BURIED DEEP INSIDE the menu at Amazing 66, in New York City's Chinatown—along with American Chinese-restaurant standbys like kung pao chicken and not-so-tried-and-true delights like intestines and fried duck tongues—is a most unexpected item: pastrami shrimp fried rice.
According to David Sax, author of the book "Save the Deli"—a love letter to the vanishing, old-school Jewish delicatessen—Amazing 66's owner, Helen Ng, ate pastrami at Manhattan's 2nd Ave. Deli and loved it so much she asked her chef to find a way to use it in their own dishes. "It wasn't a hipster, ironic tweaking of pastrami," Mr. Sax said of the fried rice. "It was the kind of genuine cultural mishmash that happens in a place like New York."
Mishmash or not, deli food has seen a revival over the last few years. Newfangled delis, like Mile End in New York City and Kenny & Zuke's in Portland, Ore., are eschewing mass-produced ingredients in favor of handcrafted ones, and pastrami is no exception. With such a bounty of quality product out there, pastrami is showing up in dishes worlds away from the classic sandwich on rye.
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