The Great Cheese Steak Death March

It started with going to visit my friend, Kevin, where he'd just moved outside of Philadelphia. This would be a chance for my wife to meet his wife and we'd all do something fun for the day. He asked if I had any ideas about stuff to do, and I said that going to "that corner with the warring cheese steak places" might be fun, but other than that I hadn't been to Philly proper since I was 9 and we went to the Franklin Institute. Last year we went to Chestnut Hill, and that was a nice place to walk around and do the shops, but other than that I have very little experience with Philadelphia.

It turned out Kevin had gone to med school in Philly, so knew the city quite well. All it really took was the merest suggestion that I'd be interested in a gastronomic tour and we were off.

The first stop was Reading Market which is pretty much like Quincy Market except with more Amish and less chain food emporiums. We wanted to get some Amish pickled stuff (personally, I'm a fan of Amish Spiced Apples) but we didn't want to walk around all day with a bag full of jars, so we asked when they closed (5pm) and determined to come back and shop before then.

I was eyeing the pierogis, but never got one (potatoes are a sucker's bet when it comes to gastronomic tourism, according to Anthony Bourdain). My wife stopped for a good soft pretzel, then Kevin said we had to try DiNic's as the first stop on our quest for the best sandwich in Philly. We got in line while my friend Rob and my wife went shopping. It took about a half an hour, but Kevin and I scored two pork italiano's with provolone and greens. The greens were a new one to me. They put some broccoli rabe on top, and the bitterness of the greens just sets off the pork and the cheese. The provolone is also an aged, harder variety than you normally get sliced at the supermarket, so it's got a nice tang to it.

My wife with this sandwich:



Ironically, this turned out to be the best sandwich of the day, and it wasn't even a cheese steak.

We then proceeded to walk. And walk. And walk. We went through Kevin's old med school area, and then through what's known at the Italian Market area. We stopped in a cheese place and a spice place, and eventually:



Yes, those fatbirds were on sale for meat. Yum, fatbird!

Though Kevin said it was a 20 minute walk, I believe it took us about an hour to get to cheese steak central. There, we had a choice of Pat's or Geno's. Kevin said Pat's was the first, and that Geno's was the upstart pretender with an additional dash of racism. Apparently some years back, the proprietor of Geno's made ordering in English a requirement for getting a steak sandwich. This really didn't seem like an unreasonable request if your staff only spoke English, but apparently they made a big deal out of "Spanish language speakers, go home!" with stickers and articles in the paper, and such.

Whatever, I'm here for the food. So off to Pat's:



You'll note the line (or maybe you won't, it's a shitty picture). Both places had lines, and only outdoor seating, and it was December 28th and pretty darn cold. This does not dissuade people from eating their cheese steaks.

I made some mistakes at Pat's. First off, they had a condiment counter, and I went for it. They had a red sauce, which I slathered on my steak, and cherry peppers, which I took one of, and even relish. So my Pat's steak was adulterated with all sorts of other things going on. My wife refused to eat my spicy monstrosity, so shared a sandwich with Kevin, while Rob and I both went for the spice.

Also, whoever says that cheese whiz is the only way to have a cheese steak is just plain wrong. Provolone was had on all sandwiches, all day. Shove your cheese whiz up your Kraft ass. Man was making cheese steaks back in ancient Rome with provolone.

The spice went to my head, and I forgot to take a picture of the sandwich here.

At this point I was pretty full, and if anyone had said, "Eh, let's skip Geno's, I don't need that racist cheese steak," I'd have been fine. But Kevin was adamant. To truly have the cheese steak death march, we had to go to Geno's.

So across the street to Geno's we went:



You'll notice that Geno's is definitely flashier than Pat's. Pat's does have signs up everywhere saying, "Don't make a mis-steak! Get the original Philly cheese steak at Pat's." So I guess there's plenty of anti-Geno's feelings at Pat's.

Again we got two sandwiches to share between the four of us. Kevin pontificates on the Geno's sandwich experience:



I could swear that the Geno's steak was only a step above steak-ums in terms of meat, but we all agreed that their bread was better than Pat's.

We started to walk back to Reading Market, but I pointed out (astutely! And with much laziness in my heart.) that if we walked, continuing the death march with extra pounds of meat, bread, and cheese in us, that we wouldn't make it back in time to buy Amish products. So we took a cab.

Back in Reading Market Kevin pointed out this Amish place that served apple cobblers. So we each got one of those and they bring out a pitcher of heavy cream to pour over it, resulting in this:



Oh my god, that was awesome. I got spiced apple rings, and then we all went home and fell into a meat coma.

So we all agreed that the best cheese steak in Philly is a pork sandwich from DiNic's.