ABSTRACT
Of all the Jewish restaurants in Manhattan's Lower East Side, the most peculiar is undoubtedly Sammy's Romanian Steak House. It is actually the newest (it opened in 1974 under its current management), although its shabby decor and completely unassuming exterior are quite deceptive since it is purposely constructed that way to create an impression of considerable age. One evening, an arriving guest asks if there is room for three. Stanley Zimmerman, the slight-figured, open-shirt host and owner, replies, 'Do I have room for three? Is there room in the ocean?' Then, using his free hand to form a makeshift megaphone he shouts, 'Three more goyim [non-Jews].' On cue, the musician who is sitting behind a huge electric keyboard in the rear and just in front of an enormous fake dollar bill with Theodore Herzl's face in place of George Washington's, stops what he is playing and begins to sing 'Three more goyim' to the tune of 'Three Blind Mice'. A waiter, taking over from Zimmerman without any prompting and wearing the standard Sammy's uniform of denim jeans and a black T-shirt, escorts this like any other group to a wobbly table covered in a white tablecloth and napkins (about the only things in the place that match). On the table are place settings, and a glass syrup bottle of liquid shmaltz or chicken fat. Within moments, menus appear followed by a basket of fresh thick slices of rye bread, a bowl of enormous pickled peppers, green tomatoes and small cucumbers and cold seltzer in very old blue or green glass bottles with rusted chrome squirting devices.
