S & M Delicatessen

Name: S & M Delicatessen
Location: 3309 Watson Blvd., Endwell, NY 13760
Phone: (607) 754-0636
Cuisine: Subs/Pizza
Price: Cheap. Around $5 per person.

Review:
Since the recent demise of Tony T's in Vestal, I'm in search of a really good local sub place. And when I say "local," I mean somewhere in relatively close proximity to where I live in Johnson City. I tried out the Original Italian Pizzeria in Endicott and enjoyed their Italian sub, but that's a little bit further than I ordinarily would like to go. On the tip of a reader, I decided to give S & M Deli in Endwell a shot.

S & M is a small shop with, let's face it, a pretty damn funny name. It is located on Watson Blvd. across the street from the Broadway Diner and they specialize in pizza and subs but also have reheatable Italian dishes available and local specialties like City Chicken. More on that in a future post. They also have some basic grocery items and sell ice and beer. In NYC, S & M would be referred to as a "bodega." This is strictly a "to-go" place, as they have no seating.

I walked in around 11:30 AM on a Friday and ordered an Italian sub with everything on it: Italian meats, provolone cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, mayo, sub sauce, and sweet peppers.



I thought this was a great-looking sub. How would it stand up to a taste test?

In truth, not very well.

A good sub starts with the bread. I did not care much for this particular sub roll. It was a bit too airy for my liking and didn't really have much flavor. On the plus side, the meats and veggies were fresh. But the real problem with this sub was that there was WAY too much mayonnaise for my liking. The thing was inundated with mayo to the point where I couldn't taste much else in most bites. The good news, of course, is that this is a correctable problem. Just order it without mayo, or tell them to go light on it. Even so, the whole thing was just kind of "blah."

Back when I was in high school, we used to do a sub fundraiser. We'd go around the neighborhood asking if folks wanted to buy subs and eventually the day would come when the subs came in and we distributed them to the proper folks. They were decent subs but nothing to get excited about. You knew when you ordered one of these things that you weren't getting something gourmet, but you were helping the neighbor kid fund his trip to Florida or whatever, so you didn't mind too much. The sub I had from S & M was a Fundraiser Sub. Average in every way, but by buying one you're helping keep a little family business alive in an era where there's a Subway on every corner. That's gotta be worth something, I guess, but it isn't going to be enough to bring me back there to have another.

Grade: C