Meat & Cheese Combo Proves Edible

2008 Oct 02
Comments 44
Published In New York
« Prev
Next »

Armed with empty stomachs and discerning taste buds, we descended upon New York City determined to find a cheesesteak of quality. I’m happy to say, we succeeded.

Heading into this, I had a suspicion that the day might be anticlimactic, full of half-rate wannabe restaurants that wouldn’t know a cheesesteak from a Manwich. We were threatened by rain and potential steak overdose, but we persevered. Just shy of 100 miles away from the land of cheesesteaks, we found NYC to harbor some superior offerings that could capably sustain the most diehard Philly meathead.

To rate our findings, we all carried scorecards so that we could declare a winner at the end. The rating system was simple, 1-4 stars—ranging from “Blech!” to “Yo, Philly!”—for the attributes of each restaurant: Ambiance, Roll, Meat, Cheese, Taste, and a grade for Overall appeal.

The Good

From the moment we stepped into Wogie’s we knew it felt right: old skool Eagles and Phillies jerseys, photos of Philly hotspots, high-back wood booths, and the Stones playing in the background. They made a very tasty sandwich, and the $3 Yuengling didn’t hurt. Later, a double header of 99 Miles to Philly and Carl’s, made for strong contenders. 99 Miles to Philly’s cheesesteaks were greasy, in the best way possible. Extra points for also selling Tastykakes, a Philly staple. Carl’s surly staff couldn’t detract from a very good offering: finely chopped meat with cheese fully melted and blended into a roll with just the right amount of soft-to-crisp ratio. Up on the West Side we hit Shorty’s, a slightly more upscale joint with a very friendly staff, for good but somewhat uneven sandwiches that skimped a bit on cheese and were overpowered by the inclusion of caramelized onions. Exceptional rolls though.

The Bad

Ahh, I wish I could say they were all good. BB Sandwich Bar, a cramped little walkup touting the “The Best Cheesesteak”, failed on a number of levels: kaiser roll instead of long roll, rubbery cheese, and the use of their own special sauce. A little later was the Cheesesteak Factory, a rather dingy spot that turned out to be the lowest point of the day, with most of us unable to finish our portions due to their craptastic flavor. My cheesesteak inconceivably tasted like chicken noodle soup. Last stop of the day was Philly Slim’s, a small storefront with a salty staff. Authentic Philly attitude for sure, but with very average offering of undercut rolls that yielded small portions of meat and cheese.

Envelope, Please

The bar was set high very early on and, despite some very strong opposition from 99 Miles and Carl’s, Wogie’s managed to win the day. Wogie’s presented a multi-facted package, from thoroughly delicious sandwiches to authentic Philly flavor. It’s clear that these guys get it, and they treat you right.

All three of our top scorers rank on par with some of the best cheesesteaks I’ve had in Philly and I can confidently recommend any of them for a good time. With the exception of Shorty’s, I’d suggest steering clear of the rest. If you find yourself in NY with no way to get to Philly and need a good cheesesteak, there are delicious options indeed.

There are many photos to commemorate the day in the NYC Cheesesteak Crawl Flickr group. Lastly, a round of applause for the brave folks who put their stomachs on the line to achieve this great feat (not everyone gave me their full name): Stewart Becker, Jessae Brown, Jason Campbell, Ian Corey, Justin Dickinson, Jonathan Gala, Boyce Griffith, Rosalee Laws, Shawn Morrison, Garrett Murray, Niff Nicholls, Laura Palese, T.J. Schuck, Amy Sly, Matt Sutter, Tyler Thompson, and Adam.

Scoring Results Out of a possible 4

BB Sandwich Bar

Ambiance 1.63 (1.63 out of 4)
Roll 2.19 (2.19 out of 4)
Meat 1.94 (1.94 out of 4)
Cheese 1.94 (1.94 out of 4)
Taste 1.94 (1.94 out of 4)
Overall 2.00 (2.00 out of 4)

Tasting Comments:

Kaiser roll buck the tried and true formula, “wet sauce” left us dry, and cheese was like a car tire. Plus a long ass wait. Has anyone from here ever even been to Philly?

Wogie’s Bar & Grill

Ambiance 3.56 (3.56 out of 4)
Roll 3.11 (3.11 out of 4)
Meat 3.00 (3.00 out of 4)
Cheese 3.11 (3.11 out of 4)
Taste 3.44 (3.44 out of 4)
Overall 3.44 (3.44 out of 4)

Tasting Comments:

Killer decor, cheap drinks, and pleasant staff. Oh yeah, a damn good cheesesteak cooked to perfection. Absolutely delicious. Repeat visits suggested.

Cheesesteak Factory

Ambiance 1.39 (1.39 out of 4)
Roll 1.72 (1.72 out of 4)
Meat 1.33 (1.33 out of 4)
Cheese 1.22 (1.22 out of 4)
Taste 1.28 (1.28 out of 4)
Overall 1.28 (1.28 out of 4)

Tasting Comments:

Dubbed “McCheesesteak” by the group. Dirty interiors, and shockingly bad cheesesteaks. Most of us were unable to take more than a bite or two. The staff was very pleasant though.

99 Miles to Philly

Ambiance 2.94 (2.94 out of 4)
Roll 2.78 (2.78 out of 4)
Meat 2.94 (2.94 out of 4)
Cheese 3.11 (3.11 out of 4)
Taste 3.28 (3.28 out of 4)
Overall 3.28 (3.28 out of 4)

Tasting Comments:

Represents Philly in good form, complete with wall flare and Tastykakes. Greasy, but in that oh-so-good comfort food way. Whiz done right.

Carl’s Steaks

Ambiance 2.38 (2.38 out of 4)
Roll 2.63 (2.63 out of 4)
Meat 3.06 (3.06 out of 4)
Cheese 3.19 (3.19 out of 4)
Taste 3.38 (3.38 out of 4)
Overall 3.19 (3.19 out of 4)

Tasting Comments:

This place is straight out of South Philly, complete with ornery staff. Perfectly prepared with all flavors in balance. These guys are cheesesteak machines.

Shorty’s

Ambiance 3.00 (3.00 out of 4)
Roll 3.20 (3.20 out of 4)
Meat 2.67 (2.67 out of 4)
Cheese 2.13 (2.13 out of 4)
Taste 2.93 (2.93 out of 4)
Overall 2.80 (2.80 out of 4)

Tasting Comments:

A slightly fancier cheesesteak: harder roll, caramelized onions and sharp provolone cheese. Points for dressing it up a bit, might not be to everyone’s tastes.

Philly Slim’s

Ambiance 2.27 (2.27 out of 4)
Roll 1.87 (1.87 out of 4)
Meat 2.67 (2.67 out of 4)
Cheese 2.13 (2.13 out of 4)
Taste 2.33 (2.33 out of 4)
Overall 2.40 (2.40 out of 4)

Tasting Comments:

Average if not lackluster offering swayed by an uneven bread to meat and cheese ratio. Cut those rolls all the way! Tastycakes on premises.

Grand Totals

BB 1.94 (1.94 out of 4)
Wogie’s 3.28 (3.28 out of 4)
Cheesesteak Factory 1.37 (1.37 out of 4)
99 Miles 3.06 (3.06 out of 4)
Carl’s 2.97 (2.97 out of 4)
Shorty’s 2.79 (2.79 out of 4)
Philly Slim’s 2.28 (2.28 out of 4)

Graphs made possible by Wilson Miner’s Accessible Data Visualization.

Comments 44
Design Tags Gotham, Green, Photo, Red, White, Yellow
« Prev
Next »

44 Comments

Permalink for this comment Josiah says: October 02, 2008

So Wogie’s then.

I have an extreme affinity for two things in this post; food and stats.

I love how easy I can read through this or just skim, and still come out with usable data.

I know I may be over-thinking it, but so it is.

I love this post. I love everything about it.
Permalink for this comment Adam says: October 02, 2008

Was a great time! Ashame I missed the first one (BB) – I wanted to try a ridiculously incorrect version of a cheesesteak. Ah well, glad we found so many solid options!
Permalink for this comment Andy Harris says: October 02, 2008

Co-incidentally, I had a steak and cheese sub from Subway today. It wasn’t bad, but didn’t look as good as some of these babies.

Also, those graphs look fantastic so I’ll definitely be checking out Accessible Data Visualization.
Permalink for this comment Kyle Weems says: October 02, 2008

I should not have read this post just before lunch. No matter what I eat now, it won’t satisfy.

On the plus side, I’ve got a great list if I’m ever in NYC.
Permalink for this comment sutter says: October 02, 2008

The Crawl has successfully landed a tasty spot to get a cheesesteak yet, ironically, I never want to eat one again.
Permalink for this comment Trevor Davis says: October 02, 2008

Wow, I wish I could have been there. There is nothing like a good cheesesteak.

Just as an FYI, when you click on the link from your RSS feed, you get a page not found.
Permalink for this comment Jason Santa Maria says: October 02, 2008

@ Trevor Davis : Yup, I corrected it a minute after I published, but a few people will likely get the wrong link. Ah well :)
Permalink for this comment Wilson Miner says: October 02, 2008

Nice to see those chart styles came in handy, for such delicious results!
Permalink for this comment Jason Armstrong says: October 02, 2008

Beautiful work as usual and makes me wish I had been present for the feastin’!
Permalink for this comment Steven Southard says: October 02, 2008

I love how your spans are accurate to two decimal places. The extra effort totally shows, Really!
Permalink for this comment Jason Campbell says: October 02, 2008

I am surprised to hear Wogie’s came out on top. Not that I disagree, I just felt there was more affinity for Carl’s sandwich, but Wogie’s was definitely a strong steak to be sure and I give them high marks for ambience, I think it might have been swayed a bit as it was one of the only ones many took the opportunity to enjoy with a beer. ; )

It was such a blast, thanks again for putting it on, and I look forward to the rematch.

J.
Permalink for this comment Kurt Cruse says: October 02, 2008

I’m glad the crawl was such a success and I’m also happy bc someday in the near, or possibly distant, future I’ll finally make my voyage to the city streets. And when I do, I’ll just pull up the ole blog on the cell phone and I’ll be on my way to meaty bliss.
Permalink for this comment Steven Southard says: October 02, 2008

I didn’t bother with a calculator or anything but your math don’t look right on Wogie’s Taste. I know you liked the place but double check your figures.
Permalink for this comment Josh says: October 02, 2008

First of all, who cares about ambiance at a cheesesteak spot?

But more importantly, we need to know a bit about the evaluators’ true cheesesteak preferences to properly put these scores in context. Are we using Pats/Genos as the baseline or a more proper Tony Luke’s/John’s Roast Pork scale?
Permalink for this comment Jason Santa Maria says: October 02, 2008

@ Josh : A good number of people were from Philly or have at least had a a good one from the motherland. Pat’s and Geno’s didn’t even factor into this equation, we were looking for the good stuff. What you see above is the culmination of 18 testers’ opinions. Being from Philly myself, I found the overall results fairly true to how I voted as well (though I voted Carl’s a bit higher).
Permalink for this comment Justin Dickinson says: October 02, 2008

It was a fun day to be sure. The most I’ve ever walked in Manhattan but also the most steak I’ve had in one day so it equals out.

We learned if you roll into a place, 18 deep and looking for cheesesteaks, that the staff treats you quite well. My group was given free beer to sample in addition to our sandwich at Shorty’s and the bartender at Wogies thought we were from Zagat.
Permalink for this comment Rosalee says: October 02, 2008

Yay tasty cakes. I’m working on the cupcake crawl. Will update ya ;)

http://www.gurlnerds.com
Permalink for this comment Jason Campbell says: October 02, 2008

Oh yeah Justin is right about the walking, I did over nine miles including to and from Penn Station, Here’s a map of the walk with the locations of the places on it.

The greatest part of it all is I lost one pound, so if any of you New Yorkers find it up there… just ignore it.

J.
Permalink for this comment drone says: October 02, 2008

I’ve been to most of these, but the best cheesesteak I’ve ever had was from a deli on 3rd avenue between 43rd and 44th streets, west side of the street, closer to 44th than 43rd. Look for the angry Greek guy behind the grill and the long line. Don’t even bother going other than during the lunch rush. One trick he’s got is throwing the peppers and onions into the deep fryer for a few seconds; the flash fry means they stand up to the grease and don’t get soggy.
Permalink for this comment Jason Santa Maria says: October 02, 2008

@ drone : Oh man, I was all set to not eat a cheesesteak for a little while, but that sounds damn good.
Permalink for this comment bbebop says: October 02, 2008

fwiw, you can get an excellent cheesesteak in san jose
Permalink for this comment Alexis says: October 02, 2008

Awesome day indeed. Here in San Francisco my brother and I did Cheese Steak Tuesdays for about 6 months. We tried about a dozen different shops and concluded that Jake’s Steaks http://www.yelp.com/biz/jakes-steaks-san-francisco was the winner (regardless of their odd choice of location being the Marina). Steak with Whiz, Grilled Onions, and Hot Peppers please. Disclaimer being we are not from Philly, we are from CT. Although this would make us pretty good judges for Pizza in SF we felt like the quality of pizza in SF (which is sub par compare to NY and CT) would just make us homesick.
Permalink for this comment Watts says: October 02, 2008

Amato’s in San Jose is actually not that great of a cheesesteak compared to the ones I’ve actually had in Philly, although I’m not a Philadelphia guy, just a visitor. But if you’re going to do “regional sandwiches” you need to have some idea how to actually do ‘em; it’s surprising how many places can’t do a Chicago-style hot dog right, either. And having grown up in Tampa, Florida, don’t get me started on how many places selling Cuban sandwiches clearly have no idea what a Cuban sandwich is.

There are good cheesesteak places around San Francisco Bay, so I’m not at all surprised there’s good ones around NYC (and if I’m ever in New York and have an unaccountable craving, I’ll know where to go).
Permalink for this comment yani says: October 02, 2008

Sounds like a great day was had, even tho the very idea of a cheesesteak still puzzles me.
Permalink for this comment Rev says: October 03, 2008

Give me Carl’s or give me death. You didn’t need to take the crawl, just ask me!
Permalink for this comment Adam Spooner says: October 03, 2008

I hate that I wasn’t able to make it for the Cheesesteak Crawl. Does my Tweet from Saturday count for anything?

That said, it sounds like I’m going to Wogie’s Friday night for dinner. Thanks for doing the research! I haven’t had a delicious cheesesteak since Philly –Jim’s was good, but I really liked Tony Luke’s. Where was your favorite cheesesteak back in Philly?
Permalink for this comment cr3n says: October 03, 2008

Thanks Jason, very nice report! Cons to Wogie’s :)
Permalink for this comment Shane says: October 03, 2008

I love your charts/graphs!

Man I wish I could of been apart of that. Seems as though it was a HUGE success, and an all around fun day.
Permalink for this comment Rob says: October 03, 2008

The two that I’d been to thus far were Carl’s and Philly Slims, and I completely agree with the scores on those two. Headed off to Wogie’s for lunch today due to the cheesesteak craving that mysteriously appeared while reading this post on the train this morning. If it’s in fact better than Carl’s, I might pass out.

Thanks for all the hard work!
Permalink for this comment Patrick says: October 04, 2008

Great review but the math doesn’t make any sense!
Permalink for this comment Lucas Sanders says: October 04, 2008

Jason — those complaining about the math are probably looking at the overall scores given in the individual restaurant breakout graphs, which seem to be a touch wonky and don’t match up with the scores in the “Grand Totals” graph. That last graph looks like it has the correct numbers.

But it’s a great post regardless; I really like the way you’ve presented the information graphically in this layout. Your grid-based design experiments in this blog are really quite outstanding.
Permalink for this comment Jason Santa Maria says: October 04, 2008

@ Patrick and Lucas Sanders : As I describe in the post, “Overall” is a separately ranked item from the scorecards, not an average of the other values. Grand Total is the full average of all values for each restaurant. So, the numbers are correct, I probably just should have chosen a better word than “overall” :)
Permalink for this comment Lilian says: October 05, 2008

Never has a set of charts made me so hungry. Unfortunately since I live in the UK I’m not privy to such delicacies. Guess I’ll just have to starve to death instead…
Permalink for this comment Sean Dyroff says: October 05, 2008

This just makes me wish for a good home Philly cheesesteak, San Diego doesn’t really come close.
Permalink for this comment Jonathan Gala says: October 06, 2008

A great and proud day, and surprisingly manageable, physically. I think the top tier places are all really solid.

I thought this would satisfy me for a while, but I’ve been having crazy cravings since the crawl.

Now we need some SF transplant to put together a comprehensive burrito crawl, and settle the other major regional food complaint/debate.
Permalink for this comment Jason says: October 06, 2008

Dude, first off, really enjoyed this. Secondlye, would be so sick if you did something similar with BBQ joints…although you may have to head south to find some of the best Q!
Permalink for this comment Danny Johnson says: October 07, 2008

I’m going to make a point of visiting Wogies when I come to New York next month!
Permalink for this comment ferdmania says: October 09, 2008

How do you realistically compare one place against another when you’re not ordering the same thing at each place? You can’t evaluate the cheese by comparing the whiz from one place to the sharp provolone at another. That’s just stupid.

They all offer a variety of cheeses, and I know that aside from BB’s, which really serves roast beef not cheesesteaks, they all offer whiz. It’s a shame you didn’t think this through all the way and establish ground rules because you wasted your time, aside from establishing that BB’s and Cheesesteak Factory are terrible, which most people already knew.
Permalink for this comment Jason Santa Maria says: October 09, 2008

@ ferdmania : Wow, you’re so serious and rude about this! :)

I appreciate your concern, but I can assure you I did think this through. It doesn’t make sense to establish a baseline like that because every place is going to have their own style and recipe for making a sandwich. Instead, I opted to establish guidelines for judging based on commonalities. The whole point in judging these in the first place is to find the unique qualities of each sandwich, those are the things that make them shine or fail miserably.

So, most people, myself included, did not know what you know about places like BB and the Cheesesteak Factory, which is why I organized this. If you’re upset about the results or displeased with the way it was conducted, feel free to start your own taste test.
Permalink for this comment Lea says: October 09, 2008

I am so going to steal this idea for my own city. Though I think we will do something besides Philly Cheesesteak.

Meanwhile, I think the graphs are lovely!
Permalink for this comment Zachary says: October 15, 2008

This was a great idea. While I lived in NYC I visited some of these restaurants, but always in a partially “incapacitated” form so was never able to judge the quality. This article will prove quite useful the next time I got back to visit my friends. Thanks!
Permalink for this comment John - photographer UK says: October 17, 2008

I’ve never heard of the cheesesteak before… sounds damn tasty. I’ve noted your ingredients and intend to make my own tomorrow. I’ll let you know how I get on!
Permalink for this comment John says: October 25, 2008

I adore the font in the post header (“Meat & Cheese Combo Proves Edible”). Can anyone tell me what it is?
Permalink for this comment Jason Santa Maria says: October 27, 2008

@ John : The typeface is called Gotham . You can always find out what typefaces I use by looking at the “Design Tags” at the bottom of each post.