Pastrami Queen at 1125 Lexington Avenue # 2, New York, New York.

After my previous experience, I'd been raving about Pastrami Queen to my parents who are transplants from the city who now live in Toronto. I was so excited to take them to the place where I'd had the best pastrami sandwich; a delicacy that they've been craving for years.

We walked in 30 minutes before closing and had been made to understand that we were the kitchen's last order. Knowing that we'd likely scarf down our sandwiches, we agreed and ordered pastrami and tongue, fried (square) potato knishes, garlic fries, pickles, coleslaw, Dr. Brown's Cream and Black Cherry Soda.

The food was delicious. However, with 10 minutes to spare before the 9pm closing time, and in mid-bite of our half-eaten order, we were asked to leave, so that the store could shut down for the night. Shocked at this abrupt and, for us, unprecedented interruption of a $115 check (before tip), we laughed in surprise and were met with attitude from the server with a comment, "don't look at me this way. I told you this would happen and that the dining room would close at 9pm." But it was 8:50pm.

Either way, we packed up after having been forced and shamed, and cabbed all the way back down to Union Square from where we traveled to warm up our food and finish eating our cold, half-eaten, and soggy meal in my apartment. What a lovely ending to my parents' trip – all on a Saturday night in the city that never sleeps!

(Needless to say, my father says that, at best, the pastrami was a four out of five.)