Hello Deli – Albuquerque, New Mexico

HELLO DELI
(to the tune of Hello Dolly)
“Hello Deli,
this is Joe, Deli
would you please send up
a nice corned beef on rye.
A box of RITZ, Deli
and some Schlitz, Deli
Some chopped liver
and a sliver of your, apple pie.
Turkey Legs, Deli
hard boiled eggs, Deli
and a plate of those potatoes you french fry, oh
Don’t be late, Deli
I just can’t wait Deli,
Deli without breakfast, I’d just die.”
~ Frank Jacobs (Writer for MAD Magazine)

In 2016, BBC Travel lamented the imminent demise of the New York City deli.  “Not the corner markets or bodegas that appear on nearly every New York block,” but “the true New York City delicatessen: the brick and mortar expression of the American immigrant experience, the very culinary soul of the city. “Some 80 years ago, New York City was home to three or four thousand delis. Today, there are less than 24.”  That true New York City delicatessen of which BBC Travel wrote showcased “the food of the Eastern European peasantry – smoked sausages and cured meats, smoked cabbage and offal stews and dark bread, salted fish and boiled dumplings.”  The primary draw to the New York City deli has always been beef – “corned or pastrami’d, put in a hot dog or, in the case of tongue, pickled.”

Transplanted New Yorkers of my acquaint remind me there are no true delis in New Mexico–despite restaurants such as Hello Deli “usurping” the name Deli.  By strict definition, they’re absolutely correct. A delicatessen, or “deli” for short, is a store where people can go to buy ready-to-eat items such as cold cut meats, sliced cheeses, sandwiches, breads, salads and so much more.  By New York City standards, a true deli is a reflection of the Jewish experience centered largely on pastrami and corned beef deftly sliced in front of you by a skilled counterman.

So, if Hello Deli is not a deli, what exactly is it?  Let’s explore the lexicon.  Could Hello Deli be a diner?  Serious Eats lists the characteristics that make up a diner:  breakfast all day, warm and sassy welcome for all greeters, modest pricing, counter and table/booth seating, quick service and anonymity of the short-order staff.  Is Hello Deli a restaurant or cafe? Generally speaking, a restaurant refers to any establishment that serves food and beverages. Meanwhile, cafes are places that serve different types of coffee and drinks. Following that logic, all cafes are restaurants – but not all restaurants are cafes.

By that definition, Hello Deli can’t be a cafe which purists would also define as a restaurant that does not offer table service and customers order their food from a counter then serve themselves.  If my little exercise in lexicology only served to confuse matters, it’s more important that by any name or definition, Hello Deli has been satisfying Duke City diners (a customer at an eatery) for more than three decades.  For seven days a week, it’s a home away from home to the industrious folks who call the Journal Center area their place of employment.  For the rest of us, Hello Deli is a destination when we’re craving hearty portions, breakfast all day, low prices, delicious food and great service.

On some weekdays for lunch, lines snake beyond the entrance to the counter where you place your order.  Fortunately the well-practiced staff keeps things moving, pleasing throngs of hungry diners with grace and smiles.  You’ll certainly run into owner Marcus Cassimus, a grizzled gentleman conspicuous for two reasons.  First is his height.  Marcus played basketball with the Greek National Basketball Team years ago.  Second is his peripatetic presence.  He may be the boss and owner, but he’ll escort guests to their tables, deliver orders, flit between tables to ensure his guests are happy…basically anything needed to be done.  Marcus is also very kind to pets (or at least to The Dude).  During one visit, he brought a breakfast’s worth of ham for our debonair dachshund.

Hello Deli may not offer a true New York deli experience, but it does offer generous portions of delicious food New Mexicans crave.   A formidable menu ensures there’s something for everyone.  There’s a reason Hello Deli’s motto is “Say hello to more choices.”  Here’s how the restaurant’s (cop-out?) website describes breakfast:  “Hello Deli has all your favorites or try our famous chicken fried steak burrito or savory-sweet Santa Fe blue corn pancakes, all cooked on the double.”  Lunch reads just as invitingly: “Hello Deli fights the lunchtime blahs with savory sandwiches, fresh salads, glorious wraps and hearty burgers along with flavorful sides like our Jalapeno Mac and Cheese.”

5 April 2022: When my Kim toiled for the Associated Press (walking distance to the Hello Deli), she regaled me with tales of almost daily visits to the area favorite.  That’s probably why she never suggested it during one of our excursions.  When she finally brought me to Hello Deli, she virtually insisted (not that she got any argument from me) we order the green chile chicken soup.  As a ten-time judge at the Roadrunner Food Bank’s annual Souperbowl, I’ve had (literally) gallons of that enchanting elixir and have never tired of it.  Hello Deli’s version is top-shelf, among the best in Albuquerque.  It’s got the comforting qualities common to all great soups and it’s a composition of ingredients that work very well together.  The green chile has a nice intensity.  There’s plenty of shredded cheese swimming among the creamy composition and the chicken is seasoned well and delicious.

5 April 2022: In the May, 2022 edition of New Mexico Magazine, the Land of Enchantment’s sacrosanct green chile cheeseburger was celebrated.  The cover story depicted an exemplar of one of our state’s most beloved foods.  Order Hello Deli’s green chile cheeseburger and you’ll quickly find out why we love them so much.  A thick beef patty topped with pleasantly piquant green chile then sheathed in a molten blanket of cheese is just the starter.  Add lettuce, tomato and a smear of mustard and you’re in for a terrific treat between sesame seed buns.  The burger is served with thinly-cut French fries and a pickle spear.

5 April 2022: With an owner named Marcus Cassimus, is it any surprise the menu includes a spate of Greek items: Hello Gyro, Olympic Omelet, Greek salad and the Hello Corfu salad.  My Kim loves the Hello Gyro  served with plenty of garlicky, tender gyro meat sliced thickly and nestled  on a warm pita which also envelops onion, tomato and lots of creamy tzatziki sauce.  This terrific gyro is served with a pickle spear and a two-pack of saltine crackers.  The former makes sense.  We weren’t sure about the crackers.  In far too many Greek restaurants, we tend to order “double meat” not just because we love the lamb-beef amalgam, but some restaurants are rather parsimonious with their gyros.  Not so at Hello Deli.

5 April 2022: Only two desserts adorn the menu, a house-baked cookie and a house-baked sweet roll.  Technically, you can also have something sweet from the waffles/pancakes menu.  The sweet roll is a thing of beauty with gobs of glazed frosting and nearly enough cinnamon for my Kim.  They’re freshly baked to order which means you might have to wait a few minutes for one.  It’s worth it!   If you want to trade your buns of steel for buns of cinnamon (stolen from Ellen Degeneres), this is a good start.

23 April 2022: Former (and last) Gourmet Magazine editor-in-chief Ruth Reichl once wrote “I am here to say that there is nothing “everyday” about pancakes. Their entire purpose in life is to prove that a few simple ingredients can become absolutely extraordinary. They exist to wake you up, make you happy and send you out into the world with hope in your heart. That’s a tall order for a little cake, and it cannot be achieved by stinting. The minute you start worrying that they’re too rich you’ve defeated the whole purpose of pancakes.”  Many of us–including Shaggy and Scooby Doo–would agree.  Pancakes are an extraordinary every meal delight.

It’s not often we’re surprised by pancakes, but Hello Deli managed to blow us away with an offering called Santa Fe Cakes.  They’re virtually everything you would want a pancake to be and much more.  So much more!  Picture two near plate-sized blue corn pancakes with Cheddar and Jack cheese, green chile and piñon baked right in served with your choice of bacon, ham, sausage or chorizo and two eggs (any style) for a pittance more.  What makes these pancakes so downright delicious is the melding of ingredients you might not think would go well on pancakes slathered with syrup.  The green chile provides searing heat, the Cheddar and Jack provide sharp, salty contrasts and the piñon lends its woodsy qualities.  These pancakes are extraordinary!

23 April 2022:  Talk about an identity crisis.   The Cuban sandwich is not from Cuba.  Nor is it from Miami.  It actually originated in Tampa, Florida.  So says a Tampa Cultural History video series that’s both educational and informative.  The official recipe as described on a Tampa city resolution signed in 2012 calls for “crispy white Cuban bread, scored by slipping narrow strips of palmetto fronds into the dough before it’s baked. Then comes ham, sliced thin and lightly sweetened, followed by roast pork in a citrusy mojo sauce and a layer of salty Genoa salami. It’s finished off with Swiss cheese; three dill pickle slices (no more, no fewer); and yellow mustard, before the whole thing is pressed until the bread is warm and the ingredients meld.”

It goes without saying that a number of liberties have been taken with Tampa’s sacrosanct sandwich.  The further away you are from Tampa, the more brazen those liberties tend to be.  At least Hello Deli doesn’t claim to serve an authentic Tampa-style Cubano.  In fact, Hello Deli’s sandwich is called Hello Cubana and it’s pretty darned good (thank you, Andrew, for recommending it).  This sandwich is made with thinly sliced pork and ham topped with lettuce and pickles on a French roll with mayo, mustard and chipotle sauce.  Thinly sliced doesn’t mean it’s not piled on.  A generous amount of both pork and ham lay under a molten blanket of mozzarella with a thin sheen of chipotle sauce peeking through.  That chipotle sauce is so good you’ll want more of it.  The French bread is sweet and chewy, a nice canvas for a very good sandwich.

23 April 2022: My friend Bruce “Sr Plata” Silver’s antenna was raised when he perused Hello Deli’s menu and espied chicken fried steak burrito (scrambled eggs, chicken fried steak, hash browns, cheese and diced green chile in a flour tortilla, smothered with gravy).  We planned to visit the restaurant and determine if this creation is genius or madness.  My Kim beat us to it though someone’s going to have to tell her it’s not a chicken fried steak without gravy.  Worse, she asked that it be served without green chile and hash browns.  Aargh!  For what it was worth, the idea is probably genius, but my Kim rendered it incomplete genius…maybe grade school honor student genius.

14 June 2022: The Big Breakfast Burrito at Hello Deli may not be the largest burrito in the world (that distinction goes to a 12,785-pound burrito created in Baja California,  Mexico, on 3 November 2010) but it may look that way.  Aptly named, the Big Breakfast Burrito (scrambled eggs, hash browns, choice of meat (sausage, bacon or ham)  with papitas, cheese and smothered in red or green chile (or both) it’s a behemoth covering most of the plate.  Easily more than a pound, it’s large enough for two meals if you can surmount the temptation to eat it all in one sitting (it’s that tasty).  Ask for caramelized onions on top and all three porcine meats to make it even better.  An extra portion of both red and green chile is a given; you can never have enough chile.  There’s another Guinness record this burrito won’t be breaking any time soon.  You won’t beat the fastest time to eat a burrito (32.35 seconds).

14 June 2022: There are recipe sites online that actually advocate using leftover roast beef to construct a prime rib sandwich.  That’s almost as egregious as trying to pass off a Timex as a Rolex.  If you want a great prime rib sandwich, look no further than Hello Deli for the real thing.  The prime rib is sliced supermodel thin and has a melt-in-your-mouth texture and flavor.  That prime rib is piled on generously and nestled between Hello Deli’s sweet, delicious french roll.  It’s topped with pearlescent grilled onions and molten melted mozzarella cheese.  When you have a prime rib sandwich this good, no substitute will do.

8 March 2023: The Travel explains that Biscuits and Gravy are the “Finest Thing to Come out of Appalachia.”  Although some culinary historians believe that biscuits and gravy might have been providing sustenance to American soldiers as early as the Revolutionary War, the prevailing opinion of most food experts is that their genesis is the 1800s and Southern Appalachia’s lumber industry.   Even if you don’t have Southern roots, it’s possibly a wave of nostalgia still grips you when you see them on the menu.  Biscuits and gravy are Americana on a plate, a hearty stick-to-your-ribs meal that’s become a staple across the fruited plain.  Once a heavy and overly filling dish with a week’s worth of calories, today a lighter and flakier biscuit is now more likely and the gravy is now more creamy and often flecked with pepper.

Order Hello Deli’s biscuits and gravy (two homemade biscuits smothered in country-style sausage gravy, two eggs any style, sausage and hash browns) and you probably won’t need to eat again that week…er, day.  Our friend Lynn Garner got through about half the plate before declaring “no mas.”  That certainly made The Dude happy as it meant Lynn could focus more attention on him.  The biscuits certainly warranted attention.  They’re the antithesis of the crumble apart biscuits (too much flour to the dough) with no integrity.  These were light and fluffy, the type of which you can actually slather butter and jelly on.  The gravy was flecked with pepper, giving it an assertiveness that paired well with the spicy breakfast sausage.

8 March 2023: Most of us are acquainted with the Ides of March which transpires annually on March 15th and coincides with the first full moon of the month.  That date is forever associated with the assassination of Julius Caesar by senators hoping to preserve the Roman Republic.  In 2013, the city of Omaha, Nebraska declared the Eve of The Ides of March (March 14th) National Reuben Sandwich Day.  It’s a day that should be marked in any sandwich and meat lover’s calendar.  It’s certainly a day some of us (Roberto, are you reading this?) will surely celebrate with a Reuben or two.

It’s long been my contention that the Albuquerque’s has only three Reuben sandwiches worth celebrating:  My Mom’s (available only on some “Throwback Thursdays”), The Farmacy,  and Vinaigrette.  Add the Hello Reuben (lean corned beef or turkey, sauerkraut, melted Swiss and Hello Deli dressing piled on grilled rye) to that esteemed list.  This is a sandwich as good as you’ll find in the metropolitan area, each component a compliment to the others.  The slightly tangy sauerkraut pairs beautifully with the sweet Hello Deli dressing which serves as a magnificent foil to the salty, lean corned beef.  Lynn did remind me it would have been better with double meat (or preferably double the number of sandwiches).

6 October 2023: The Cambridge Dictionary defines a “power breakfast” as “an occasion at which people eat breakfast while they are working and talking about business.”  It’s been my experience that (at least in the world of Information Technology) every breakfast with work colleagues degrades into “shop talk.”  Doesn’t that sound like a terrible way to start a day that will likely (maybe inevitably) end up with overtime?  I like Hello Deli’s definition of “Power Breakfast” much more.  There are five items on the “Power Breakfast” menu.  None include red or green chile.

If you’ve ever had the fabulous “Betty Bowl” at Meraki’s Coffee & Market on Eubank, you’ve had a version of a power breakfast.  It’s a much better way to wake up than talking shop with colleagues.  Hello Deli offers both savory (tricolor quinoa, spinach, mushrooms, bell pepper, onion, and Feta topped with two eggs any style) and  fruity power bowls (tricolor quinoa cooked in coconut milk topped with fruit, slivered almonds, cinnamon, and more coconut milk).  It’s not quite as fruity as I may have liked, but the bananas, strawberries and blueberries have a fresh flavor.  Cinnamon is the perfect condiment for this bowl.

09 April 2024:  The Skillet restaurant in Las Vegas, New Mexico boasts of a 300 pound cast iron skillet that hangs above the front door. It was a friend’s challenge prompted owner Isaac Sandoval to fashion “the world’s largest skillet,” the 300-pound cast iron pan with a diameter of more than three-feet.  The pan wasn’t just the envy of any every smithy in the west; the Sandovals actually started preparing and sharing meals on the sizeable skillet, feeding much of the university’s populace.  Their green chile quesadilla which fed hundreds was a huge hit and for many of the students, an introduction to New Mexico’s sacrosanct chile.

Hello Deli offers three skillet dishes: Santa Fe Skillet (with cheese and chorizo, smothered in red or green chile), Meat Lover Skillet (with grilled ham, bacon, sausage and cheese, smothered in red or green chile) and a Heart-Healthy Skillet.  Skillets are served with two eggs any style, papitas, grilled onions, bell peppers, olives and a flour tortilla.  Each skillet is a meal that could serve a Lobo football player.  They’re absolutely huge!  Two eggs prepared any way you want them blanket all other skillet meal ingredients with the meats and papitas peeking out.  The papitas are wonderful, crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.  My Kim had her meat lover skillet sans chile.  Yes, that’s a mortal sin, but she loved her skillet nonetheless.

9 April 2024:  Hello Deli has a thing for Santa Fe.  Two of my favorite Hello Deli dishes are named for New Mexico’s capital city.  Fittingly they’re just a bit different.  The Santa Fe cakes (blue corn pancakes with Cheddar and Jack cheese, green chile and piñon baked right in) are everything you want in a pancake and more.  Similarly, the Santa Fe skillet meal has absolutely everything you could conceivably want in a skillet meal.  The red and green chile play very well with the chorizo.  There’s nothing especially piquant on the skillet, but everything works oh-so-good together.   This skillet may not weigh 300-pounds, but you’ll be challenged to finish it.

22 November 2024:  Huevos Rancheros are a ubiquitous breakfast staple throughout Mexico and the United States. “The idea is pretty much the same everywhere: two eggs over easy over a flat tortilla and topped with ranchero sauce and other condiments.”  Cough, gasp…did I really type “ranchero sauce.”  That’s because I cut and paste that description from the omniscient internet.  In New Mexico, our “ranchero sauce” is red or (and) green chile.  As for who first created huevos rancheros, the name probably tells the whole story.  The recipe originated among ranchers…save for those in New Mexico who don’t know what ranchero sauce is.

I probably wouldn’t have ordered huevos rancheros at Hello Deli had the menu description included “ranchero sauce.”  That’s nearly as offensive to this Norteño as the spelling “chili.”   Hello Deli’s menu describes the popular dish as “two eggs any style served on a flour tortilla with hashbrowns or papitas, whole pinto beans, cheese, and red or green chile.”  If you’re thinking “what do you want–New Mexico phrasing or a great breakfast?” I’m a greedy guy and want both.  Fortunately Hello Deli’s huevos rancheros are outstanding.  Not just good or very good.  They’re among the best huevos rancheros in New Mexico.  Red and green chile make it so (though it could be argued that red and green chile would make a flip flop taste great).

20 November 2024:  Perusing the breakfast menu is a joy though some New Mexicans might take umbrage at seeing a plate called Ol’ Traditional.  For those of us born-and-bred in the Land of Enchantment, Ol’ Traditional would be a dish slathered in red and (or) green chile.  At Hello Deli, Ol’ Traditional includes two eggs any style, hashbrowns, toast or French toast and  your choice of bacon, ham, sausage or chorizo.  This bounteous breakfast isn’t exactly traditional in New Mexico, but it’s the type of breakfast plate you might find in Chicago where my bride was born.

Admittedly very few New Mexicans would kick this plate off the table–especially if you ask for it to be served with a side of red or green chile (or even salsa).  My Kim believes Hello Deli’s French toast are “best in the city” caliber as is the maple syrup with which those French toast are slathered.  A hint of vanilla on both is probably why.  Two strips of bacon, each at least seven-inches long is reason enough to love this dish.  As is the generous portion of papitas, cubes of terrific tubers salted just right.

Albuquerque’s Hello Deli may not be a true deli in the New York sense, but it’s one heckuva popular diner slash restaurant with a loyal following that now includes a certain gastronome who was late to the game.

Hello Deli
7600 Jefferson, N.E.
Albuquerque, New Mexico
(505) 797-3354
Website | Facebook Page
LATEST VISIT: 20 November 2024
1st VISIT: 5 April 2022
# OF VISITS: 6
RATING: 22
COST: $$
BEST BET: Green Chile Cheeseburger, Gyros, Cinnamon Roll, Green Chile Chicken Soup, Hello Cubana, Chicken Fried Steak Burrito, Santa Fe Cakes, Reuben, Biscuits and Gravy, Santa Fe Skillet, Meat Lover Skillet, Huevos Rancheros,
REVIEW #1263