I checked online, and, sure enough, I ran across the website of a deli that showed a lot of promise. Their menu looked great. Customer comments on their website heaped praise on the establishment, and there were links to several laudatory restaurant reviews.

Better still, the deli—Goldberg’s Famous Delicatessen—was fairly close to the Bellevue Mall. I knew that my wife JJ wouldn’t want to take the fifty-mile-each-way drive just to get a couple of pastramis on rye. But, if I put the trip in the context of browsing Macy’s, Chico’s, Nordstrom’s, and some of her other favorites, all in one large and beautiful shopping palace—well, that was a different matter altogether. How could she say no? I couldn’t care less how much she might spend at the mall, as long as we went to the deli afterwards. All that I was interested in was a good deli sandwich.

After JJ finished shopping I drove a few miles to the newly-found deli, which was located in what appeared to be a somewhat run-down shopping mall, for a late lunch / early dinner.

The joint was fancy-schmantzy—expensively decorated in what might be called nouveau-art deco, with lots of lemon yellow and bilious green on the tables and booths. A plethora of huge modern-art paintings hung on the walls.

To my amazement, there was even a full bar, if you can believe that. I’d never seen a bar smack-dab in the middle of a deli restaurant before, the central point of attention, though I suppose there might be a few others somewhere. After all, it’s a big country.

The kitchen, from what little I could view of it, seemed as if it had been put in as an afterthought; it was tucked behind a door near the bar. I much prefer delis where you can watch your sandwich being built by the counterman, even if the majority of cooking is done out of sight in a back room.

A small, unattended deli case was situated near the front of the restaurant, adjacent to the hostess and cashier. It seemed perfunctory, almost more of a decorative item than a place to store cold cuts. I checked out its contents. The noodle kugel looked as if had been sitting there for weeks. I decided not to take a chance on the smoked whitefish, which appeared wrinkles and slimy.

Sadly, Goldberg’s was completely devoid of typical deli aromas.

There weren't many customers seated at the time we arrived, around 4:00 pm. Our waiter was a pleasant enough gay goy guy with the Jewish name of David, the same as my name. He apparently knew nothing whatsoever about delicatessen food.

I asked pointed questions about the kishka, as several times recently I've been served only the smooshy part of the kishka, not the derma part. That's like ordering a roast turkey dinner and being served just the stuffing.

A few years ago there was a valid reason for the lack of kishka completeness. The U.S. Department of Agriculture had banned the sale of small beef intestines because it was thought that they might have been a source of Mad Cow disease. But, that problem has apparently been resolved and beef casings are again legal, so there’s no longer an excuse for not making kishka by the time-honored method.

The waiter assured me that there was, indeed, derma around the stuffing. He was wrong. There wasn't. Aarrgh! I sent the order back.

Our iced teas came out as lukewarm colored water with just a couple of mostly melted ice cubes. I asked for more ice. My wife had requested extra lemon but didn't get it, and we repeated our request for that, also. So much for good service.

I ordered a chopped chicken liver sandwich. The liver was tasty enough, but I'll bet a dollar to a doughnut that it was beef liver, not chicken liver. Hell, for all I know, it could have been pork liver.

The rye bread wasn't even as good as you can get in any supermarket—it was too dense and heavy, and served chilled, as if it had been stored in the refrigerator until it was time to schmear on the liver spread. I was beginning to believe that Goldberg’s probably sold a lot of corned beef sandwiches on white bread with mayonnaise.

The promised pickles never arrived, though I could see bowls of them sitting on other tables. Duvud had forgotten to bring them. Or maybe he was getting even with us because of the kishka and iced tea incidents.

A small paper cup that accompanied my sandwich held about three tablespoons of potato salad. Thank goodness the container was small, as the potato salad was gross. Cubed potatoes, somewhat chewy, with a thin coating of a tasteless mayonnaise-based dressing. It appeared that the paper cups had been filled for the lunch hour trade and they’d been sitting somewhere without refrigeration ever since, as the salad was dried out and at room temperature—a veritable Petri dish of breeding bacteria. Aarrgh again!

  My wife ordered a knockwurst and beans platter. The obviously from-a-can beans appeared to have been reheated repeatedly for several days before being plopped onto her plate. The supposed knocks were not their customary shape (short and fat). Rather, they were the size and shape of frankfurters.

Thinking that someone in the kitchen had made a mistake, my wife asked Duvud if they were frankfurters or knockwurst.

When he replied, “Both,” JJ knew that questioning the waiter further would be futile. The knockwurstfurters had been served cool to the touch, so she had to send them back to the kitchen for heating. Aarrgh the third time!

JJ's daughter Jan was with us. She’d ordered a Reuben. Jan said it was okay, but to me it looked far too greasy and soggy.

The bill for the three of us came to a pricey $50.93. And that didn't include the tip.

There was, however, great music in the background. Mostly swing sounds and vocals from the forties through the sixties.

In retrospect, perhaps I should have been suspicious of the information on the website. One of the glowing reviews talked about matzo brie, not matzo brei. Do you remember your elementary school teacher saying, “I before E, except after C, except for the exceptions?” Brei, as in matzo brei, is one of those exceptions.

As everyone knows (or so I thought) Brie is a soft cow’s cheese, named after the French province where it originated.

Another clue: Kippered salmon was described, incorrectly, as baked salmon. There is a difference. Kippered salmon is smoked, baked salmon is not.

I concluded that the highly complimentary customer comments were probably written by the restaurant’s ad agency or the owner’s wife, not by satisfied diners. Further checking on the Internet, after I returned home, provided a plethora of putrid reviews of the deli, from the time it first opened to the present. I shoulda known.

Surely, somewhere in the state of Washington, there must be at least one decent Jewish deli. But I haven't found it. Not yet.