Word is beginning to come down from the social media-sphere that Storefront in Los Feliz is shuttering. After a few unconfirmed and seriously clandestine hours, it now appears certain that chef-owners Zak Walters and Chris Phelps will be closing up the popular deli space immediately.
Garrett Snyder Bacon Cheeseburger at Storefront Deli
On May 28, the FDA will lift the USDA ban on imported Italian cured pork products. This means we'll finally get to enjoy artisanal salami from parts of Italy like Emilia-Romagna and Piedmonte. Although according to The New York Times, it remains to be seen how much will be made available to us, given the cost of certification (upwards of $100,000).
Garrett Snyder Sandwiches at Roma Italian Deli
Still the sentiment seems to be that we'll be saved from bad meat. While we wait to see how this will affect Italian delis, restaurants and purveyors in the long run, we're standing by some of our favorites for made-to-order Italian American cold cut sandwiches. Turn the page for our 6 favorites, listed in alphabetical order.
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The pastrami sandwich at Langer's Delicatessen is legendary. So delicious that it made our "100 Favorite Dishes" list. So distinctive that Nora Ephron deemed it "the finest hot pastrami sandwich in the world." So beloved that Angelenos regularly queue up for a taste -- and out-of-towners bemoan their loss. 
N. Galuten pastrami sandwich
But there is a solution for those hapless souls: FedEx.
More »N. Galuten Pastrami on Rye at Langer's
9: Pastrami on Rye at Langer's Delicatessen.
Dozens of food writers and chefs, many greater than ourselves, have said it before: Langer's Delicatessen doesn't just have some of the best pastrami in Los Angeles, but possibly the world. A recent trip to New York, which included a spectacular but ultimately second-fiddle pastrami sandwich from Katz's Deli, served only to prove this rapidly spreading hypothesis.
Located on the eastern edge of MacArthur Park, surrounded by street vendors selling everything from fresh tostones to bootleg DVDs, Langer's is a relic of old Los Angeles. It's waitresses are charmingly brash; the doors shut at 4 p.m. sharp. They don't make 'em like this anymore.
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While many comics get their material from headlines, L.A. comedian Seth Front draws his inspiration from another source: deli menus. For the past two years, Front has crisscrossed the country giving talks on the culinary history of American Jews of Eastern European descent, using delicatessen foods as markers. From immigrant pushcarts on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the 1880s, to hip new venues, Front traces the journey of beloved foods like knishes, pastrami and latkes. 
E. Dwass Comic Seth Front
Last weekend, Front was on his home turf, at Congregation Or Ami in Calabasas, where the big crowd ate up his combo platter of humor and history. And afterwards, appropriately, they noshed at Canter's Deli truck, which Front describes as "a pushcart of the 21st century."
The son of a reform rabbi, Front, who previously worked in the film industry, says he had an epiphany "at a place where good things always happen to Jews. A Chinese restaurant."
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Leading up to this year's Best of L.A. issue (due out Oct. 4), we'll be counting down, in no particular order, 100 of our favorite dishes.
B. Rodell
66: Pastrami Reuben at Art's Delicatessan.
The motto at Art's Deli in Studio City is "Every sandwich is a work of art." The deli, which has changed little since it opened in 1957, serves all the Jewish deli classics: creamy chopped liver, rich matzoh ball soup.
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Why should you have to choose between meatballs and sausages on your sub? Or, for that matter, between roast beef and pastrami? Thankfully, at Eastside Market Italian Deli, you don't.
Though it has been around for 73 years in the same beige and brown corner building, the deli is a hidden gem tucked in the hillside neighborhood just above Chinatown, once a thriving Italian enclave. Current owner Johnny Angiuli came to Los Angeles in 1956 from Adelphia, Italy, at the age of 12. In 1975, lean years for the neighborhood, he invented the hot roast beef and pastrami sandwich. Known to regulars simply as the #7, it is the most popular menu on the sandwich -- and rightfully so.
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Susan Park Rosario Mazzeo of Roma Italian Deli and Grocery in Pasadena
If you grew up in Los Angeles, you were probably introduced to your first Italian market some time in elementary school. At some point during your formative years, you took a silent oath of filial piety to never cheat on the first Italian market owners in your life by even looking for another one.
Whether or not you're Italian, there's something about these mom-n-pop shops that engenders loyalty and nostalgia. Perhaps it has do with characters like Rosario Mazzeo, owner of Roma Italian Deli and Grocery in Pasadena, who is known for being fiercely opinionated, generous and dedicated.
"I've been here for fifty-seven years, seven days a week," he says. He gets a gleam in his eyes when we notice the chunks of hard pork fat in the fresh sausages he makes daily. Mazzeo's work ethic, encyclopedic knowledge of ingredients, and exhaustive pantry of imported foods deserve our unwavering monogamy. So, we feel a little guilty suggesting trysts with other Italian markets in our round-up. But we're going to do it anyway. Turn the page...
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F. Friesema Jonagold apples
Everybody knows what a deli is supposed to be: an enormous dining room, stinking of garlic, bolstered by corned beef and chicken in a pot, with giant halvah displays teetering by the cash register. And then there's Moore's Delicatessen, a sparkling diner across from Burbank City Hall: The backroom is an animation dweeb's delight, walls crawling with drawings from the sweaty imaginations of the animators at Nickelodeon and the Cartoon Network, both of which have studios within a couple of blocks.
It's funny because it's true. Thank you, Wil Wheaton (@wilw) and Seth MacFarlane (@SethMacFarlane), for making our day.
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