Tony Luke's in Philadelphia, PA

While in Philadelphia, I decided I had to eat what is perhaps the city's most well known food: The Philadelphia Cheesesteak. I googled cheesesteaks in the city and a restaurant called Tony Luke's came up on the upper portions of the lists of the best cheesesteaks in the city. The restaurant wasn't too far from where I was, so it was the lucky cheesesteak winner.

Tony Luke's was located in an industrial area. You ordered your food at a window and dined in their outdoor seating. There was a very varied crowd here, ranging from very obvious tourists like me, lots of airport workers, and construction workers.

While I was waiting for my sandwich, I headed over to their pepper bar and sampled a couple of these hot pickled peppers.

For my sandwich, I had a Philly Cheesesteak Hoagie. This consisted of steak, provolone cheese, lettuce, tomato, and mayo. I wasn't really sure if I'd be able to tell the difference between a cheesesteak in Philadelphia compared to the sandwiches in Florida. Turns out the biggest difference I noticed was in the steak itself. Rather than the really finely sliced beef that I've had elsewhere, the steak from Tony Luke's was a bit thicker. I would estimate the slices were about double the thickness of standard cheesesteak meat. It also had a meatier flavor, so perhaps less seasoning/processing was used to prepare the steak. 

Overall, this was a tasty sandwich. I can also now say that I've eaten a Philly cheesesteak in Philadelphia. That makes me a self-proclaimed expert on this type of sandwich, right?

Tailgaters Smokehouse at UCF

I ate at Tailgaters Smokehouse in the shopping area surrounding the UCF Arena in Orlando. Tailgators is a sports bar, and the as my meal progressed, the restaurant fit perfectly into the stereotype of sports bars having bad food. But it wasn't just the food, service was bad here too.

I ordered a Chicken Cheesesteak sandwich, served with tater tots. After a very long wait with a very inattentive waitress, our food was finally served. The sandwich was a bit smaller than I was expecting and was very bland. Couldn't taste any seasoning whatsoever on the chicken and the bread reminded me a bit too much of a hot dog roll than what cheesesteaks are normally served on. I did like the tater tots though.

While the sandwich wasn't all that, definitely not worth the $12 it cost me total for the meal, it was edible and I finished the food. I really shouldn't have finished though because the food left some sort of coating on the inside of my mouth that I could not get rid off. It was a slimy feeling and tasted sort of bitter. Drinking water would not remove it. Eating something else didn't get rid of the coating, and brushing my teeth (multiple times) didn't help either. Whatever this was, it was very unpleasant and I can't say I've experienced a bad taste in my mouth that was so persistent elsewhere. Interestingly enough, I kept this to myself until a few hours later when a friend brought up the bad taste in her mouth from her grilled chicken sandwich...

Moral of the story: Avoid the chicken from Tailgaters.

Phat Philly

I ate a Chicken Teriyaki Cheesesteak sandwich from a place called Phat Philly in the UCF Student Union food court. The sandwich consisted of chicken, teriyaki sauce, onions, cheese, lettuce, and mayonnaise, all on a huge roll. The bread definitely could have used some improvements. Mushy white bread doesn't really go with teriyaki sauce, but otherwise the sandwich was tasty.