Ohio knows its way around a great deli sandwich. One bite of properly stacked pastrami or corned beef and the whole thing starts to make perfect sense.
The meat, the bread, the mustard, the slight struggle to take a first bite without wearing part of it, that is the magic of it.
In cities and smaller stops around Ohio, there are delis doing this exceptionally well, each with its own style and loyal following. I spent time tracking down the ones that are actually worth the drive, and what turned up was a lineup of places that take this kind of sandwich very seriously without losing the joy of it…