Trust, but Verify

I realized I’m slipping. Maybe it’s the heat.

Around the corner from the Broadway entrance to the Ed Sullivan Theater on 53^rd Street is a postage-stamp-sized establishment, the “Hello, Deli!” Aside of its name’s obvious allusion to a durable Broadway hit (Hello, Dolly!), this is a delicatessen that’s claim to fame is that its proprietor, Rupert Jee, was featured hundreds of times on Late Night with David Letterman. His deadpan delivery was a reliable, frequently delightful foil to Dave’s goofiness.

That made visiting the deli the source of a truly odd celebrity encounter. If you ordered a sandwich there, chances are you’d talk to Rupert himself behind the counter, and it would be he that made your ham and Swiss on rye. This was a much larger, more satisfying brush with fame than ordering soup from Al Yageneh, the model for Seinfeld’s “soup Nazi,” who is still in operation around the corner on West 55^th.

Rupert Jee - DNAinfo/Nicole Levy

After what must have been more than three decades in business, Rupert closed Hello, Deli! about a year ago, just after my company moved into the building across the street. This was disappointing, but the good news is that another deli owner picked up the lease and took over the grill and counter. You can still get a $6 sandwich there. It’s not on the menu, but trust me, a sandwich on regular old white or wheat bread there is usually about $6. This may seem insignificant, but for folks like me who work in the area every day and are not about to pay the tourist price of $16.50 for the same-sized sandwich at Pret a Manger, it is great news.

And yet, my latest visit to Hello, Deli! for lunch today reminded me of the Russian proverb: доверяй, но проверяй.  Trust, but verify. With the current global heat wave in full swing, my brain must have become addled and I forgot this essential rule of life in New York City.

This phrase first broke into the American consciousness in the 1980s when President Reagan was taking part in nuclear disarmament talks with the Soviets. “Trust, but verify” seemed a reasonable approach at that time in that context. However, in city life, it’s better to skip the “trust” part entirely when dealing with an unknown quantity. Very simply and directly, “verify” before you do any kind of trusting. It’s a basic tenant of street smarts, a defining characteristic of savviness.

Today, I asked the man behind the counter of Hello Deli! for a BLT on white toast with mayo. This is a hard order to get wrong.

“On a roll?” he asked.

Who orders a BLT on a roll, dear reader?

“No, thank you. A BLT on white toast with mayo,” I repeated for the sake of full understanding between customer and service provider.

“Turkey bacon okay?”

I began to get the sense this wasn’t going to go my way. In the interests of cooperation, I said, “Sure, that’s okay.”

Five minutes later, he handed my BLTB on white toast with mayo to the kid at the register. “Six,” the young man said. I handed him six bucks and headed out the door.

Back at my desk, I opened the tin-foil wrapper and laid out a very nice, neat looking, decent-sized sandwich. Not exactly what I wanted, but close enough. The turkey bacon smelled *almost* baconny.

I took my first bite. “Hmmmmm,” I thought. A second bite confirmed my first impression.

I was eating a turkey bacon and lettuce sandwich on untoasted white bread. There seemed to be no tomato, mayonnaise, or even toast in evidence. The bread was warmed; there was not the slightest evidence that it had come anywhere near the coil of a toaster. A third bite confirmed the lack of tomato. I deconstructed the sandwich. There, among the chopped lettuce, I found the traces of what could have been mayonnaise. It also might not have been as I didn’t get any taste of mayo. Was it butter? Whatever it was looked like it had been stingily applied with a toothpick. I had not read about the disastrous mayonnaise shortage that we must now be suffering through, but here was the evidence of that scarcity right before my eyes.

I had forgotten to do what I used to do every time I ordered anything from anyone back in the 80’s when доверяй, но проверяй was part of cultural literacy. I should have opened it up right there, checked it, and handed it back to Rupert Jee’s less exacting successor.

I realized I’m slipping. Maybe it’s the heat. Yesterday, with only 20 minutes to get to an appointment, I decided to grab the quickest bite possible. In NYC, that means a street dog. I went up to the cart at the corner, which I’d never visited before, and asked for a frankfurter with mustard and relish. That was a rookie’s mistake.

“A what?” the guy standing in the 98-degree heat, plus an addition 15 degrees from the charcoal-fired grill in front of him, asked. Clearly, in the mind-numbing heat, this also was a tough order to get your head around.

I simplified, since “frankfurter” is not universally understood to be the same thing as a hot dog to the recently arrived immigrants who are often employed as street vendors these days. “A hot dog, please. Mustard and relish.”

Hot Dog Cart, 1936 - Wikimedia Commons

The man went to work. He put together a truly well-crafted hot dog, splitting the sausage in half and grilling it split side down. He even grilled the bun, heaped on the relish and was generous with the mustard. I got a five dollar bill and a single out in the expectation that I’d be paying market rate for a Times-Square-adjacent hot dog: four dollars. I’d be a good guy and let the man keep the change and give him the extra single. I wanted to be appreciative. After all, it was HOT.

He proudly handed it up to me.

“How much,” I asked?

“Eight.”

“What???”

“Eight,” he repeated with zero inflection, like I hadn’t heard him the first time, though he knew I had.

“Wow,” I said. “Really. Eight dollars for a hot dog.” No reaction from the cart’s proprietor: I laughed wryly and handed him two fives.

“No,” he said, handing the fives back to me. “I can’t change that.”

“Well,” I said, without much concern for his cash flow issues, “It’s that or I’ll give you this five and this one.” He was able to come up with the two bucks, but he pointedly took his time. I still made it to my appointment a couple of minutes early.

Under the influence of the heat, I had forgotten the right way to order from a stranger. “How much is a hot dog?” eliminates all possibility of surprise and allows you the option of walking on if the vendor tries to gouge you. I assumed he’d be good enough to charge what everyone around him in midtown charges for a hot dog. But I got the guy who didn’t want to be out there for four bucks. He figured that on a 98-degree day, it had to be eight.

Thanks to climate change, I am forgetting the basics of life in the city, and turning back into a greenhorn. Perhaps, like a boxer, I need a review of the fundamentals.

Checker Cab - Wikimedia Commons

For example, when you hail a taxi and they pull over, just get in. Don’t be fooled into answering the question, “where are you going?” shouted from the open passenger-side window before you take your seat in the back. Tell the cabby your destination when you’re settled; by law, they have to take you where you want to go if it’s in the five boroughs. The uninitiated answer the question while standing on the sidewalk, only to find the cabby isn’t interested in taking them to Queens or Washington Heights. I’ve seen people not get picked up by two cabs in a row before they realize what they’re doing wrong. 

Of course, not many take taxis any longer. I still do. I also still eat hot dogs and BLTs.

Will I go back to Hello, Deli! - ? Yes, I suppose so. It’s cheap, decent and fast. Will I check my order before I leave? Oh, you bet. But I’m never going back to that pushcart at the southwest corner of 51^st Street and Broadway, and neither should you.

Verify. You can do your trusting later.

#   #   #