You can't be serious... And what's with the anger?

callsaul208 My father sells lax at the fish market, you're disrespecting his profession by calling it lox.

+Dr Silberman You can't be a real person.

It's called lax.

the spread looked like whitefish salad

the apple-y thing was a picked tomato

brooksandbeckys Actually (and not being one of THOSE guys here..I actually just think this is super interesting NYC history) this isn't a delicatessen. See, jewish people don't mix meat with dairy so there were two types of places you could go eat. Delicatessens (meat: 2nd ave deli, Katz, etc.) and Appetizing Stores (Fish and Dairy like cheeses etc) like Russ and Daughter's or my personal favorite Barney Greengrass (not looking for a R&D v BG argument here...both amazing, BG my preference, glad they both exist, taste is subjective). So there were Delis and Appys. You could get a pastrami sandwich at a deli, but no milk for your coffee or a Bagel with cream cheese and lox at an appy. Also, just to put an end to the "lax" people and "lox" people calling each other idiots. Gravlax is the fist. Calling it lax is correct if you are a viking. Lox (lachs in yiddish) is correct if you are Jewish. Since the lox in New York is primarily influenced by its jewish immigrants (shown in the location of these places...lower east side, upper west side both traditionally jewish hoods) Lox and no lax would be correct in NYC. However, if you are in Stockholm adjust accordingly. One last note about this...they are not eating lox (lax or any such thing) they are eating Nova. The difference is that Nova is smoked and Lox is just cured making the lox far saltier and the nova have more depth of flavor. Most places give you a bagel and nova when you order bagel and lox because most people don't have the palette for the lox anymore. At the older places, R&D and BG, they will usually ask you if you mean nova (or novae as I call it) if you ask for lox. Most other places will just assume you mean nova and many of them don't even carry actual lox.