Also, nice tips @A5KOBE, but you forgot:

(7) Italian sandwich - @Gr8pimpin has been looking for a great one.

(8) Grab a bottle of their Housemade Chili Hummus from the cold case (as you said @A5KOBE it’s laced with crack! This is so delicious!)

Overall, @Gr8pimpin if you do stop by, definitely try a Small Fish Platter (you choose 3 different types of Fish / Seafood from their case). The condiments are out of this world, you get a selection of their amazing Housemade Breads (baked fresh multiple times a day), and they pair beautifully together with the various Cured or Smoked Seafood selections.

Enjoy!

[hungryhungryhippos]

Also do the open faced fish sandwich food hack.

Get it on a bagel open faced with the works and then buy an extra bagel to get an extra sandwich!

[Gr8pimpin]

@aaqjr, @A5KOBE, @Chowseeker1999 @hungryhungryhippos

Thank you so much EVERYONE for the advice and seriously pro tips!!!

Sounds like I’ll have to spend about $500 LOL

[aaqjr]

Hah! I can be pretty cheap but I feel it’s an affordable luxury. Usually I’m in and out around 30$ a cortado, a sandwich + one more thing (maybe). And add another 20$ that’s the reason i go back to Charcoal too. Both places i feel like I am getting great food for the money

[Bookwich]

You may not have you been to a “real” deli lately. Canter’s charges $18 for a generic lox and cream cheese bagel. Fromin’s charges $36 for a small fish platter and also has the same generic fish as every other deli in town. Gjusta is comparably priced , I would say. The portions may not be quite as large, but the quality is much, much higher.

[paranoidgarliclover]

@Gr8pimpin

$500 LOL

It def ain’t cheap! Not everything at Gjusta is a hit, but, when they get it right (and I think they get a LOT of it right), it’s really wonderful. Def not a place I can afford regularly, but I certainly don’t begrudge them the $, given the obvious quality.

And, as @Bookwich says, after Gjusta, you go to other places and think, “Why do they charge so much for crap?” Well, actually, I thought that even before going to Gjusta, but it’s much more stark afterward.

[CeleryVictor]

@A5KOBE

(4) order some of their bagels and fish to go along with a slice of carrot cake

Didn’t someone say they stopped making the carrot cake?

[Gr8pimpin]

@Bookwich

You may not have you been to a “real” deli lately

I live at Brent’s LOL, though I would never get “lox” and bagel at any deli in this city because generally the bagels are shit.

I expect Gjusta to be more expensive.

My comment about spending $500 is because that’s how much I will spend to eat all the things recommended to me above.

[Chowseeker1999]

@CeleryVictor

Didn’t someone say they stopped making the carrot cake?

Hi @CeleryVictor,

Actually it’s that Gjusta switched their OG Carrot Cake recipe that had nuts, with a new recipe that removes nuts and uses raisins and one other ingredient change (I forgot what it was).

[A5KOBE]

@Gr8pimpin

recommended to me above.

#TeamGjusta can certainly recommend a lot more, we didn’t want you to spend $1000 on your first trip.

[Gr8pimpin]

So I went to Gjusta late afternoon. My wife wanted to go to Bay Cities and I talked her into going to Gjusta instead. More on that in a minute.

So everything looked amazing. Their baked goods were fairly depleted, but that’s to be expected so late in the day. The cold salads looked really fantastic!

So naturally this Jew walks over to the smoked fish case. Of course in my head I knew I wanted to get lox. I did not see anything called belly lox on the menu nor anything that looked like belly lox in the case, so in my senility, racking my brain for what I remembered here, I thought maybe I misunderstood something and I ordered the classic lox on a bagel.

While absolutely delicious, it was not classic nor lox. It was still delicious, so tender and gently smoky and silky. I got it plain and open-faced. They put a nice little drizzle of oil on it. Excellent. I don’t think I would call their bagels, “bagels”, but it was delicious bread and went very well with the smoked salmon.

I also eyeballed those brussels sprouts in the salad case. They called to me. Absolutely excellent. Very tasty olive oil, wonderfully fruity, with the occasional crunch of a cashew, and the tasty fried shallots. I could’ve eaten 20 pounds of these.

Now, like I said my wife wanted Bay Cities. I tried to get her to get a porchetta sandwich or something like that. But you can’t steer an Italian once they have a hankering for something.

So she gets the chicken parmigiana plate, because she had dental work done and didn’t feel like eating bread (though she ended up eating some of the bread that came with it so go figure )

Needless to say she liked Bay Cities’ sauce better. The chicken was extremely delicious. I liked it. You can tell the sauce was made from fresh tomatoes, the sauce had a fresh acidic taste.

She wasn’t happy that they charred the bread, i, on the other hand, didn’t care and liked it that way.

The value added bonus was that I had to listen to her tell me that for $63 we could’ve gotten a lot more at Bay Cities, but that’s just her busting my balls in a playful way

So now that I’m back home and able to read this thread, it makes me sad that I did not aggressively hunt for belly lox.

Sadly, I am still unfulfilled.

Forgive my typos, too tired to type and using voice to text.

[frommtron]

They do sometimes have a smoked salmon belly. But your hunt for true belly lox will need to be satisfied elsewhere I’m afraid.

[Gr8pimpin]

@frommtron

your hunt for true belly lox will need to be satisfied elsewhere I’m afraid.

A sad day, indeed.

[Chowseeker1999]

Hi @Gr8pimpin,

Thanks for the report back. Bummer you couldn’t find the lox belly you were hunting for. I don’t think Gjusta has ever had what you describe as true belly lox, but I thought their “Classic Lox” was cured Salmon (not smoked)? They also have Gravlax, as well as variations on smoked Salmon, etc. Or did you mean the true “Classic Lox” should be made with Salmon Belly only? Just curious, thanks!

They do have Smoked Salmon Belly which is amazing which you should try next time.

Lastly, you should’ve gotten their Italian Sandwich! It’s so good.

[Gr8pimpin]

@Chowseeker1999

I thought their “Classic Lox” was cured Salmon (not smoked)?

My first bite I knew it. But I thought maybe they brought me the wrong thing. So I asked one person who served us “is the classic lox smoked”?” After fumbling a bit, he didn’t seem so confident in his reply, said it’s cold smoked. So I went to the counter, just making sure I received the right thing, and spoke with someone and he said yeah everything they have is smoked except for gravlax.

So, what I’m looking for is cured salmon, what back East we simply call “lox.” it is common though not required to use the belly, but if the do they’ll always call it belly lox.

Difference is not smoked, and I believe no brown sugar in the curing. Unlike gravlax, which also has sugar and dill (I think there are some other spices too)

Nova is what would be smoked salmon, sliced for a bagel, though these days in order to pull a bait and switch on something that is generally a less expensive product, they now often call it nova lox.

Funny, when I was a kid, nova lox was much more expensive than belly lox.

As for Gjusta, we really liked it. My wife was going on about how great her ginger iced tea was.

@Chowseeker1999

Lastly, you should’ve gotten their Italian Sandwich! It’s so good.

Yeah, I had to try the salmon first, next time I’m going for the Italian, and maybe I can get her to get a prime rib sand so I can eat hers too

We were drooling at the pot pie, I see you covered it in your review.

Glad I went, I’ll be back.

[Chowseeker1999]

Hi @Gr8pimpin,

Thanks for the clarification. Yah, interestingly 2 different servers told us their “Classic Lox” was not cold smoked, only cured. But their other offerings were smoked. Oh well. Good to know!

I think you’ll like the Italian and the Prime Rib Butcher the next time you visit.

[Gr8pimpin]

@Chowseeker1999

“Classic Lox” was not cold smoked, only cured.

It was REALLY good Nova. I will crave that too.

[chinchi]

Gjusta at lunch time today was insane, but we persevered. I wanted to try the salmon burger, but after waiting in line for over an hour we decided to order pre-made options to go. For those thinking of braving Gjusta during the holidays, the wait was compounded by the mass of people plus a new cash register/ordering system that rolled out just a few days ago, which employees are still getting accustomed to.

I tried a three salad sampler and enjoyed all of my choices. The Greek salad was chock full of several types of olives, tomatoes, feta, cucumbers, red onions, and pepperoncinis. Roasted Kabocha squash with pesto and pomegranate seeds sounded like a strange combination, but the flavors worked well together. Lastly was a citrus and beet salad with fennel, grilled radicchio, pistachios, and creme fraiche.

While we waited I ate a pistachio and orange cookie I ordered from the express/bakery counter. Crisp exterior with a soft and chewy, slightly under-baked interior. Delicious! Baked good selection seemed to be clearing out fast with folks placing large orders.

I also picked up a pot pie for dinner tonight.

[A5KOBE]

They changed the prime rib butcher to Straus beef instead of Aspen Ridge. Those fuckers better have made a change for the better.

Any have it recently?