Reuben sandwich roundup

Goldbergs' - the "Authentic East Coast Style Deli" in Factoria Mall - offers an enormous menu and enormous portions, smoked fish specialties, all-day breakfasts (yes, there's bacon), a full bar (who knew?) and a take-out deli where service can try your patience. Reflecting the theater-based décor, the menu is divvied into sections with headers like "Broadway Favorite Sandwiches" (have the Jack's Special) and "Smash Hit Entrees" including stuffed cabbage and French fried chicken livers. With inconsistency plaguing the kitchen, it takes multiple visits to figure out when to say "Yeah" and when to say "Feh." Skip the vapid matzo ball soup and the forgettable whitefish salad, share a plate of cheese blintzes, zone in on oversized sandwiches built with hot corned beef or pastrami served on soft, sturdy, seedless rye, nosh on excellent half-sour pickles, finish with cheesecake and you're sure to leave happy.

As regular denizens of Pike Place Market know, the Market is heaven for soup-lovers. Traverse its alleys and you'll come across a world of warmth, from Bolivian shrimp soup to Vietnamese pho. But let's face it: There are times when all you want is a serviceable cup of an old favorite, say — beef barley, chicken noodle or clam chowder. And when you want it accompanied by a serious, two-fisted sandwich (or a half of one), you won't find a better spot than the counter at Three Girls.

Where else can you sit elbow-to-elbow with fur-coated tourists, twentysomething bike messengers and elderly locals and get your chops busted by a crew of wise-cracking, soup-ladling, sandwich-making funsters (you want "mayo-mustard-horseradish-lettuce-tomato-onion-pickle" with that?). So, the beef barley has too much salt, the clam chowder too few clams and the chicken noodle needs a little oomph. The price is right, and did I mention those great sandwiches?

By Nancy Leson
Seattle Times restaurant critic

Eats is a shopping-mall sensation: one that modestly bills itself as "your neighborhood bakery cafe," then turns that notion on its head by offering a seasonally inspired dinner menu capable of besting better bistros everywhere. Drop in for coffee and one of owner Toby Matasar's fabulous baked goods, stay for Bubbie's chicken soup and a Market Reuben, or make an evening of it sharing a bottle of wine, an elegant pan-seared salmon fillet and some of the best pot roast you'll ever encounter. Open for lunch, dinner and weekend brunch.

The food and drink's tough enough for a man, but made for a woman, too