"I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’ " Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’”
“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument’,” Alice objected.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”
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It doesn’t much matter whether you’re a level 5 vegan or whatever, truly your prerogative, and in most cases people would cut you some slack on this post. But your presence on here is often (though not solely) trolling and absolutist: covid, langers, mariscos jalisco, adb off memory. And you’ve created a ranking system though you don’t consume, because of dietary restrictions, large swaths of the output of restaurants you’re evaluating. You have some antagonists on here, true, but you also needlessly antagonize, so some are highlighting an apparent contradiction.
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To be fair, we ate the pastrami sandwich, and we were not impressed. Langer’s is just not very good IMO. Maybe it has the “world’s best pastrami,” but that’s like telling me it has the “world’s best hot dog” or the “world’s best deep fried snickers bar.”
Mariscos Jalisco is solid. I awarded it 2-3 Warrior Points. I would put it on the high end of that range, probably around 2.8. I’ve been pretty positive about Mariscos Jalisco.
Thank you for your reasoned perspective. We appreciate it.
So what is your top ranking pastrami ?
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More for @PeonyWarrior than for @ShadrackToussaint…
I can’t speak for most people, but I do actually think it is very important (for a variety of reasons that may not be necessary to discuss here) that when someone uses the word “vegan,” that they only use that term when the product does not have anything that was animal-derived (and I say this as someone who is neither a vegetarian nor a vegan).
We have all sorts of pedantic conversations here about relatively obscure (to the general population) terms. “Vegan” (AFAIK) isn’t really a word that has any wiggle room.
But, as always, I deeply respect and appreciate your diplomacy, @ShadrackToussaint. 
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The only pastrami I’ve ever eaten is Langer’s pastrami.
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I had some delicious plant-based meat the other day. It’s made from grass and corn using a four-chamber fermenter.
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I edited my Ceci’s post for clarity.
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there exist ‘potential loopholes’ by which one might claim to be vegan and still eat meat, but for a large number of vegans, this would be pointless because veganism is as much if not more about the animals as it is for the environment or dietary health. (https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAVegan/comments/bjh5gq/vegan_but_still_eating_meat/)
thus why honey is not vegan… such loopholes are a little more debatable for non-food items like leather, but the only slight wiggle-room i know of foodwise is oysters, although the vast majority of vegans would never eat them either.
having had to plan eating tours around vegan restrictions, it takes an immense amount of sacrifice.
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How could you rationalize oysters to be vegan?
At 66 replies long, I’ll read the thread later today. 
I do agree w/ you that, for vegans (or, at least, the vegans I know) it’s more about the animals than it is about anything else.
Avocados are also technically not vegan (bees are apparently involved in the production of avocados)!
I will also second @robert’s quesiton: oysters???
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some people say that since they don’t feel pain, it’s ok to eat them, as it is not necessarily inconsistent with the ideology of veganism. the strict ruling is that since they are not plants they are not vegan, and ‘vegans’ that eat oysters are certainly on the fringe. veganism opens itself up to loopholes because it accepts the practical realities of living in a non-vegan society, but if you have to argue for why something is actually vegan, then most vegans probably don’t consider it vegan…
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… avocados and almonds aren’t the only crops that are pollinated in this manner. … Other fruits and vegetables that may be produced through migratory pollination include apples, plums, cherries, alfalfa, blueberries, watermelon, cantaloupe, cucumbers, pumpkin, lettuces, squash and tangerines.
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For me, it’s mostly about fighting climate change. The two biggest causes of climate change are gas cars and animal food products, both easily within our control.
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And this belies the issue. Again I do appreciate the content you add to this this board, but blanket takes on things you’re not very well versed in, not interested in, or didn’t do your homework on… Why? Saying you don’t like Langer’s is fine in theory, but if you don’t eat much Jewish deli, why even share that? Is it substantive or informed? Can someone learn from it and index their own taste? This forum is not your diary.
Another way of saying: your map (your personal, parochial concerns) is not the territory. Based on the comparisons, obviously you think this type of food, Jewish deli, is low culture and at its best not very interesting or worthy of respect. Without even adjudicating that, can you not see how someone might take offense to that? Or simply find it chauvinistic, immature, and ridiculous? We can easily sub out ‘pastrami’ and ‘deep fried snickers’ for various other foods/ food cultures. I grew up in a place where people called vegetarian rabbit food and sushi bait. While it’s not some deep, cancelable offense, using that structure would make me question taste, judgment, and critical thinking. This is essentially the equivalent, filtered through your own set of concerns.
More broadly, there’s a larger issue: objectivity. Your personal opinions and statements about food don’t exist in absolute, objective, numerical terms. No one food culture or cuisine is necessarily better than another. And if you wanna comment on something, maybe do your homework, no? I’m much more interested in how something, some dish or restaurant, relates to its category, canon, or history. When you discover or review a new vegan burrito, that’s interesting and useful. You obviously have a background in that, not to mention relevant experience and a developed palate. Same with upscale Italian restaurants, and chef-y restaurants in general (minus my quibble about evaluating without eating meat). But when you comment on things you don’t know much about, then protest at the pushback, it’s hard not to read as anything other than a bad faith troll.
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Pastrami or anything else but isn’t it nearly impossible to say if something is good or not if you don’t have any references. The only thing you can say at this point might be that you don’t like pastrami in general
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We liked the pastrami okay. It tasted liked an inferior version of Japanese wagyu, which is the beef I’m most familiar with.
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Quick response:
I am not an expert on “Jewish deli” food and have made no broad claims about it. I’m just saying the food I’ve eaten at Langer’s has been poor and has displayed little care about quality. Do I need to eat at dozens of Jewish delis to know that the vegetables and cheeses at Langer’s suck and that Langer’s supermarket condiments are inferior to homemade condiments? Honestly speaking, I think the people who praise Langer’s—when there are overwhelmingly higher quality restaurants in the same price range across many different cultural cuisines—are the ones being parochial. It’s not right that critic after critic praises Langer’s and then Mama D’s, a far superior restaurant, goes out of business.
Everyone brings their own perspective. I don’t have to defend mine.
