It took me a couple of years of living in Boone to find The Perfect Reuben. First I had to discover that despite the fact that pretty much every ingredient in a reuben is gross, nothing beats them when they are combined properly. I realized that fact when working at Vintner's, which served Very Good reubens, though maybe not perfect.
For the uninformed, a reuben is a sandwich consisting of corned beef, sauerkraut, swiss cheese, and some sauce closely related to Thousand Island dressing all served together on toasted rye bread. And I hate sauerkraut and rye bread. I never eat corned beef or Thousand Island when it is not on a reuben. Swiss cheese I enjoy every once in a while when I can't get provolone.
That being said, it is no wonder that it took me so long to try a reuben. And had I tried the wrong reuben, then I never would have discovered how very good they can be. But the secret is the ratio, that is the amount of corned beef to the amount of sauerkraut to the amount of sauce to the amount of cheese. The amount of rye bread is pretty much a constant two slices, unless you are dealing with one of those avant-garde open faced reubens, which I just made up. When the ratio is done right, you never taste any individual ingredient of the reuben, only the conglomeration. The reuben is the sandwich illustration of "United we stand, divided we fall," except it's more like "United we taste yummy, divided we are crap." It's the most patriotic sandwich I know.
After discovering that reubens were good, I went through a stage where that's pretty much all I ever ordered everywhere I went. I immediately discovered that some reubens are bad, and some are Very Bad. Macado's, for instance, makes a terrible reuben. Way too much corned beef - the ratio is all wrong. Murphy's reuben is bad, too. The reuben at Pepper's is okay. The ratio is close, but not quite right. Carribean Cafe used to have a pretty good reuben, if a little greasy, but then they closed down.
No, The Perfect Reuben can be made to order at Our Daily Bread in downtown Boone. The ratio is perfect, the ingredients are fresh, and the meat is well-sliced. I am passed the stage where I eat reubens all the time, but I get the craving every once in a while, and Our Daily Bread is always where I go to satisfy the reuben urge. It's consisently perfect, and then there is happiness in my mouth.
But now, I am moving, and an hour and a half is a little far to go just for The Perfect Reuben. I knew that I would have to find a new hairdresser, a new doctor, a new dentist, but finding a new reuben place just only occurred to me today. So I drove into downtown Boone this evening to have my symbolic last reuben as a resident of Watauga County. I would have been sad, if not for the distracting idea that I was about to have a reuben from Our Daily Bread.
And it was Perfect.
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