I love deli roast beef like the one pictured here.
I’d like to try my hand at making this at home. What cut of beef is in that picture/what should I ask my butcher for?
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Colibri
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I’m no expert, but it looks like bottom round to me. Take the picture to your butcher and ask him, or her.
You mean there’s not a simple factual answer to this? 
I’m never gonna get these forum distinctions down.
If it’s food, arts or media related it goes here.
No expert here but I have to agree.
Some kinda round. Maybe Eye of Round which is a smallish roast and lean?
http://consumer.certifiedangusbeef.com/cuts/Detail.aspx?ckey=147&cmkey=2&mp=
Most deli-style roast beef is top round.
It all depends on how you look at it! 
It will diverge into me asking about tricks to cooking roast beef…I hope you don’t mind.
So, what are folks’ tricks to cooking roast beef? I got a digital oven thermometer with meat probe where I can read the display outside the oven like Alton Brown does (yay). Do I just sear the roast all over on the stovetop and then put in the oven till it reaches the right internal temp for the doneness I want? What do you recommend for seasoning the outside – just salt and pepper?
Meat loaf is about the only meat I’ve ever cooked in the oven so don’t be afraid to talk to me like I’m seven.
My guess was going to be top round, too. Might be bottom, but not eye, in my opinion.
Looks like Silverside to me. Silverside is bottom round - roast.
Silverside IME likes some moisture while it is cooking - enough stock in the roasting tin that it (the liquid) does not dry out while cooking. It does indeed make extremely good cold sliced beef.
For a moderately priced cut (ie, top round or eye of round) I salt it a day in advance, then use the low temperature method. I wouldn’t salt a rib roast in advance because it doesn’t need it (but then, I don’t really buy rib roast either)
ETA fairly confident the meat pictured in the OP is not eye of round.
Has the round edges, but looks too wide for eye of round (Given the surroundings). Eye is shaped kind of like a fat tenderloin, leading some less scrupulous establishments to steak it & try and pass it off as filet mignon.
Most good, minimally processed roast beef uses top round. looks kind of like a fat hub cap with regular taper as you move from the center.
Thinking it’s bottom round surprisingly. Shaped like a tube of sand, with rounded edges instead of tapering to nothing like a top. It’s one of the tougher cuts (literally and figuratively) to work with. Makes great pot roast( long slow moist heat), but usually don’t see it done rare due to all the connective tissue and collagen. Think they get around this with lots of additives, an extraordinary low ( ~130 F/55 C) temp and long ( ~ 12 hrs) cook time.
Hard to find bottom round plain in the supermarket now. Not a popular cut, so manufacturers snap it up cheap for their processed meats ( Like pastrami, in lieu of the traditional brisket).
For a good, juicy roast Gigi, you’ll need a highly seasoned ( And salty) spice rub and a long, low roasting.
Pull your roast out of the fridge, coat liberally with the spice rub ( Can actually be seasoned the night before) and let set at room temp ~ 1 hr. Pop into a 450 F (230 C) for 15 min and then dial it way back to 225 F. For a 4 lb roast let it go for about an hour and a half, then check the temp. If it’s at 115 F, shut the oven off and let set in oven another 30 min.
Pull from oven ( Internal temp should be at 130) Cap with a foil tent to hold heat, and let set another 30 minutes. This will yield a beautiful medium rare roast. Adjust times up or down depending on your preference for doneness, different size, shape etc.
In my neighborhood, it’s easy to find. My order of preference for the round roasts are top round, bottom round, and then way, way, way back is eye of round. (Another great cut for deli-style roast beef is top sirloin, I would put that above top round for preference.) I make homemade deli-style roast beef for sandwiches fairly regularly, maybe once every month or so.
You can cook top or bottom round as any normal roast. I use dry heat only (I don’t find wet heat works well for roasts I cook rare to medium-rare), and I cook until I hit an internal of about 120. I do it over a low heat, like around 300F to get it very evenly cooked. You can sear either at the beginning or at the end, whichever way you prefer to do it. Then I slice it as thin as I can against the grain (I have a deli slicer that helps with this.)
As for seasoning? I just start with the basic salt & pepper type of rub and then add seasonings as I feel like it. One day I might do something more cajun (paprika, onion & garlic powder, thyme, etc.) Another day I might go more in an Italian direction and make and Italian beef, with oregano and garlic, and then dipping the slices into a jus before serving. That sort of thing. It’s pretty straightforward and tastes great.
It’s not difficult at all to do, but it helps if you have a good slicer to get even, thin slices.
Maybe you should ask David Letterman.
If you notice in the pic that it’s the same color all the way through, so its slow roasted at low temp. I don’t know the industrial process.
If I roast at 350 15-20min per lb I get a ring of med around it.
Temp around 140 at center.
*The Roast’s or so called Roasts in the store these days are about 2-3 lb’s. Big as a couple steaks. At the prices now a 5lb Real Roast is way too expensive for me anymore.
Yeah, I recommended 300, but you can go down to 225-250 if you want. When I smoke/barbecue it, it’s usually at around 250. Cooks Illustrated/ATK says that very slow low heating like this, other than cooking the meat very evenly throughout, also helps tenderize the meat through some sort of enzymatic process. I believe they refer to it as a similar process as dry aging.
My favorite way to cook a cut like that is sous vide–probably around 132 for 6 hours or more.