I was recently helping friends with a hike along the Northville-Placid Trail in upstate NY, and my friends Liz and Wes helpfully offered that I could stay in their condo in Saratoga Springs over the weekends while doing the trail support. This worked out quite well, since I was able to drive over early on a Friday, work remotely for the day, and have the entire weekend available for hiking and trail support. It also gave me a chance to explore Saratoga Springs, which, honestly, my previous first-hand experiences had been merely getting stuck in traffic on my way to the NY Thruway. On my first trip there, they had left a number of recommendations for lunch, so on my lunch break I decided to go check out the sandwich shop on the list: Fat Paulie’s.
One of the things I’ve missed about rural New England life is that we don’t have a lot of classic delis: places serving up fresh sandwiches made from freshly-sliced meats, with some soups and salads on the side, usually with some light groceries like pasta and marinara sauce stack up on steel shelves. But that’s exactly what Fat Paulie’s is; walking in the door it’s just like walking into a classic deli in, say, Long Island, Philly, or Wilmington.
I was just looking for a quick sandwich, and a look at their meat case showed a lot of promise: most of the meats were roasted in-house, and most that weren’t like salami were imported from Italy. And they had a big bowl of freshly-made in-house mozzarella. So no second-rate Sysco stuff here.
I was sorely tempted by their Italian mix (ham, spicy cappacola, Genoa salami, imported mortadella, imported prosciutto, sharp provolone, shaved red onion, lettuce, oregano, oil & vinegar, extra-virgin olive oil), but seeing that they roasted the meats in-house, I decided instead to try their rare roast beef sandwich: roasted garlic and herb-rubbed roast beef, shaved red onion, mayo, and lettuce.
Waiting for my sandwich, I saw them fresh-slicing the previous order (which was an Italian Mix), stacking everything on deli paper, and you could see the quality of the meats they were using. I almost thought of changing my order, but saw them bring out the roast and start slicing my order with a generous stack of nicely dark pink, rare roast beef with a nice herb crust.
Getting the sandwich, I was quite pleased. The beef was top notch, with a rich flavor, nice herb rub, moderate garlic notes, and not overly salty. The bread was a nice crusty roll reminiscent of a Philly-type Amoroso roll, and the other topping nice amd crisp. This was, in short, a seriously good rare roast beef sandwich.
So yes, I liked Fat Paulie’s. I will, however, have to make some return trips in the future to try out some of their soups, sides, and most importantly, that awesome-looking Italian Mix.
