During this all-too-brief week between the major Jewish holidays of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, it only seems appropriate to introduce the subject of a significant institution in New York food culture: the Jewish deli. Impossible as it is for me to believe, we haven’t yet discussed in these pages the timeless New York Jewish delicatessen experience: the no-nonsense staff, the alarmingly unhealthy food, the geriatric clientele. There is no shortage of candidates for the original, echt kosher (or more likely, ‘kosher style’) deli in the city; Katz’s on Houston is surely authentic, and the old Ratner’s on Delancey may have set the standard until it closed in 2000. But for pure comfort food, and for the knowledge that your waitress is surely someone’s bubbe in her off-hours, the 2nd Avenue Deli takes the kugel. And for Nosher and me one night last week, a craving for grandma’s cooking was driving us meshuga, so we got our tochises in a cab and within minutes we could smell the brisket.

Like entering a synagogue for the first time, The Deli is a world unto itself, with its own rules and customs. We were immediately ushered in, past the old Automat display from the 1950s, by the kindly woman at the door and hurried to an empty table. Menus quickly appeared, and quickly, heaping bowls of crisp sour and half-sour pickles, pickled tomatoes, and sweet cabbage sauerkraut followed. If you go, take it slow, because it’s all too easy to fill up on these goodies while you pore over the extensive menu of delicacies like cholent, kasha varnishkas (essentially, buckwheat and bowtie pasta), knishes, and triple-decker tongue sandwiches (’Tongue Temptation’ is my winner for most suggestive menu item). The Deli also makes its own chopped liver, and although this doesn’t exactly sound as exotic as something involving a tongue, it is an item so good you may forget what you’re eating and how it’s made (I’ll save recipes that call for schmaltz, or rendered chicken fat, for another post).

Nosher and I have now been to the Deli three times, and are impressed by its consistency. Every time we go, at least one person in our party orders the Matzoh Ball Soup and someone else orders potato latkes, and each time, they are exceptional. Last week was no exception; the soup came out in a large metal measuring cup, and the waitress theatrically inverted the container into the bowl, flecks of dill and carrot swirling around an impossibly light and perfectly formed matzoh ball. It was so good I finished it before Nosher could ask for a taste.

The latkes were equally good, although you have to work quickly, as they arrive hotter than flames and then cool off fast. Really, their chewy centers and crisp crusts are much better warm, so eating quickly pays dividends. The 2nd Avenue Deli’s latkes are nothing like the latkes your family might have made for Hanukkah (no thin, sickly green latkes here)– instead, they are reminders of the miracles that can be achieved with simple potatoes and oil. Better still, they are big enough that one of them and a bowl of soup are together enough of a meal for most people. Most people… .

That night, however, Nosher and I were no ordinary mortals, and we somehow made room for more. My craving for liver, in fact, was one of the catalysts for the trip in the first place. The Deli’s broiled chicken livers did not disappoint; smooth and slightly gamey, they come slathered in onions and paired with a bowl of passable, but almost certainly not homemade apple sauce to cut the richness of the meat. My only problem was that there was far too much of it, and the wonderfully soft rye bread that they brought out (sandwiches, anyone?) only filled me up faster.

Nosher ordered the whitefish salad platter, and judging both by the speed at which he polished it off and his entreaties to ‘try some!’, I feel safe in saying that he enjoyed it as much as I did the livers. Nosher’s dish was generously-sized as well: so big that the salad came with its own salad– a scoop of potato salad, its flavors perfectly balanced between sweet and salty, making me forgive the watery mayonnaise it was swimming in.

All of this good food and the palpable family-style atmosphere of the 2nd Avenue Deli makes the recent history of the Deli that much more bittersweet. The Deli’s original owner, Abe Lebewohl, was shot in the neighborhood back in 1996, in a murder that remains unsolved to this day. While Abe’s daughter Sharon has ably taken over, there’s no getting over the large poster on the door offering a reward for information on the killing– Abe has taken up residence alongside the old photographs and Lower East Side memorabilia that line the walls. Indeed, apart from the poster, it’s clear that the décor, the dining room layout, and many of the sharp-tongued waiters haven’t changed in years. Yes, some of the tables are so close together you can share in the conversations of your neighbors, and the bill at the end of the meal is close to 40 percent higher than it should be, but these faults somehow become lost in the larger experience of the place. You don’t complain, because that’s just the way The Deli is, has been, and probably always will be. Some things probably should never change, despite their flaws. I think this is a sentiment even bubbe would endorse.

2nd Avenue Deli, 156 Second Avenue at 10th Street, 212-677-0606