Restaurant: Blumbergs Delicatessen Location: 8861 Villa La Jolla Dr. La Jolla, CA Phone: (858) 455-1461 Price Range: $4.95-$14.95

Number of visits: many
Last visit before review: October 28, 2001

Randy has had: Greek salad, chef salad, iced tea, soda water.

Jeff has had: Cheddar jack & mushroom omelette, chef salad, iced tea.

Rating 8 (of 12) Good

Randy says: The Greek salad is pretty good. It has good quality lettuce with a nice bit of chopped raw vegetables, and the dressing is pleasant. You can optionally get it with a grilled chicken breast which is also good.

Jeff says: The omelettes are good. The cheeses come melted on top instead of inside which is interesting. They come with hash browns, which are okay, and I like to dress them up with the Beaver squeezable hot/sweet mustard that's on the table. It's out of this world.

Randy says: The chef salad varies depending on who is working in the kitchen. It ranges from better than average to delightful. There's generally a nice mix of lettuces, and on good days heaping quantities of wonderful meats, and one of the nicer ranch dressings around. Under the old regime it came with a bagel, but now it comes with bread and bagel chips. The eggbread is very nice when fresh.

Jeff says: The chef salad is good. The healthy, leafy green lettuces are nice and the meats are very good quality. There is a big leaf of garnish lettuce kind of underneath it all, and I cut that up and eat it as well. I have to say my favorite part, though, is the egg bread we sometimes get. The bread we get varies. Sometimes it's just bagel chips, and sometimes there is egg bread and/or rye. I don't usually like rye too much but I like this rye for some reason.

Randy says: Under the old regime the iced tea was improperly brewed (probably excessive steeping time) resulting in a highly tannic drink which required lots of sugar (I normally don't use sugar in tea). The current ownership insists the tea is still brewed, but it tastes strongly of concentrate. Nothing can make this tea drinkable, so I resort to drinking soda water which has a tap water bite, but the carbonation helps. It's a shame, really, because good iced tea is so easy and inexpensive to make: fresh tea, hot water, a few minutes, and you're done.

Jeff says: I think the iced tea is fine, and that's what I get when I go there. I don't notice anything objectionable about the flavor.

This place has gone through a lot of changes in the five years we've lived here, the most significant being the changeover from Samson's to Blumbergs. Along the way there were remodels and new menus which unfortunately were costly and failed to save the business. When it was Samson's we had more meals than we can remember the details of, and it does no good to review a place that no longer exists so this review concentrates solely on meals we've had at Blumbergs. Comparisons, however, are inevitable since the place looks the same and many of the long-time staff are still there. One important change that happened with the change of ownership is the implementation of certain cutbacks that we have noticed. The chef salad used to come with 3 meats, and now it comes with 2 (we always pay extra to get it exactly the way we used to). Before, if you bought (or your meal came with) a bagel you also got cream cheese. Now if you want cream cheese with your bagel you'll pay 95 cents extra for it, which I haven't seen done at other delis we go to. The family that ran Samson's was friendly and outgoing, and the menu and restaurant had a Yiddish theme that made you feel like you were visiting relatives on the east coast. The atmosphere at Blumbergs is no different than anywhere else.

That being said, the staff at Blumbergs are eager to please. We have our favorite old-timers who know us and treat us better than the new hires who don't know us. Sometimes the staff gets overwhelmed and backed up, so a visit to Blumbergs can take longer than one would like.

The different delis in the San Diego area each have different things they do well and things they don't. Blumbergs has very high quality meats, particularly the corned beef and lean brisket. The turkey off the bird can be dry, however, and sometimes a little pink. The bakery is also exceptional. When we have guests we often serve a pumpkin cheesecake, and this is where we get it. It's always a hit, but once we tried the key lime cheesecake and weren't as impressed.

As Samson's or Blumbergs, this place has been a landmark in the area for a long time and we're sure with its extensive menu and bakery that will continue.