America has its share of food favorites that are synonymous with specific cities or regions of the country. When you talk deep-dish pizza, Chicago will inevitably be mentioned by an overwhelming majority of food lovers. The same can be said of good barbecue with its Memphis, Kansas City or Texas favorites.
While there are a handful of diehards that will bring up the town’s pizza offerings, ultimately, it’s the cheesesteak that folks debate, review and argue over in Philadelphia.
In 2018, a poker buddy Jay Gomberg (originally from Philly) and I decided that we’d love to do some research and join the debate. Although neither of us lives in that area, we thought it would be fun to find some of the more popular spots and decide for ourselves. We enlisted the help of another grade school friend from the past, Craig Campbell, to join us. He was enthusiastic and off we set up I-95 in search of Philly’s best cheesesteak.
That first trip, we enjoyed visiting the well-known establishments that people typically throw into the mix when you talk cheesesteaks: Pat’s, Geno’s, Steve’s, Jim’s, John’s, Tony Lukes, Campos and Sonnys. The story of that journey and the eventual evaluation of each stop can be found at Cheesesteak Crawl 2018.
Then, in 2019, we thought we’d go again, searching for another batch of eateries that were a little off the beaten path, still highly debated, but not the biggest names in cheesesteaks. My group grew to seven on that trip and we were not disappointed. Even those in the outlying areas, the neighborhood joints, had their own charm and varying degrees of quality. That second trip (pre-COVID) to eight new places was also documented in Cheesesteak Crawl 2019.
Over these previous journeys, Jay and I settled on four key qualities that would make up the overall grade for any cheesesteak. These, of course, can be up for debate, but our group went with:
– Bread : How fresh, stable, tasty it was. (Did it overshadow or enhance the whole concoction?)
– Meat/Cheese ratio: In relation to the sandwich as a whole, was it worth it? Was it too much, too little?
– Overall taste: Purely subjective, but gave us the biggest range of opinions. Was it seasoned well? Did everything work together nicely? Was it memorable?
– Overall Philly experience: With the cheesesteak roots grounded in that gritty, street-food feel, how closely did our visit make us think of Philadelphia?
Grading on a 1-10 scale again, I asked my companions for their overall averaged grades on seven stops this third time around: DiNic’s, By George, Cleavers, Woodrow’s, Angelo’s, Philip’s and Oregon Steaks. Our planned eighth stop at George’s didn’t happen. They ran out of steak.
However, that was the second disappointment of the day. When we arrived at the Reading Terminal market, we only found out then that Tommy DiNic’s didn’t cook up cheesesteaks. However, upon the recommendation of our new friend Jim Pappas of the famed Philly Cheesesteak Adventure, www.phillycheesteakadventure.com, we went to Molly Malloy’s instead and were not disappointed.
So, our overall consensus ratings for this, our third trip:
Molly Malloy’s (Reading Terminal Market): 7.85 (high score 9, low score 6.75)
Solid first stop, great tasting mix of steak, onions and sharp provolone on a seeded roll. Most of us loved the taste, but wanted just a little more volume of our meat/cheese ratio.
By George (Reading Terminal Market): 7.85 (high score 8.5, low score 7)
Freshly cooked with fried onions and their homemade cheese sauce…much better than the typical “wiz wit” as the cheese just blended so nicely. Solid sandwich with great volume.
Cleaver’s (18th Street, center city): 6 (high score 8, low score 5)
Unlike their website says, we didn’t find a “generous” portion of steak. While the bread was decent, the sandwich was half bread, half filling and needed seasoning. It was typical of a cheesesteak you could find anywhere and other than the center city location, nothing remarkable.
Woodrow’s (South Street): 7.7 (high score 9, low score 6)
This one was very polarizing. Their homemade truffle cheese sauce mixed nicely with the well-seasoned meat. Best roll on the trip, as it truly let the meat/cheese stand out. As unique as it was, not everyone liked the Truffle addition; others loved it. Worth a stop.
Angelo’s (9th Street, south Philly): 7.66 (high score 8.75, low score 6.8)
Probably better known as one of the best pizza stops in town, we heard good things about their steaks. Plenty of meat and melty Cooper Sharp cheese made this a substantive sandwich. Some felt the bread (fresh from a bakery a couple doors down) had a bit too much “pull,” maybe a bit dense, but a good stop.
Philip’s (Passayunk Avenue): 6.5 (high score 8.25, low score 4.5)
One of the recommended neighborhood stops, we looked forward to this. But this had a “quick stop” feel to it, perfect for the Philly experience category, but the steak was chewy when sliced and not chopped. Also seemed kind of small compared to the hefty selections we had earlier.
Oregon Steaks (Oregon Avenue): 7.37 (high score 8, low score 6.5)
This was a decent stop…nicely sliced and tender steak with generous “wiz wit” combination on a soft roll, with just the right amount of pull. Probably underrated on the same street with a better-known competitor, but worth a stop on any tour. A bit more volume would have bumped this score up a bit.
As before, we made a final stop for some Italian water ice on the way out of town to cleanse the palate and cut the grease, if we could. Another good trip, making 24 stops in all so far.
If we were combining all the choices on our three tours, I don’t believe you could make a bad choice from any of our “top-9” selections. You could debate, based on different preferences and rating priorities, but here are favorites (7.5 or higher consensus score) from three years of hard gastronomic work:
Tony Lukes
Dalessandro’s|
Sonny’s
Molly Malloy’s
By George
John’s Roast Pork
Woodrow’s
Angelo’s
Campo’s
Overall, if you decide to do a cheesesteak tour yourself, counting on spending about $9-12 per sandwich and we’d highly recommend you cut them up to share among other friends…just get a nice taste of each, enjoy the experience and come up with your own system!
