Man Vs. Food Nation, Cincinnati:

In late summer, one of my coworkers, Adam Turer, walked up to my desk looking like the cat who ate the canary.

"Guess what?!" He asked.

"What?" I replied, looking up from connecting the dots on a chain of assignments and merger documents.

"Adam Richman is coming. Here. Izzy's. For me!"
"WHAT!? When?!"

And Adam and I kept our mouths shut about the show until it became public knowledge that Adam Richman was coming. Even when the media speculated about where he was headed, both of us just giggled quietly in our cubicles. It was tough. Adam was nice enough to have lunch with me the other day and answer a few questions about the show. He also let me take pictures of his food. Thanks Adam!

1. Did you learn anything useful about your first attempt at the Reuben during your audition video? What was your strategy going in?

I took a different approach in my first attempt. I ate all the insides (meat, cheese, sauerkraut) first, then attacked the massive amount of bread and potato. I put down the innards of the sandwich, but couldn’t get through all the starch. I finished just over 3 of the 5.5 pounds in that first attempt. That was with basically no training. In my second attempt, and after talking to Adam and local competitive eater Joe LaRue, I stuffed myself at a Golden Corral 2 days prior, and I went at the 110 like a regular sandwich for the challenge. It tasted much better that way and the potato pancake on the sandwich tasted great. I cut the sandwich into eighths and went at it one slice at a time.

2. What’s Adam Richman like in person?

Adam is one of the sweetest, most genuine guys I’ve met. He really, really cares about his show and the people involved in making it. He called me as soon as we were done filming background shots with my son’s baseball team the night before the challenge to make sure all the kids and parents had a good time and to apologize for the amount of time it took. He signed autographs for the kids and his crew played sandlot baseball with me and my boy one day after we were done filming. At the end of a 16-hour day of filming, Adam’s still cracking jokes and making everyone in the room enjoy themselves. He works extremely hard to put out the highest-quality product in each episode.

3. Can you tell us anything about the episode that we might not know (without giving anything away, of course)?

I had no idea how much work goes into filming a 23-minute episode of television. The crew spent almost every hour of four straight days filming all over the city. I was exhausted and I was only involved in about 15 hours of it. I have not seen the episode yet, so I’m not sure exactly what made the cut. I know that a lot of hard work went into it by all involved.

4. What was the hardest part of the challenge?

The time limit. I’ve seen every episode of Man vs Food and Man vs Food Nation and there are not many challenges shorter than 30 minutes, except for the spicy challenges. A quantity challenge like this in half an hour is the biggest obstacle. There really isn’t time to get that second wind and rally in the closing minutes. You have to start and go full speed ahead for all 30 minutes. I think 45 minutes or an hour would be more appropriate for this challenge.

5. Do you still like eating Reubens?

Yes. I still go to Izzy’s about once a week. This experience did entice me to expand upon my usual menu choices, though. I needed to try some different things other than the reuben for a while. That’s one of the great things about Izzy’s; the reubens are the best, but there’s a lot more on the menu. I really like the Mex and the Codfather.

I'm pretty excited to see the episode, which airs Wednesday the 12th at 9 PM on the travel channel. Don't miss it! And no, I don't know who won. Adam's been impossible to crack.

Izzy's:

Though it has been around the corner for the last two years we’ve lived in our apartment, I’ve never set foot in Izzy’s. David would bring the option up, and I would immediately use my marriage veto powers.

To understand why, I have to explain about a job I had in my late teen years at a nursing home. A Jewish nursing home. And not just any Jewish nursing home, an Orthodox one.

I worked in the dietary department, and my duties consisted of assembling trays of food, bringing the carts filled with trays to the assorted dining rooms, retrieving the carts once the meal was over, and working with the other staff in washing all the dirty dishes in the industrial washing machines.

The home took the Orthodox part of their jobs very seriously. We kept full kosher, with two sets of dishes and entirely separate kitchens and dishwashers. We had a Rabbi on standby in case a meat fork went through the dairy dishwasher and unkoshered the whole thing. And don’t even get me started on cleaning the kitchens for Passover. Ever been tasked with cleaning an industrial oven with a toothbrush and razorblades? I have.

It was an interesting peek into another religion’s customs, and not a bad place for a college kid to work. My fellow staff were nice, and the management was extremely tolerant of my hair color, which at that point in my life, was pink and blue.

But it was the cow tongue that eventually got to me.

In additional to keeping kosher, we also served a lot of traditional food. Cow tongue day was the worst for me, with entire trays of half and whole tongues swimming in sauce waiting to be plated. I could see the taste buds, I explained to David.

Once I left the home for a more grown up job, I decided I never wanted to see another gefilte fish or matzo ball again.

I’ve grown a lot since college, and though my hair still isn’t its natural color, I’d probably be a lot less bothered by the cow tongue nowadays. Looking over Izzy’s menu of sandwiches, I realized that continuing to avoid an entire restaurant just because of a job in my past was pretty silly.

David and I have since tried 6 of Izzy’s menu items, including the tasty potato pancake served with every sandwich.

I chose to construct my own sandwich of three meats ($7.70) with pastrami, corned beef, and roast beef. I thought the corned and roast beef were good, but my favorite was by far the flavorful pastrami.

David chose to get the variety plate, choosing egg salad, chopped liver, potato salad and cole slaw. ($7.95)

While we were at Izzy’s I saw that for a limited time, Izzy’s is featuring the goetta Reuben ($7.95), which I decided I absolutely had to order. A little embarrassed to order a ton of sandwiches for the two of us, and since I also wanted to try their salami, we returned the next day.

We chose the salami combo ($7.70), the goetta Reuben, and the Mex' sandwich (6.95).

Corned beef, sweet yellow onion, jalapeno peppers, melted swiss and chipotle sauce

Salami, cream cheese, pesto, red onion and tomato

My favorite sandwiches that we ordered were the goetta Reuben and the 3 meat sandwich. I appreciated the simplicity of the three meats (especially the pastrami), and the flavors of the goetta Reuben, and I’ll be going back to get another before they stop making it.

David loved the salami combo—he particularly liked how the salami was broiled before it was put on the sandwich. Also, he says, “I’m a sucker for anything with cream cheese on it.”

I definitely feel silly for waiting so long to visit. David and I both agree we like the variety of sandwiches; you can order traditional deli sandwiches or one of their specialties, which have varied and creative ingredients.

It’s easy to forget that Izzy’s is a Cincinnati restaurant, much like Skyline, LaRosa's, or Graeter’s. For some reason it doesn’t seem to get as much press—though it definitely should. I know I am definitely happy to have pastrami within a block's reach.