The sign went up in the window over a year ago: "Coming Soon Steve's Deli."

Well, it's here. Steve's Deli opened several weeks ago, and not a moment too soon for this eater. Steve's is a fine deli, everything I could hope for and more (the original Steve's Deli opened in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., in 1994).

Walk straight in and you will see an assembly of deli delights -- meatloaf, stuffed cabbage, brisket, knishes, noodle kugel, egg-white salad, gefilte fish, and on and on. Look to your left and see racks filled with breads and bagels. Look around from the hot food displays and you will see the famous "cake carousel" -- with its mile-high Carnegie cheesecakes (cherry or blueberry topping), carrot cake and giant cupcakes -- rotate, making you hungrier with each spin. No matter where you turn in this deli, there is something to whet your appetite.

Now seated at a two-top, menu in hand, I am flummoxed about what to order. Sandwich? The choices include corned beef, hot pastrami, roast beef brisket, chopped chicken liver, rare roast beef. There are also salads, soups, sides and "old-time favorites." Fish plate? Lox, sable, chubs, whitefish.

Gotta start with some soup. Chicken noodle. Clear chicken broth, good flavor, but it could use a bit more depth. Nice noodles. A couple of carrots. Best chicken soup ever? No, but good enough, the shingle of toasted bagel perched on the dish was a nice touch.

Gotta have the hot corned beef sandwich that's listed under "overstuffed sandwiches." Definitely overstuffed. A fine stack of properly sliced corned beef (lean as could be) caused the slices of rye bread to groan. I was duly impressed. You don't get to see your meat sliced, as it happens at Manny's on Jefferson in the South Loop, but it didn't matter. It was a very good sandwich.

I had to try one of those "old-time favorites" -- you know, puffy white bread sluiced with gravy, as in, say, a hot turkey sandwich. Steve's has one on the menu. At first I was put off a bit by the color of the turkey gravy, which was pale gold. Color aside, I liked how the gravy clung to the bread without making the bread so soggy that it fell apart. The sandwich was sliced in two, stacked with tasty white meat turkey and served with a baseball-size scoop of good mashed potatoes.

The prices are up there a bit (the hot turkey sandwich is $10.75), but Steve's does not skimp on the portions. The turkey meatloaf, for example ($13.25), was a full dinner that included choice of soup, salad or coleslaw, and choice of bread. The plate was stacked with thick slabs of flavorful meatloaf with a choice of turkey or beef gravy on the side. Have the coleslaw; it's really good, but the Brussels sprouts could have been better.

Back to the sandwiches, the "combination sandwiches" in particular. The No. 2, stacks up pretty good. Slices of crispy rye bread got loaded with an elegant amount of hot pastrami and corned beef, Swiss cheese and Russian dressing, and it was a hefty one to wrestle with.

For dessert, the chocolate cheesecake was decadent.