13 sandwiches from around L-A. 2 weeks of tasting. No clear winner (but, yum, do we really care?).

Ask 10 people where to get a good Reuben sandwich and you’ll get five blank stares, three good suggestions, one inquiry and one passionate description of every delicious Reuben within a 50-mile radius. That last response will end with something like:

“I never met a Reuben I didn’t like.”

Or

“My favorite Reuben is my next one.”

Remind me again, what’s a Reuben?

The Reuben sandwich is made of corned beef, sauerkraut, Swiss cheese and Russian dressing. This surprising combination of flavor-rich foods goes between two slices of rye bread and the entire sandwich is grilled. Throw some chips and a pickle on the plate like they just don’t care and voila! The Reuben.

Legend and mystery surround the sandwich’s provenance. Some claim it was invented in Omaha, Neb., in the 1920s to accompany a weekly poker game at The Blackstone Hotel. Others allege it was created by a German immigrant, Arnold Reuben, and served at his New York City deli beginning in 1914. Although Reuben’s Delicatessen is no longer in business, the sandwich itself shows no signs of dying in popularity or variation. In fact, it’s available in a surprisingly large number of Lewiston-Auburn eateries.

In an effort to find L-A’s best Reubens, I sampled sandwiches in 13 restaurants. I took along my friend and tasting companion “Handy,” who is a former restaurateur. We soon realized it was impossible for us to sample every Reuben sandwich in the Lewiston-Auburn area before this story’s deadline. Goodness knows we tried! Handy and I even ran a “Reuben Sprint” one Friday, going from Simones’ to Marche to Fish Bones in 90 minutes, based on recommendations from rabid Reuben fans. My apologies to the restaurants we couldn’t get to!

Following two weeks of intense eating and scrutiny, here are some basic hints for understanding this iconic sandwich and finding your own personal favorite.

The corned beef

Corned beef is generally made from beef brisket that is salt-cured. The brisket is sometimes smoked or even slow-cooked, like “corned beef and cabbage.” The cooked meat is then sliced for sandwich use. Pastrami, while a cooked beef, differs in how it’s cured, seasoned and cooked, and has a different taste. If your Reuben has pastrami, it may be delicious, but it’s not a Reuben.

Fresh-prepared corned beef, chunky-sliced and juicy, is used in the Reubens served at both Dubois Cafe & Variety on Sabattus Street and Marche in downtown Lewiston — two of my favorites because of this. But high-quality deli-style corned beef sold through restaurant food purveyors can be equally tasty, as long as it’s fresh and tender. Handy preferred the corned beef used at Simones’ Hot Dog Stand in Lewiston, citing just these qualities. Regardless, while corned beef is the foundation of the sandwich, it takes more than just “showing the beef” to make a good Reuben.

Sauerkraut

Oh, sauerkraut! Mention the fermented cabbage in a conversation and you’ll easily strike fear in the eyes of many diners. Or maybe a comment like “Sauerkraut? I’ve never had sauerkraut.” Canned or fresh, the Reuben needs ‘kraut — and a generous helping, please. Like that at Simones’. Co-owner Jimmy Simones and his staff have generous hands with the humble vegetable, and we liked it best. Given all the Reubens we sampled in L-A, a stingy hand with the sauerkraut was often a deal-breaker in whether we’d recommend an establishment’s Reuben or not.

Cheese

Swiss cheese please. No substitutes allowed. Both domestic and imported versions of the hole-dotted dairy product can be used in a good sandwich. Like sauerkraut, the cheese flavor is important, so use a thick slice or two thin slices. Handy says it’s easy for cheese to get lost in the sandwich when it’s flavorless. Similarly, it needs to work with all the other flavors, not overpower them. Handy didn’t have a local favorite, but I preferred the Pineland Farms Baby Swiss used at Marche.

Dressing

A good Reuben sandwich needs dressing, and Russian is the preferred. Sometimes Thousand Island dressing substitutes for Russian, but in either case the simple mayonnaise-based condiment is slathered on both sides of the bread before adding the meat and sauerkraut.

Bread

In our sandwich journey, my tasting companion and I struggled to initially define the sandwich by either its bread or its corned beef. According to Handy, “All great Reubens will pass or fail on the rye bread chosen or the corned beef.” Because the sandwich is grilled, we preferred thick-sliced bread, like the marbled rye bread used at Simones’. Simones swears by a 5/8-inch-thick marble rye (thicker and larger than the average sliced bread) from Diana’s Bakery in Enfield, Conn.

White, wheat or a seed- and nut-filled artisanal bread won’t do for a Reuben.

The sides

Chips and a pickle are all that are required to complement a Reuben; some restaurants serve theirs with French fries and even coleslaw. A few places we visited served homemade potato chips, and that was a tasty change. In any case, please don’t forget the pickle. It does matter. Our favorite sides were homemade potato chips, especially the “Frips” served at the Chick-A-Dee in Lewiston, made fresh with local Bell Farm potatoes. 

The variations

One major variation to the Reuben is “The Rachel.” This sandwich replaces the corned beef with pastrami and the sauerkraut with coleslaw. Other variants include using an aioli or mustard sauce instead of Russian dressing, replacing the marble rye with focaccia, and grilling the sandwich on a panini press. While we would not consider ourselves legalistic in our assessment of Reuben sandwiches, some of these creative gyrations stray too far off the Reuben reservation for us purists, and often lead to soggy bread, lack of flavor and lackluster presentation.

The Reuben verdict

After three weeks of living the Reuben life, Handy and I — for the sake of our friendship — decided to “agree to disagree.” Handy says Simones’ makes the best Reuben in the L-A area; I say it’s a tossup between the “only on Thursdays” Reuben at Dubois Cafe and Marche’s lunchtime Reuben. Put that between two slices of marble rye and grill it!

As hungry food explorers on a mission to find a filling and tasty sandwich, we hope we’ve inspired you to find your own favorite combination of corned beef, sauerkraut and rye. L-A restaurants certainly have more than we imagined.

Julie-Ann Baumer lives, cooks, gardens and writes from her home in Lisbon Falls. Read her blog www.julieannbaumer.com or follow her on twitter @aunttomato.