Throughout the years that “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” has been on the air, Guy Fieri has sampled a wide variety of cuisine. One of his favorites is California’s Russian River Pub, which specializes in your basic all-American bar staples. He’s also extolled the virtues of an Ohio Mexican restaurant called Momocho and tackled a meatball the size of a baseball at Mulberry Italian Ristorante in Lackawanna, New York. On one particular visit to Richmond, Virginia, Fieri wasn’t looking for down-home Southern cooking, but rather to sample the delights of a Jewish deli called Perly’s.
According to Fieri, what makes Perly’s unique is that the cuisine blends the masterful technique of co-owner Kevin Roberts with family recipes passed down from the grandmother of his wife (and fellow co-owner) Rochelle. During his visit, Guy Fieri sampled one of the house specialties, pierogies stuffed with potatoes and duck confit. (The former ingredient is traditional, while the latter adds a gourmet touch.) Fieri watched the pierogies get made, then said after sampling the finished product: “I don’t know that the word pierogi describes this. It’s like calling my Camaro a car … This is like I’ve been going to all the movies in black and white and then today I went to IMAX.” (Reading between the lines, it sounds like he enjoyed them.)
Perly’s offers a lot more than pierogis
Guy Fieri may have only had time to sample one dish at Perly’s, but if you make the trip to Richmond, you needn’t exercise such restraint. If you get there in the morning, you can start your day with a brunch dish such as a classic bagel with smoked fish and a schmear of cream cheese or something sweet like blueberry-sauced cheese blintz or cinnamon babka French toast. There’s even a riff on eggs benedict called the Benny Goodman. This dish, named for the Jewish jazz superstar, consists of potato latkes topped with smoked salmon, poached eggs, dill-flavored hollandaise, and a sprinkling of salmon roe.
For lunch, you can indulge in a variety of deli sandwiches, including corned beef, pastrami, and beef tongue along with a bowl of borscht or matzoh ball soup. A smoked fish platter offers a choice of smoked or kippered salmon, gravlax, smoked trout, smoked whitefish, and smoked bluefish (you get to pick three). The smoked whitefish is also available in salad form along with other deli salads such as tuna, chicken, and egg. Be sure to save room for one of the quintessential deli desserts, too; you can pick from chocolate babka, cheesecake, hamentaschen, rugelach, mandelbrot, and black-and-white cookies…