I've never made pastrami, I've made corned beef a few times, none of the recipes I tried were worth repeating. The best thing I've made with a brisket is the time I tried to do a variant on Montreal Smoked Meat (without the garlic.) It was almost good enough to convince me to buy a real smoker. It bears some resemblance to pastrami.
The pastrami at Katz's on Houston in NYC is world-famous, and for good reason. I had a friend who lived in Chelsea for a while and he would take the subway down to Katz's every few days. Later he moved to the DC area for a few months, and was ordering whole pastramis from Katz's every few months.
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