This weekend I went to visit my friend who goes to University of New Hampshire. “You have to stop at Reins Deli on your way,” she told me, “It’s the best.” I doubted it, considering between New York and Los Angeles I’ve eaten my way through some pretty good pastrami and wasn’t expecting a rest stop en route to New Hampshire to even enter the top ten list, but driving along Highway 84, just as we passed Vernon, Connecticut, we got hungry. Looking back I realize what the strangely sudden pangs of hunger were: the food cupid striking us with his lovely arrow, because Dave and I could not have conceived the meal we were in for.
Rein’s New York Style Deli is located in a strip mall. It is how I would imagine Disneyland to replicate New York. The restaurant is divided into the different boroughs, you can sit in Manhattan, Brooklyn or the Bronx, the women’s bathroom is Queens and the men’s bathroom is Staten Island. The bar, of course, is Grand Central.
I ordered a Jersey Deluxe, aka pastrami, corned beef and swiss cheese, and Dave ordered chopped liver. We ordered onion rings for the table. They basically put to shame any onion rings I will ever consume in the future. The food took us back to New York, the New York you imagine when you shut your eyes and its still industrial and not diluted and the pockets of greatness exist like sun beams you can barely believe you are touching, the way you imagine New York used to be like, and we only had to drive two and a half hours away to get there.
Rein's Deli
453 Hartford Tnpk
Vernon, CT 06066
Phone: (860) 875-1344