I don’t eat meat but my partner does, and I recently took him to this little place in Bed-Stuy for brisket. It was great. And the story behind it is exactly what this blog is about. I quote Adam Platt from GrubStreet:
“There’s an elaborate backstory behind every venerable deli in New York City, but the story behind David’s Brisket House, which has been serving brisket and pastrami sandwiches to the good people of Bedford-Stuyvesant for more than half a century now, is more elaborate and convoluted than most. The original Dave was a Russian Jew who sold the deli to a Romanian Jew, who inherited the name. The new owner “gambled and liked the ladies,” Sami the counterman explains as I’m waiting for my pastrami on rye along with a regular customer from the neighborhood named Ruthie. Eventually, “He met a nice Colombian girl and took off with her, so then two partners took the place over,” Sami explains. “One of the partners was a Yemenite, which is a Jew from the country of Yemen, and the other was a Yemenite Muslim. The Yemenite Jew, he had a heart attack some years ago and passed away. The Yemenite Muslim owns the place now, but his real name isn’t Dave, it’s Hamood.” (He also has two partners: RIyadh, his nephew, and a friend, Ameen.)” Well, that’s NYC for you in a nutshell.
David’s Brisket house
533 Nostrand Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11216
