Take a Dip

Dear Mr. Gold:

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Cole's

118 E. Sixth St.
Los Angeles, CA 90014

Category: Restaurant > American

Region: Downtown

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More About

• Ellis Song
• Nolita
• Culver City
• Deli Foods
• Food and Cooking

I recently moved back to L.A. from the Bay Area to pursue some kind of storytelling job. And what I want to know is where I can find a hot freshly carved turkey sandwich. San Francisco has some amazing restaurants, but the thing that I seem to miss the most is the rotisserie turkey sandwich that was served in a neighborhood grocery store around the corner. If you can help me find a place that does this sort of thing, that would be great.

—Ellis Song

Dear Mr. Song:

Steeped as we are in the all-too-recent memory of sliced Heritage turkey with fennel gravy and ABC Rhubarb arugula on toasted EuroPane sourdough, we find this to be the season when the turkey sandwich sounds its most plangent call. The refrigerator is swept of leftovers, the bowl of cranberries has been scraped clean, and the half-gallon of superconcentrated turkey stock in the freezer doesn't begin to compensate for the loss. It will take a while for the dessicated stuff in the supermarket deli case to look good again — although by May or so, it probably will. Me, I'm kind of yearning for the turkey sandwich I had a few months ago at Torrisi's Italian Specialties in New York's Nolita, even if it did come dressed with honey mustard.

Still, BLD's lunchtime house-smoked turkey pastrami sandwich with avocado and Nueske's bacon is nothing to sneer at; neither is the barbecued turkey-neck "sandwich" at Tasty Bar-B-Cue down on Crenshaw, although I am pretty sure that neither is the turkey sandwich you have in mind. Nor is the turkey Cobb sandwich at the Stand in Encino or the sandwich you can sometimes get at the Lazy Ox Canteen with turkey, pork belly and bacon. Metro Cafe in Culver City makes a good turkey sandwich, although it can be hard to stay away from the garlicky Serbian bean soup. But I'm going to go with my first impulse, which is to send you off for a turkey dip at Cole's P.E. Buffet, which is carved to order from a freshly roasted bird, comes with the option of nuclear-strength mustard, and may be accompanied with a Champagne cocktail or L.A.'s best Old-Fashioned.

COLE'S P.E. BUFFET: 118 E. Sixth St., downtown, (213) 622-4090, colespebuffet.com.