I'm Will Fulton, and this is thrilled Us Exploders part Ready, I don't would have said about what you're doing. Oh yeah, I'm just chopping the steak on the grill right now and mixing the onions in as I go. Dave better Off, born and raised in South Philadelphia, is cooking me a cheese steak in the back of his restaurant and weirdly reminding me of my grandmother. My favorite time to eat a cheese steak is at two o'clock in the morning, after I left the bar. No, not because of that. The smell of Dave's grilla is bringing me back to my grandma's tiny Western Pennsylvanian kitchen. She did not make cheese steaks, but she was irish, and I think she onions and beef and just about everything she cooked. The pile of thinly cut steak and mounds of crackling onions, it just made me feel all warm and fuzzing inside. You probably know smell and taste in nostalgia they go hand in hand, kind of like cheese steaks in Philadelphia. Like, if you don't have a good cheese steak, she probably couldn't have it on your menu and Philly, whereas in other parts of the country, if you have a cheese steak that's just okay. Maybe they wouldn't know the difference. Anyway. Federofs has a handwritten sign with the hours on the door. It is a countertop to lean on, but currently no stools. Good Fellis is playing on an infinite loop on a TV in the corner. I'm funny. How I mean funny like I'm a clown? I am usu. It is a quintessential Philly cheese steak outpost, and a lot of people, myself included, I think it almost definitely has the best cheese steak in the city, and we're the only place in the city that uses the same cheese that they do in Philly. Oh sorry, just to clarify. By best in the city, I mean New York City where I live. Dave's shop, which he co owns with his wife Stella, is in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. But if you didn't know any better, you could be convinced you were standing on Passchunk Avenue in downtown Philadelphia. And we wanted to recreate a Philly sandwich experience, not only in the quality of the food, but in the atmosphere, and we do got a lot of customers from Philly coming in and they love it. They always say it tastes like home. If you type Philly into your search bar, Google will auto phil cheese steak as a symbol of the city. It's right up there with the Robert Indiana love sculpture or Rocky Balboa. You can find Philadelphia cheese steaks with that exact name on menus all over the world. But if you ask any given Philadelphian, they'll almost definitely agree that no other city actually makes a good cheese steaks. The whole reason we opened the shot was because we couldn't find a good Philly sandwich here. Federofs might be the exception here. So I can't really speak to the quality of a non Philadelphia cheese stick because I just know better than to put myself through that. Living down in Florida and there's so many places that sell cheese steaks, and the first time I'm looking at I'm from the original. I'm from the city that makes the best cheese steaks in the world, where people come from all over. Have you ever had a good cheese steak outside of Philadelphia? No? Never, never. They just can't do it. They can't do it, they can't be done. And the only thing Philadelphians love more than the superiority of their steaks is arguing about who specifically does it the best. Growing up, we always went to Johns Roaspork for cheese steaks. Ari Miller is a really amazing chef. It's frizzled beef this, you know thin really beautiful local grassad beef, a delicious cheese sauce, new with local cheese, local onions on a beautiful local role. You have the Larry Larry is another good spot. You will love dear cheese steak as well. That was a play the Core used to go to you. When I visit a new city, I always try to sample their mega iconic food staples, at least once. It's a tourist attraction I can actually stomach. I mean, hot Chicken in Nashville, Breakfast Tacos in Austin, Rocky Mountain, Oysters in Denver, yum. So, when we decided to do an episode about Philly, I really wanted to focus on the cheese steak. Why it's a source of city pride, how it became a Philly staple, and maybe most importantly, what is the best cheese steak in the city. But like Dave's kitchen took me back to my grandma's house, that last question, This quest for the best took me back to my day's writing articles that thrilled us, where I'd have to work on pieces sussing out the best thrilled cheese sandwiches in the United States, or ranking the entire tackle Bell menu, or finding the MLB park with the best in sessions. It's Seattle, by the way. Basically, at this job, we need to spend a lot of time and brain space thinking about what best means when it comes to seem ly simplistic food. And that's like, actually a pretty tricky proposition. I'm dog sitting and there's a dog that is sleeping and snoring and occasionally farting behind me. So if for room tone purposes it becomes an issue, please let me know. No, farting dogs are usually okay on our end. Hey, I'm Helen Hollyman. I am the editor in chief here at thrill List. I think, ultimately when we talk about the best with publications like I think it's a really broad way to try to organize attention to say, hey, here's this specific area. We went through all this collection of mass and we've curated this for you through a specific lens. So is it problematic? I mean, ultimately, it's like there's stuff that I read and I hear something's the best, and I'm like, that Hamburger joint is terrible? What are they talking about? But that's the beauty and food. Everything is subjective. But I think where food gets really fun is food is about telling the story of a community. So when we talk about you know, Philly Cheese steaks or California burritos or Berria tacos, you know, ultimately locals are going to have a really strong opinion about that food because they've grown up eating that and it is part of what tells the story of their lives through memory. So when you get people from other parts of the world coming in or visitors, et cetera, who are tasting this stuff, they might have different criteria. This is a question that is almost as complex as what is the meaning of life? But I mean, the one thing I will say about what is the best? I think the most quotable way to put it is from the dude from the big Lebowski. Yeah, well, you know that's just like your opinion. Man. Yeah, I feel like I gave you really like bomb rip answers cool. We add like Bob effects, like when you're yeah, hold on with So, do you have any specific advice if I actually went to Philly and tried to find the best cheese steak, Yeah, have fun. If it were me, I would make sure to just don't wear any white T shirts. That's my advice. Yeah, I wouldn't anyway, It's it's after Labor Day. I'm fashion conscious. I actually did end up wearing a white shirt, which was a mistake. Anyway, if I was going to do this the right way, I have to not only find the best cheese steak in Philadelphia, but also grapple with what best even means and really take a look at how I, as a writer can justify calling something the best in a public platform. In the first place, I knew that my only next logical step was to rent a car and go to Philly myself, with the curated list narrowed down to a handful of highlights, to do a taste test and also meet some of the people behind the city's most latted cheese sticks. But obviously I couldn't venture into this mine field of beef and processed cheese without someone who knows the cheese stick on a deeper plane, a cheese steak. A storian if you will, so in your mind, Philadelphia icons ranked Nick Foles, cheese steaks and the Liberty Bell. How would you put those in order? Oh wow, that's a toughie. I mean, not for the Liberty Bell, but between falls and the cheese sticks. This falls. This is pretty much God. We'd like him to come back. In case you don't know, Nick Foles is the backup quarterback who helped the Eagles win the Super Bowl. And the person speaking is Caroline Wyman, author of the Great Philly Cheese Steak Book and uh a number of books about supermarket you know, grocery products, things like cheese whiz and jello and you know kind of low brow, wonderful, low brow foods. She is my cheese steak whisperer. You just you sort of you eat it like like a wood chipper, sort of, you just shove it into your mouth. The story of the cheese stakes invention basically, you know, it was during the depression in the thirties, and there were a lot of immigrants in the Italian market. This guy named Pat Oliverry, he was tying immigrants, and he had a hot dog cart. One day he was just sick of eating his own product for lunch every day. He went down to a nearby butcher got him to like some meat thin enough so he could cook it on his hotdog grill. Took it back to his usual spot at ninth and Wharton in South Philly, and um started eating the sandwich. A cab driver came by asked him for a bite of this, you know, whatever he had and uh you said, man, this is a lot better than the hot dog. You should start selling this, And so he did. And the Pat you're referencing is from Pat's right, like the Pats cheese steak. That's right, Pat steaks. He had a cart and it became a stand. They built a stand on the same spot, and now his great nephew runs the stand. All right. So Pats is on the corner of Ninth Street and Passion, as is the much more gaudy but equally famous Genos, their infamous rival. These are easily the two most well known cheesesteak purveyors in the city, but they are very rarely touted by locals as the best in the city. And Caroline agrees with this notion. She has an encyclopedic compendium of cheesesteak knowledge and a ton of opinions. I pray that you will not put catch upon it, and you will not need to put catch when you not want to poot catch up on. I'm seeing now is more of more people ordering it with provolone or sharp provolone, and again I feel like, personally, that's too strong. To me, that's not really a cheesteak. The most common misconception about a cheesesteak among newcomers or tourists is that the cheese that comes automatically with bell peppers, and it's not necessary to me on a really good cheestay. With Caroline's help, I erased years of second rate pizza shop cheesesteak experiences and tried to rewire my brain to understand what a filly cheese stick should actually taste like. You know, jarby is a very flavorful meat, but sometimes it could be a little greasy, a little fatty, and that gives it a lot of its labor. So the other component of the cheese steak is a little bit of drip. You want a little bit of drip, and some of that is from the fat, but some of that also is probably from the cheese, so that it shouldn't be dry. Let's put it that way. And basically the ideal is the cheese ease should be noticeable but not overwhelming. The onions should be cooked but not to the point of being like catchup. The meat should have the chew of steak without being you know, grishly or fatty, too fatty. And all those ingredients together, to me should be balanced. I mean, you shouldn't need a cheese steak and say, you know, great meat or wonderful cheese are great bread. You should just say this is a wonderful cheese steak. This should they should all come together, those flavors, this kind of beefy cheesy onion e flavor. So here are my parameters. The cheesteaks I try need to be in Philly proper. We're not gonna pull a George Washington and sneak across the Delaware River. So no Donkey's Place, which is an Anthony Bourdain favorite, or any other of the Garden States. Cheese steak offerings. So in Philly, we're gonna pick four races that represent different varieties of cheese steaks, and I'm gonna ask for their most basic, standard cheese steak order. You know how they would do it. Then use my own intuition and Caroline's advice to judge. It is not going to be easy. I will almost certainly get indigestion. But we're starting with the legendary Delessandro's, the classic North Philly shop opened since the early sixties. Because this place is to me, it's sort of the atmosphere is sort of cross between a school cafeteria and a soup kitchen. I loved that. I love that little space. We're gonna take a quick break. But when we come back, Delessandro's brisket, cheese steak and a sandwich so good people have literally been buried with it. So I do kind of think Philly, you know, gets a bad, bad rep. It's just overlooked, which I think is Philly as a whole, overlooked as a food city as it anything city. Jillian Wilson is a service editor for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Her job revolves around finding what the quote unquote best means when it comes to things to do, drink and eat around the city. It's a resource for locals, particularly to make their lives in Filly better. And yes, that also includes cheese steaks. The Inquirer has a list of best cheese steaks, which Jelene helped write. That's one of the most popular pieces of all time and also one of their most contentious. Yes, cheese steak opinions are strong. Yeah, I think that whenever we publish any sort of cheese steakless and this has been any job I've had, the pushback is, I would say, sometimes stronger than we get for political things. The fallout is bad. Yeah, it's just like people are, you know, so offended you didn't include their favorite spot, and it's like, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. That goes for a lot of Philly classic foods, like cheese steaks, and that's because I think they're so integrals in the culture here. And she works with writers and editors to try to hone in on their own version of the best to make it appealing to the masses. But you know, you can't please everyone. We put a vegan cheese steak in a list or vegetarian. Ho get a list, and we get an email list, so I'm not trying to eat leaves and I'm like, oh, okay, don't go there, Can'll let you over? Oh yeah, I mean sorry, sorry, well diet it. So she was the perfect co pilot in my cheese steak journey, and it was also nice enough to trust in my driving ability even though we've never met before. Yeah, we're podcasting here, jesus. Yeah, don't they know? The Lossandro's is on a very loud corner in North Philly, and right now, in the early afternoon on a weekday, there's already a giant line outside. All right, honey, what can I get a read? Can I just have like your classic cheese steak like whatever you're like, Baseline she's doing Friday? Yes, is that what you recommend? Definitely? And American cheese are what would you get? I do? American is not wi classically South Philadelphia is ours is not, so you obviously know what American cheese is. But it's probably time we addressed the big, violently orange South Philly elephant in the room. We're going to play a quick game of what the hell is cheese whiz? Really? This Philadelphia based writer and cheesemonger Alexandra Jones. Overall, I would say cheese was it's a process cheese food. They can't legally call it cheese. That's like a f d A definition. It does not meet the definition of cheese. It also has a multiplying salts and oils and stillers and other you know, flavorings and things like that. Jesus originated in the interwar period, actually because of all this technological innovation in World War One and will gole two around, how can we preserve food of the truth, They've stuck around because they're incredibly cheap, they're shall stable, they're easy to find, and because they've become part of our culture. Some people just love the flavor. It might not be my option that I would choose, and there might be some other issues with its place in our in our greater food system, but it's a legit cheese steak topping. If you ask me, it kind of fits the vibe of a cheese steak, which is this very populous, accessible food stuff. I forget if it was John Kerry or maybe Obama. Some some politicians several years ago made the mistake of ordering Swiss on their Tuesdays. It was John Carry by the way, and our sandwiches are readiness. Thanks Alex, where do we eat this? Thank you? Thanks a lot. Am I allowed to be honest? Yeah, you can totally be honest. It's not not my favorite. I think it's maybe not cheesy enough for me. It's not that cheesy. It's really meaty. Yeah, I love an even balance between my cheese and steak. This is probably the best estake I've ever had, but I'm coming into Philly. This is my first one in the city. I really really really like how thinly cut this meat is. It's not fatty at all in a good way. And I definitely feel like this one is overpowered by the meat, but I I do really like it. So I really loved the old school charm of De Losandro's building. I also loved the piles of onions literally spilling out of the sandwich. They're actually legendary for their onions. According to Caroline, sometimes people come in just to get onion sandwiches like with nothing else. And don't get me wrong, it was very, very good, but it was also pretty dry. You know what this cheese steak doesn't have is that like dripp it's not it's not drippy. It doesn't have that like liquid. Whether it's like fat and like melted cheese, sum up rip might be the cheesews. I could see how and why people love delessandros, but I was pretty eager to stop by our three other spots, and I definitely did not want to ruin my appetite. So we've had classic cheese steaks, so I think now we need to try something a little less classic. There's a spot near my house. Actually it's convenient and very dangerous um called Mike's Barbecue, where they make a brisket cheese steak out of this world. Very interested in that ours is rehydrated with the brisket juice itself, and our cheese whiz is made in house. We use our own Cooper Sharp cheese Whiz. We use the South Philly Cramzy roll and Friday and needs. Oh man, we've already had some too, So like I'm like combating, my my stomach is t leting me know who my heart is killing means kill one hand on the mic. I know the sandwich, and this sandwich was so good I accidentally unplugged my microphone multiple times while I was interviewing chef and owner of Michael Strouss. It's an occupational hazard. Shit, sorry, I'm just like I can't even put together thoughts. Luckily I realized halfway through and asked him politely to repeat everything he just said, including how cheese steak curious and talent view his unorthodox barbecue cheese steak meshup. No, the people that come here and actually eat the cheese steak, they absolutely love it. Even if they say it's not really a traditional cheese steak, they're not mad because it tastes you know, it tastes good. You know. The only time that you'll see that is if there's a list that says these are the top ten cheese steaks in Philadelphia, and then you see Mike's on there. Then people say, hey, that's not a it's a good cheese steak, but it's not a traditional cheese steak, which I get, and that's told is fair. There's like a nothing to be critical about you, only the uncritical about my own ability to not spill all over my white shirts. God, this is so good I can't even take it. Jesus Christ. Sorry, I don't know if you're religious, but he shook his head. No, okay, all right. So I clearly liked what Mikes was putting down, the drip, the sharp but not overpowering cheese, the savory, smoky brisket. This was maybe the best sandwich I've had in years. But for cheese stakes, it is very untraditional, which is a strike against it, I guess in terms of calling something the best, does convention really matter or should I simply be following my literal guts to this offbeat promised land of smoky brisket and Cooper sharp and tell the traditionalists to shove it. But we will deal with that later because next stop is very traditional. And now we're going to go down to South Philly to John's Roast Pork, where John Chee will welcome us and greet us. He's one of the nicest people have ever met. So cool. Yeah, you'll you'll love. When we pull up to John's Rose Park, in an industrial area right by the river, we make a bee line to the small trailer office behind the very small restaurant, and here we are greeted by two barking Dockson's and Mr John Bucci. Hello, Hi. John's great grandfather opened the place. In the nineteen thirties as a literal shack by the harbor. And as soon as we walked in the door, John started taking out sepiatone photos out of an old envelope and spreading them all over his increasingly cluttered desk. Yeah, I wanted to show you those pictures. Actually, it's just around cover these pictures. What are these right here? The old players and my mom and dad. That's my mom. This is the place gutted. That's the old place. You know. It's well, I mean, this is my dad. Yeah, it's in mid eighties. It's a picture of him, I, me and my dad, my mom. This is a customer at the girl at the counter, and my dad's screwing with the coffee urn. This is crazy. As we were looking over the photos, and mind you, this was like thirty seconds after I met this guy, he started hearing up a bit. And I really don't blame him. It's just so special. Like I really think, like I'm not on the belittling other places. I'm sure other places, but this place is a very unique. I mean the history that we have here and that my mom is still my boss. She's eighty eight, but like she still does the time cards, you know, like I'm I'm the best grill guy in sandwich maker. I am not a businessman, like I'm the worst businessman, because like I just want people to be happy. He is so not preoccupied with the business of food. He didn't even know about the James Beard Awards until he won one. So I get a call lunchtime and the woman says high on from the James Beer Foundation, and I thought it was like a scam, Like they sell plaques and they give you an award and then they sell. It's really the plaque company giving you a stupid award that means nothing. It's truly a blue collar stick shop. It closes early and every ingredient is cooked to order. The classic here is whiz wit, which means with cheese, whiz and with onions. This is the type of spot where people come from all over the world to visit and then decades later bring their kids. Like my dad would get excited if someone came from Jersey, you know, like we went from like you know, being excited from Jersey to having somebody from Czechoslovakia. Like it was, you know, like we had people from China all over the place and it's such an honor. It's such an honor, like don't come right here from the airport, the Liberty bell, like all these other things that are like the computer. First, the cheese steak it's self, which Jillian and I devoured inside John's office, was simple, it was balanced, It had a sesameseed bun and a drip that would not quit. It's almost exactly what Caroline described as the perfect cheese steak, and it has been called the best before in a very public forum. These four four high school kids, they come on a Friday and it was their senior project to find the best cheese steak. So they contact Craig Laban to get some advice from him and say, hey, you know, can you help us out add some validity to it. Craig Laban is one of the most respected food critics in Philly. He works for The Inquirer with Jillian and in the early two thousand's, a group of local high schoolers and listed him to help out with their senior project, which was obviously finding the best cheese steak in Philly. Sounds familiar, right, He wrote the cheese steak ranking article with the kids and it totally blew up John's became a worldwide cheese steak destination. Oh and also actually one of those high school kids. I think I told you he's my Dennis. Now he doesn't charge me, I'm like, dude, you gotta charge with you have his card. I'd love to call him. I would have his so I obviously called this guy. My name is Andy Store and back in the high school, me and three and my buddies decided that he wanted to find the best seestack and great te sticks for our senior projects. After the article came out, we were known as the cheesesteak guys. Like we were almost famous. You know. I remember rushing at the currenty in college and oh stake guy. You know, it was a big deal at this time. Andy and his crew tried almost every cheesesteak in the city over the last few weeks of high school. They thought a long time about this with professional help, and they came to a familiar conclusion. I think beth is a sandwich that you eat and you can't stop thinking about it whenever you eat at cheesteak, do it you It's hard to have a bad sef steak. I think the way the meat dis flavor to every bite, doesn't matter what bite you have. It's just delico. It's like the rat meat that it's cooked on a grill. You can get American seeds with anywhere and you just put it on a butt and it's so it's so easy to make. But for some reason here it's just it's different. They've cooked back at it and we're proud of it. They say when you die, you can't take anything with you, but that might not necessarily be true. I had a guy knocked on the window and he says, h I got this sandwich. He says, my dad passed away and we're burying this weekend. And he always said he wanted to be buried with one of your sandwiches. And he says, I got this, and I'm freezing it and I'm gonna grant him his wish, and so I'm giving this that if you don't, it's like when I went through the lake, they had like I gave him t shirts and hats. And on that note, we'll take a break, but when we come back, one last stop and our final conclusion stick around. Ye. I kind of like doing this in the car. It's easy. It's like, um, the car pool karaokes. I think, yeah, you don't want to hear me sing. That wouldn't be great. You know what. The thing with that car poll karaoke that I found out is they're not really driving. Oh, they're on a trailer. So I feel like for someone like James Cordon to have to like dodge cars left and right as he's trying to host, which I guess is what you're doing. Okay, Well, now that the sun is setting, I think it's probably time to head to South Street. You know a lot of bars, a lot of good times, and Jim's Steaks, which has a great cheese steak and they sell beer, so we should probably I was gonna ask about that, perfect yeah, love, we should probably end with a beer and a cheese steak, although I'm not sure how my body can handle beer and a cheese steak, but we're gonna try. We'll try, we'll try. So our final stop is Jim's, very close to Pats and Gino's. They used top round beef, caramelized onions, and a lifetime supply of cheez whiz. It is a late night staple here for some very obvious reasons. I feel like it's prevented many a hangover over the years. The Philly taco, Tell me about it. It's a cheese steak from here Jim's and a slice of pizza from Lorenzo's on South Street, and you wrap the slice pizza around the cheese steak and you eat it together. Chees Yeah, have you already done it? No? Holy sh it? All right, so far and away, far and away the messiest. Okay, So this to me tastes like the cheese steaks I have had before in my life book better you know what I mean. But it is that the classic flavor. Yet the whizz whip really cheesy, like, the bread is super soft. The meat is good. It's really good. Yeah, it's like the last one we went to write. But I'm still I can bite me too. You're like a little more aware that I am. I might have to stop after this. I think I have a stop. But it's good. I just you know. So. The street lights turned on on South Street as we finished our beers, and I consider De Los Sandro's, Mike's, John's Gym's, I guess every good cheesesteak joint in the city. It's just some guy's name. But anyway, how could I possibly break down these options, each with their own strengths, their own stories. Calling something the best, especially after a couple of beers and the majority of four entire cheese steaks in a few hours, was really hard. I tried to remember what Helen told me, what Andy told me, but specifically I thought of something that Caroline said. Yeah, No, I definitely think that a lot of the flavor of a cheese steak is really about the place that tells it, the people that serve it to you, and and it makes a big difference. I mean, if you're in a business because well you know, you worked there with your grandfather and and you're known all over the city for having great cheese steaks, you've done to think twice about changing to a cheaper ingredient, even if you know it hurts your bottom line. I love that. That's just like, you know, like they say, the cheese steak factory has good food. I think, you know, maybe it does, but but it's a factory, and I don't want that. Yeah, I'm gonna have to ask you to keep the cheesecake factory out of this, please. So for me, I had the most visceral reaction to Mike's Barbecue, which was Jillian's number one pick, by the way, and I think I'd prefer the cheese whiz hedonism of Jim's the most if I happen to be stumbling home from a South Street bar at three am. And I have definitely learned that calling something the best period is inherently fraud obviously subjective, and it's essentially impossible to make a blanket statement that will suit and satisfy everyone. But still, I need to make a choice here. I needed a sandwich that fit Caroline's criteria, was well respected by locals in Philly, and maybe most importantly, made me happy. And John's had that ineffable feeling of being bigger than itself. It had that particularly weird type of nostalgia that makes you almost homesick for something you've never even experienced before. I remember back in Federof's when the smells took me back to being a kid at my grandma's house watching her cook, And there's so much of that ingrained at John's and in John Jr. Himself. It's exactly the type of place you want to go when you're visiting Philadelphia if you want to meet people that really lived there and try to understand why something as simple as a sandwich can mean so much to this city. And despite plenty of that classic trip, it does travel really well too. I'm back in Brooklyn eating the second half of my John's cheese steak right now, the best cheese steak in Philly. But you know that's just like my opinion, man, Okay special thanks to everyone we talked to. Also want to call out Tony Luke's, Phillips and Poganos who have great steaks but didn't make this particular cut. I am so sorry. You guys can yell at me on Twitter. This episode was produced by myself and me a Fast, edited and mixed by the never cheesy Dean White and Abbey Austria. Thanks to my bosses and Podland, Jim Demiko, Megan Kirch, Brett Kushterer and Emily Felt. If I happen to die sooner rather than later, please bury me with the cheese steak from John's and a bottle of Jack Daniel's just in case. All right, that's it, Thank you, Bye,

I'm Will Fulton, and this is thrilled Us Exploders part Ready, I don't would have said about what you're doing. Oh yeah, I'm just chopping the steak on the grill right now and mixing the onions in as I go. Dave better Off, born and raised in South Philadelphia, is cooking me a cheese steak in the back of his restaurant and weirdly reminding me of my grandmother. My favorite time to eat a cheese steak is at two o'clock in the morning, after I left the bar. No, not because of that. The smell of Dave's grilla is bringing me back to my grandma's tiny Western Pennsylvanian kitchen. She did not make cheese steaks, but she was irish, and I think she onions and beef and just about everything she cooked. The pile of thinly cut steak and mounds of crackling onions, it just made me feel all warm and fuzzing inside. You probably know smell and taste in nostalgia they go hand in hand, kind of like cheese steaks in Philadelphia. Like, if you don't have a good cheese steak, she probably couldn't have it on your menu and Philly, whereas in other parts of the country, if you have a cheese steak that's just okay. Maybe they wouldn't know the difference. Anyway. Federofs has a handwritten sign with the hours on the door. It is a countertop to lean on, but currently no stools. Good Fellis is playing on an infinite loop on a TV in the corner. I'm funny. How I mean funny like I'm a clown? I am usu. It is a quintessential Philly cheese steak outpost, and a lot of people, myself included, I think it almost definitely has the best cheese steak in the city, and we're the only place in the city that uses the same cheese that they do in Philly. Oh sorry, just to clarify. By best in the city, I mean New York City where I live. Dave's shop, which he co owns with his wife Stella, is in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. But if you didn't know any better, you could be convinced you were standing on Passchunk Avenue in downtown Philadelphia. And we wanted to recreate a Philly sandwich experience, not only in the quality of the food, but in the atmosphere, and we do got a lot of customers from Philly coming in and they love it. They always say it tastes like home. If you type Philly into your search bar, Google will auto phil cheese steak as a symbol of the city. It's right up there with the Robert Indiana love sculpture or Rocky Balboa. You can find Philadelphia cheese steaks with that exact name on menus all over the world. But if you ask any given Philadelphian, they'll almost definitely agree that no other city actually makes a good cheese steaks. The whole reason we opened the shot was because we couldn't find a good Philly sandwich here. Federofs might be the exception here. So I can't really speak to the quality of a non Philadelphia cheese stick because I just know better than to put myself through that. Living down in Florida and there's so many places that sell cheese steaks, and the first time I'm looking at I'm from the original. I'm from the city that makes the best cheese steaks in the world, where people come from all over. Have you ever had a good cheese steak outside of Philadelphia? No? Never, never. They just can't do it. They can't do it, they can't be done. And the only thing Philadelphians love more than the superiority of their steaks is arguing about who specifically does it the best. Growing up, we always went to Johns Roaspork for cheese steaks. Ari Miller is a really amazing chef. It's frizzled beef this, you know thin really beautiful local grassad beef, a delicious cheese sauce, new with local cheese, local onions on a beautiful local role. You have the Larry Larry is another good spot. You will love dear cheese steak as well. That was a play the Core used to go to you. When I visit a new city, I always try to sample their mega iconic food staples, at least once. It's a tourist attraction I can actually stomach. I mean, hot Chicken in Nashville, Breakfast Tacos in Austin, Rocky Mountain, Oysters in Denver, yum. So, when we decided to do an episode about Philly, I really wanted to focus on the cheese steak. Why it's a source of city pride, how it became a Philly staple, and maybe most importantly, what is the best cheese steak in the city. But like Dave's kitchen took me back to my grandma's house, that last question, This quest for the best took me back to my day's writing articles that thrilled us, where I'd have to work on pieces sussing out the best thrilled cheese sandwiches in the United States, or ranking the entire tackle Bell menu, or finding the MLB park with the best in sessions. It's Seattle, by the way. Basically, at this job, we need to spend a lot of time and brain space thinking about what best means when it comes to seem ly simplistic food. And that's like, actually a pretty tricky proposition. I'm dog sitting and there's a dog that is sleeping and snoring and occasionally farting behind me. So if for room tone purposes it becomes an issue, please let me know. No, farting dogs are usually okay on our end. Hey, I'm Helen Hollyman. I am the editor in chief here at thrill List. I think, ultimately when we talk about the best with publications like I think it's a really broad way to try to organize attention to say, hey, here's this specific area. We went through all this collection of mass and we've curated this for you through a specific lens. So is it problematic? I mean, ultimately, it's like there's stuff that I read and I hear something's the best, and I'm like, that Hamburger joint is terrible? What are they talking about? But that's the beauty and food. Everything is subjective. But I think where food gets really fun is food is about telling the story of a community. So when we talk about you know, Philly Cheese steaks or California burritos or Berria tacos, you know, ultimately locals are going to have a really strong opinion about that food because they've grown up eating that and it is part of what tells the story of their lives through memory. So when you get people from other parts of the world coming in or visitors, et cetera, who are tasting this stuff, they might have different criteria. This is a question that is almost as complex as what is the meaning of life? But I mean, the one thing I will say about what is the best? I think the most quotable way to put it is from the dude from the big Lebowski. Yeah, well, you know that's just like your opinion. Man. Yeah, I feel like I gave you really like bomb rip answers cool. We add like Bob effects, like when you're yeah, hold on with So, do you have any specific advice if I actually went to Philly and tried to find the best cheese steak, Yeah, have fun. If it were me, I would make sure to just don't wear any white T shirts. That's my advice. Yeah, I wouldn't anyway, It's it's after Labor Day. I'm fashion conscious. I actually did end up wearing a white shirt, which was a mistake. Anyway, if I was going to do this the right way, I have to not only find the best cheese steak in Philadelphia, but also grapple with what best even means and really take a look at how I, as a writer can justify calling something the best in a public platform. In the first place, I knew that my only next logical step was to rent a car and go to Philly myself, with the curated list narrowed down to a handful of highlights, to do a taste test and also meet some of the people behind the city's most latted cheese sticks. But obviously I couldn't venture into this mine field of beef and processed cheese without someone who knows the cheese stick on a deeper plane, a cheese steak. A storian if you will, so in your mind, Philadelphia icons ranked Nick Foles, cheese steaks and the Liberty Bell. How would you put those in order? Oh wow, that's a toughie. I mean, not for the Liberty Bell, but between falls and the cheese sticks. This falls. This is pretty much God. We'd like him to come back. In case you don't know, Nick Foles is the backup quarterback who helped the Eagles win the Super Bowl. And the person speaking is Caroline Wyman, author of the Great Philly Cheese Steak Book and uh a number of books about supermarket you know, grocery products, things like cheese whiz and jello and you know kind of low brow, wonderful, low brow foods. She is my cheese steak whisperer. You just you sort of you eat it like like a wood chipper, sort of, you just shove it into your mouth. The story of the cheese stakes invention basically, you know, it was during the depression in the thirties, and there were a lot of immigrants in the Italian market. This guy named Pat Oliverry, he was tying immigrants, and he had a hot dog cart. One day he was just sick of eating his own product for lunch every day. He went down to a nearby butcher got him to like some meat thin enough so he could cook it on his hotdog grill. Took it back to his usual spot at ninth and Wharton in South Philly, and um started eating the sandwich. A cab driver came by asked him for a bite of this, you know, whatever he had and uh you said, man, this is a lot better than the hot dog. You should start selling this, And so he did. And the Pat you're referencing is from Pat's right, like the Pats cheese steak. That's right, Pat steaks. He had a cart and it became a stand. They built a stand on the same spot, and now his great nephew runs the stand. All right. So Pats is on the corner of Ninth Street and Passion, as is the much more gaudy but equally famous Genos, their infamous rival. These are easily the two most well known cheesesteak purveyors in the city, but they are very rarely touted by locals as the best in the city. And Caroline agrees with this notion. She has an encyclopedic compendium of cheesesteak knowledge and a ton of opinions. I pray that you will not put catch upon it, and you will not need to put catch when you not want to poot catch up on. I'm seeing now is more of more people ordering it with provolone or sharp provolone, and again I feel like, personally, that's too strong. To me, that's not really a cheesteak. The most common misconception about a cheesesteak among newcomers or tourists is that the cheese that comes automatically with bell peppers, and it's not necessary to me on a really good cheestay. With Caroline's help, I erased years of second rate pizza shop cheesesteak experiences and tried to rewire my brain to understand what a filly cheese stick should actually taste like. You know, jarby is a very flavorful meat, but sometimes it could be a little greasy, a little fatty, and that gives it a lot of its labor. So the other component of the cheese steak is a little bit of drip. You want a little bit of drip, and some of that is from the fat, but some of that also is probably from the cheese, so that it shouldn't be dry. Let's put it that way. And basically the ideal is the cheese ease should be noticeable but not overwhelming. The onions should be cooked but not to the point of being like catchup. The meat should have the chew of steak without being you know, grishly or fatty, too fatty. And all those ingredients together, to me should be balanced. I mean, you shouldn't need a cheese steak and say, you know, great meat or wonderful cheese are great bread. You should just say this is a wonderful cheese steak. This should they should all come together, those flavors, this kind of beefy cheesy onion e flavor. So here are my parameters. The cheesteaks I try need to be in Philly proper. We're not gonna pull a George Washington and sneak across the Delaware River. So no Donkey's Place, which is an Anthony Bourdain favorite, or any other of the Garden States. Cheese steak offerings. So in Philly, we're gonna pick four races that represent different varieties of cheese steaks, and I'm gonna ask for their most basic, standard cheese steak order. You know how they would do it. Then use my own intuition and Caroline's advice to judge. It is not going to be easy. I will almost certainly get indigestion. But we're starting with the legendary Delessandro's, the classic North Philly shop opened since the early sixties. Because this place is to me, it's sort of the atmosphere is sort of cross between a school cafeteria and a soup kitchen. I loved that. I love that little space. We're gonna take a quick break. But when we come back, Delessandro's brisket, cheese steak and a sandwich so good people have literally been buried with it. So I do kind of think Philly, you know, gets a bad, bad rep. It's just overlooked, which I think is Philly as a whole, overlooked as a food city as it anything city. Jillian Wilson is a service editor for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Her job revolves around finding what the quote unquote best means when it comes to things to do, drink and eat around the city. It's a resource for locals, particularly to make their lives in Filly better. And yes, that also includes cheese steaks. The Inquirer has a list of best cheese steaks, which Jelene helped write. That's one of the most popular pieces of all time and also one of their most contentious. Yes, cheese steak opinions are strong. Yeah, I think that whenever we publish any sort of cheese steakless and this has been any job I've had, the pushback is, I would say, sometimes stronger than we get for political things. The fallout is bad. Yeah, it's just like people are, you know, so offended you didn't include their favorite spot, and it's like, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. That goes for a lot of Philly classic foods, like cheese steaks, and that's because I think they're so integrals in the culture here. And she works with writers and editors to try to hone in on their own version of the best to make it appealing to the masses. But you know, you can't please everyone. We put a vegan cheese steak in a list or vegetarian. Ho get a list, and we get an email list, so I'm not trying to eat leaves and I'm like, oh, okay, don't go there, Can'll let you over? Oh yeah, I mean sorry, sorry, well diet it. So she was the perfect co pilot in my cheese steak journey, and it was also nice enough to trust in my driving ability even though we've never met before. Yeah, we're podcasting here, jesus. Yeah, don't they know? The Lossandro's is on a very loud corner in North Philly, and right now, in the early afternoon on a weekday, there's already a giant line outside. All right, honey, what can I get a read? Can I just have like your classic cheese steak like whatever you're like, Baseline she's doing Friday? Yes, is that what you recommend? Definitely? And American cheese are what would you get? I do? American is not wi classically South Philadelphia is ours is not, so you obviously know what American cheese is. But it's probably time we addressed the big, violently orange South Philly elephant in the room. We're going to play a quick game of what the hell is cheese whiz? Really? This Philadelphia based writer and cheesemonger Alexandra Jones. Overall, I would say cheese was it's a process cheese food. They can't legally call it cheese. That's like a f d A definition. It does not meet the definition of cheese. It also has a multiplying salts and oils and stillers and other you know, flavorings and things like that. Jesus originated in the interwar period, actually because of all this technological innovation in World War One and will gole two around, how can we preserve food of the truth, They've stuck around because they're incredibly cheap, they're shall stable, they're easy to find, and because they've become part of our culture. Some people just love the flavor. It might not be my option that I would choose, and there might be some other issues with its place in our in our greater food system, but it's a legit cheese steak topping. If you ask me, it kind of fits the vibe of a cheese steak, which is this very populous, accessible food stuff. I forget if it was John Kerry or maybe Obama. Some some politicians several years ago made the mistake of ordering Swiss on their Tuesdays. It was John Carry by the way, and our sandwiches are readiness. Thanks Alex, where do we eat this? Thank you? Thanks a lot. Am I allowed to be honest? Yeah, you can totally be honest. It's not not my favorite. I think it's maybe not cheesy enough for me. It's not that cheesy. It's really meaty. Yeah, I love an even balance between my cheese and steak. This is probably the best estake I've ever had, but I'm coming into Philly. This is my first one in the city. I really really really like how thinly cut this meat is. It's not fatty at all in a good way. And I definitely feel like this one is overpowered by the meat, but I I do really like it. So I really loved the old school charm of De Losandro's building. I also loved the piles of onions literally spilling out of the sandwich. They're actually legendary for their onions. According to Caroline, sometimes people come in just to get onion sandwiches like with nothing else. And don't get me wrong, it was very, very good, but it was also pretty dry. You know what this cheese steak doesn't have is that like dripp it's not it's not drippy. It doesn't have that like liquid. Whether it's like fat and like melted cheese, sum up rip might be the cheesews. I could see how and why people love delessandros, but I was pretty eager to stop by our three other spots, and I definitely did not want to ruin my appetite. So we've had classic cheese steaks, so I think now we need to try something a little less classic. There's a spot near my house. Actually it's convenient and very dangerous um called Mike's Barbecue, where they make a brisket cheese steak out of this world. Very interested in that ours is rehydrated with the brisket juice itself, and our cheese whiz is made in house. We use our own Cooper Sharp cheese Whiz. We use the South Philly Cramzy roll and Friday and needs. Oh man, we've already had some too, So like I'm like combating, my my stomach is t leting me know who my heart is killing means kill one hand on the mic. I know the sandwich, and this sandwich was so good I accidentally unplugged my microphone multiple times while I was interviewing chef and owner of Michael Strouss. It's an occupational hazard. Shit, sorry, I'm just like I can't even put together thoughts. Luckily I realized halfway through and asked him politely to repeat everything he just said, including how cheese steak curious and talent view his unorthodox barbecue cheese steak meshup. No, the people that come here and actually eat the cheese steak, they absolutely love it. Even if they say it's not really a traditional cheese steak, they're not mad because it tastes you know, it tastes good. You know. The only time that you'll see that is if there's a list that says these are the top ten cheese steaks in Philadelphia, and then you see Mike's on there. Then people say, hey, that's not a it's a good cheese steak, but it's not a traditional cheese steak, which I get, and that's told is fair. There's like a nothing to be critical about you, only the uncritical about my own ability to not spill all over my white shirts. God, this is so good I can't even take it. Jesus Christ. Sorry, I don't know if you're religious, but he shook his head. No, okay, all right. So I clearly liked what Mikes was putting down, the drip, the sharp but not overpowering cheese, the savory, smoky brisket. This was maybe the best sandwich I've had in years. But for cheese stakes, it is very untraditional, which is a strike against it, I guess in terms of calling something the best, does convention really matter or should I simply be following my literal guts to this offbeat promised land of smoky brisket and Cooper sharp and tell the traditionalists to shove it. But we will deal with that later because next stop is very traditional. And now we're going to go down to South Philly to John's Roast Pork, where John Chee will welcome us and greet us. He's one of the nicest people have ever met. So cool. Yeah, you'll you'll love. When we pull up to John's Rose Park, in an industrial area right by the river, we make a bee line to the small trailer office behind the very small restaurant, and here we are greeted by two barking Dockson's and Mr John Bucci. Hello, Hi. John's great grandfather opened the place. In the nineteen thirties as a literal shack by the harbor. And as soon as we walked in the door, John started taking out sepiatone photos out of an old envelope and spreading them all over his increasingly cluttered desk. Yeah, I wanted to show you those pictures. Actually, it's just around cover these pictures. What are these right here? The old players and my mom and dad. That's my mom. This is the place gutted. That's the old place. You know. It's well, I mean, this is my dad. Yeah, it's in mid eighties. It's a picture of him, I, me and my dad, my mom. This is a customer at the girl at the counter, and my dad's screwing with the coffee urn. This is crazy. As we were looking over the photos, and mind you, this was like thirty seconds after I met this guy, he started hearing up a bit. And I really don't blame him. It's just so special. Like I really think, like I'm not on the belittling other places. I'm sure other places, but this place is a very unique. I mean the history that we have here and that my mom is still my boss. She's eighty eight, but like she still does the time cards, you know, like I'm I'm the best grill guy in sandwich maker. I am not a businessman, like I'm the worst businessman, because like I just want people to be happy. He is so not preoccupied with the business of food. He didn't even know about the James Beard Awards until he won one. So I get a call lunchtime and the woman says high on from the James Beer Foundation, and I thought it was like a scam, Like they sell plaques and they give you an award and then they sell. It's really the plaque company giving you a stupid award that means nothing. It's truly a blue collar stick shop. It closes early and every ingredient is cooked to order. The classic here is whiz wit, which means with cheese, whiz and with onions. This is the type of spot where people come from all over the world to visit and then decades later bring their kids. Like my dad would get excited if someone came from Jersey, you know, like we went from like you know, being excited from Jersey to having somebody from Czechoslovakia. Like it was, you know, like we had people from China all over the place and it's such an honor. It's such an honor, like don't come right here from the airport, the Liberty bell, like all these other things that are like the computer. First, the cheese steak it's self, which Jillian and I devoured inside John's office, was simple, it was balanced, It had a sesameseed bun and a drip that would not quit. It's almost exactly what Caroline described as the perfect cheese steak, and it has been called the best before in a very public forum. These four four high school kids, they come on a Friday and it was their senior project to find the best cheese steak. So they contact Craig Laban to get some advice from him and say, hey, you know, can you help us out add some validity to it. Craig Laban is one of the most respected food critics in Philly. He works for The Inquirer with Jillian and in the early two thousand's, a group of local high schoolers and listed him to help out with their senior project, which was obviously finding the best cheese steak in Philly. Sounds familiar, right, He wrote the cheese steak ranking article with the kids and it totally blew up John's became a worldwide cheese steak destination. Oh and also actually one of those high school kids. I think I told you he's my Dennis. Now he doesn't charge me, I'm like, dude, you gotta charge with you have his card. I'd love to call him. I would have his so I obviously called this guy. My name is Andy Store and back in the high school, me and three and my buddies decided that he wanted to find the best seestack and great te sticks for our senior projects. After the article came out, we were known as the cheesesteak guys. Like we were almost famous. You know. I remember rushing at the currenty in college and oh stake guy. You know, it was a big deal at this time. Andy and his crew tried almost every cheesesteak in the city over the last few weeks of high school. They thought a long time about this with professional help, and they came to a familiar conclusion. I think beth is a sandwich that you eat and you can't stop thinking about it whenever you eat at cheesteak, do it you It's hard to have a bad sef steak. I think the way the meat dis flavor to every bite, doesn't matter what bite you have. It's just delico. It's like the rat meat that it's cooked on a grill. You can get American seeds with anywhere and you just put it on a butt and it's so it's so easy to make. But for some reason here it's just it's different. They've cooked back at it and we're proud of it. They say when you die, you can't take anything with you, but that might not necessarily be true. I had a guy knocked on the window and he says, h I got this sandwich. He says, my dad passed away and we're burying this weekend. And he always said he wanted to be buried with one of your sandwiches. And he says, I got this, and I'm freezing it and I'm gonna grant him his wish, and so I'm giving this that if you don't, it's like when I went through the lake, they had like I gave him t shirts and hats. And on that note, we'll take a break, but when we come back, one last stop and our final conclusion stick around. Ye. I kind of like doing this in the car. It's easy. It's like, um, the car pool karaokes. I think, yeah, you don't want to hear me sing. That wouldn't be great. You know what. The thing with that car poll karaoke that I found out is they're not really driving. Oh, they're on a trailer. So I feel like for someone like James Cordon to have to like dodge cars left and right as he's trying to host, which I guess is what you're doing. Okay, Well, now that the sun is setting, I think it's probably time to head to South Street. You know a lot of bars, a lot of good times, and Jim's Steaks, which has a great cheese steak and they sell beer, so we should probably I was gonna ask about that, perfect yeah, love, we should probably end with a beer and a cheese steak, although I'm not sure how my body can handle beer and a cheese steak, but we're gonna try. We'll try, we'll try. So our final stop is Jim's, very close to Pats and Gino's. They used top round beef, caramelized onions, and a lifetime supply of cheez whiz. It is a late night staple here for some very obvious reasons. I feel like it's prevented many a hangover over the years. The Philly taco, Tell me about it. It's a cheese steak from here Jim's and a slice of pizza from Lorenzo's on South Street, and you wrap the slice pizza around the cheese steak and you eat it together. Chees Yeah, have you already done it? No? Holy sh it? All right, so far and away, far and away the messiest. Okay, So this to me tastes like the cheese steaks I have had before in my life book better you know what I mean. But it is that the classic flavor. Yet the whizz whip really cheesy, like, the bread is super soft. The meat is good. It's really good. Yeah, it's like the last one we went to write. But I'm still I can bite me too. You're like a little more aware that I am. I might have to stop after this. I think I have a stop. But it's good. I just you know. So. The street lights turned on on South Street as we finished our beers, and I consider De Los Sandro's, Mike's, John's Gym's, I guess every good cheesesteak joint in the city. It's just some guy's name. But anyway, how could I possibly break down these options, each with their own strengths, their own stories. Calling something the best, especially after a couple of beers and the majority of four entire cheese steaks in a few hours, was really hard. I tried to remember what Helen told me, what Andy told me, but specifically I thought of something that Caroline said. Yeah, No, I definitely think that a lot of the flavor of a cheese steak is really about the place that tells it, the people that serve it to you, and and it makes a big difference. I mean, if you're in a business because well you know, you worked there with your grandfather and and you're known all over the city for having great cheese steaks, you've done to think twice about changing to a cheaper ingredient, even if you know it hurts your bottom line. I love that. That's just like, you know, like they say, the cheese steak factory has good food. I think, you know, maybe it does, but but it's a factory, and I don't want that. Yeah, I'm gonna have to ask you to keep the cheesecake factory out of this, please. So for me, I had the most visceral reaction to Mike's Barbecue, which was Jillian's number one pick, by the way, and I think I'd prefer the cheese whiz hedonism of Jim's the most if I happen to be stumbling home from a South Street bar at three am. And I have definitely learned that calling something the best period is inherently fraud obviously subjective, and it's essentially impossible to make a blanket statement that will suit and satisfy everyone. But still, I need to make a choice here. I needed a sandwich that fit Caroline's criteria, was well respected by locals in Philly, and maybe most importantly, made me happy. And John's had that ineffable feeling of being bigger than itself. It had that particularly weird type of nostalgia that makes you almost homesick for something you've never even experienced before. I remember back in Federof's when the smells took me back to being a kid at my grandma's house watching her cook, And there's so much of that ingrained at John's and in John Jr. Himself. It's exactly the type of place you want to go when you're visiting Philadelphia if you want to meet people that really lived there and try to understand why something as simple as a sandwich can mean so much to this city. And despite plenty of that classic trip, it does travel really well too. I'm back in Brooklyn eating the second half of my John's cheese steak right now, the best cheese steak in Philly. But you know that's just like my opinion, man, Okay special thanks to everyone we talked to. Also want to call out Tony Luke's, Phillips and Poganos who have great steaks but didn't make this particular cut. I am so sorry. You guys can yell at me on Twitter. This episode was produced by myself and me a Fast, edited and mixed by the never cheesy Dean White and Abbey Austria. Thanks to my bosses and Podland, Jim Demiko, Megan Kirch, Brett Kushterer and Emily Felt. If I happen to die sooner rather than later, please bury me with the cheese steak from John's and a bottle of Jack Daniel's just in case. All right, that's it, Thank you, Bye,