A Taco in the City of Sandwiches

The Philly Taco was a stunt–or “challenge” as they described it”–dreamed up by two college-age friends in Philadelphia in 2003. The idea was, you buy a cheesesteak from Jim’s Steaks on South Street in Philadelphia, a classic old-school cheesesteak joint in a happening part of town, and you wrap it in an oversized slice of cheese pizza from Lorenzo & Sons Pizza just a block away. They dubbed this feat of insatiable intrepitude the Lorenzo’s/Jim’s Challenge. “Alcohol is not required” to eat the thing according to co-creator Jeff Barg, “but it’s not discouraged either.”

In the stroke of brilliance that made the Philly Taco the legend it is today, Jeff Barg then wrote the stunt up in a local alt-weekly newspaper as if it were a thing people actually did instead of something he and his friend Adam Gordon had just made up on a lark. Like the city of Orqwith writing itself into reality in Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol run, or the conspiracy of a resurgent Knights Templar order in Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum, this compelling idea was not content with a merely fictional existence. Before long, the Lorenzo’s-Jim’s challenge–thankfully redubbed to the friendlier Philly Taco, though I quite enjoy the alliterative alternative name South Street Sushi as well–actually became a thing people did. Art imitates life, they say, and often life returns the favor.

I could make myself a cheesesteak. I’ve done it before. I could make a pizza as well–I bake a pretty mean pie. But would it be right? Would my homemade cheesesteak on a homemade slice actually capture the experience–as silly and excessive as the experience may be–of the Philly Taco? Can you truly have South Street Sushi without being on South Street?

There was only one thing to do.

I had never been to Philadelphia before, a place our friend Titus calls Sandwich City, USA and puts up against Porto, Portugal as one of the two best sandwich cities in the world. Clearly it was an overdue trip. As a bonus, my good friend Aaron, formerly of Chicago and now living just outside Philadelphia, pointed out that on a particular weekend in late November, the “Three Chambers” tour featuring Ghostface Killah, Raekwon, and GZA from Wu-Tang Clan would be playing in town. Thus commenced another challenge–could I, in a single weekend, get to the high-priority places I wanted to try, including a crack at the Philly Taco, catch GZA on Sunday night, and still make my 6am flight back to Chicago?

Not even remotely, as it turned out.

Saturday

I arrived in Philadelphia late on Friday night, late enough to be Saturday morning already, so late in fact that the nightlife of South Street near the hotel where I was saying seemed to have already died down. Nightlife was the last thing on my mind at that point, but I awoke on Saturday morning ready to set out and start checking boxes.

For breakfast, I chose to bypass any number of nearby places–I was a block away from Philadelphia’s “Famous” 4th Street Deli, a couple of promising looking halal markets with sandwich counters, and not much farther from George’s Sandwich Shop, with the logo and motto shared by the PBS documentary that helped push me down the sandwich path back in the early 2000s.

Instead, I hopped on an Indego–Philadelphia’s bike share, big, clunky, unathletic machines very similar to the Divvy bikes in Chicago–and rode a few miles north to Philadelphia’s Fishtown neighborhood to try the local hot dog variant at Johnny’s Hots.

I like to try the local hot dog variants whenever I visit someplace new to me. Not every American city has an iconic and eponymous spin on the sausage inna bun but there’s usually something worth checking out at least. Before I’d even left for Philadelphia, Google had warned me that Philadelphia’s local hot dog was “one of the most interesting ones you’ll find. It features the brotherly love of an all-beef hot dog with a fish cake inside the bun as well.” This intel comes from a site called hot-dog.org so it must be true, right? And it does seem that hot dogs and fish cakes go together at a few remaining stands in Philly. Johnny’s though, named the best place to get a dog in Philadelphia just last year, seems to be the standard-bearer.

It was 10:20am when I ordered, and the lady at the counter tried to steer me toward a breakfast sandwich, but when I seemed intent on ordering sausages she let me know that the proper way to get a “hot dog/fishcake combo,” as this was called on the menu, was with mustard, “pepper relish” which was a sort of vinegary slaw, and onions.

The hot dog came on a piece of bread that quieted for a time any questions I might have previously had about the exalted status of Philadelphia sandwiches. This was more than a hot dog bun; more than a brat bun. It was like one of the best sandwich rolls you’ve had in your life, not too crusty, not too chewy, but not too soft to hold in all that fish cake and pepper relish mess. More bread that you need for a hot dog? Maybe. It’s a matter of opinion. I often say that a great sandwich starts not with great bread but with the right bread. For most hot dogs, a nondescript bun is just right. This hot dog though comes in a great bread roll and it is absolutely the right call.

The hot dog itself is a little buried under all those toppings–the fishcake, smashed into the bun exposing its soft starchy insides but still boasting those crisp fried edges; the vinegary brightness of the pepper relish; the pungent mustard and onion. Sliced in half, apparently casing-free, the sausage is not the star of this show.

The same is not true of the “Famous” hot sausage boasted of on the Johnny’s sign. Served in the same spectacular bread roll, it too is a casingless forcemeat type sausage, thicker than the hot dog and, as promised by the name, spicier. The helpful counter person suggested mustard, onions, and relish on this one, and it was a good combination, the slight sweetness and acidity of the relish a counterpoint to the bite of the onion, the mustard, the spicy but soft-textured sausage.

On a return visit I’d opt to go for this again over the hot dog, but both were a good start to the day, and some welcome calories after the brisk ride to Fishtown. I walked along Delaware Avenue most of the way back, enjoying the view of Philadelphia’s Benjamin Franklin Bridge.

As the sun rose to the highest point it would reach on this sunny late fall day, I made my way back to Queen’s Village, the fun, quirky neighborhood along whose South Street today’s Philly Taco adventure would unfold.

Aaron and his wife Megan would be meeting up with me on South Street and making their own attempt at the Philly Taco. As I waited for their rideshare to arrive, I scouted the area a bit. Jim’s seemed to be a regular stop on some kind of cheesesteak trail–I saw multiple groups in matching “Cheesesteak tour” t-shirts cycle through the line while I wandered South Street burning off the morning’s sausages, waiting for hunger to return. The familiar smell of cooking onions floods the street, pumped into the atmosphere via two large vents on the front of Jim’s building. I’d just eaten not too long before, but it wouldn’t take long to get hungry again with that smell in the air.

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Lorenzo’s, a block away, did not exude a similar magnetic aroma, nor were lines of folks wearing matching pizza T-shirts lining up to try their slices. They were doing steady business though, and looked like the kind of place that would see its sales pick up as the per-capita blood alcohol content rose throughout the afternoon and evening.

Which brings us back to the alcohol question: to pregame or not to pregame? Maybe I was losing my nerve. The slices coming out of Lorenzo’s were massive, just ridiculous, and the cheesesteaks coming out of Jim’s, while not unmanageable by any means, looked like the kind of thing where I’d eat half and save the other half for later. I’m not the Man vs. Food guy nor any kind of a competitive eater. I’m just a fat schmuck who likes sandwiches.

So I met Aaron and Megan across the street from Jim’s at a bar called Milkboy. Just to take the edge off a bit.

The beer-and-a-shot formulation, a classic of American dive bars, is ensconced in Philadelphia lore as an order called the “Citywide.” At just about any bar in town, order a Citywide and what you’ll get is a shot of something cheap and an American macrobrew to wash it down with. Milkboy has some one-off irregular specials and while I don’t remember what they called this particular combination of High Life and Fernet Branca, I do know that after a couple of them, I was hugging anybody within reach and suddenly ravenous.

Let’s eat a big-ass taco!

The slice from Lorenzo’s comes in its own pizza box, though you can get it on a simple paper plate instead. This box is big enough to hold an entire normal sized pizza, the kind of thing you might share between 2 or 3 people ordinarily. Yet it is not quite big enough to contain the slice, the tip of which is folded over when the box is closed. And the cheesesteak?

The cheesesteak is just about the perfect size to lie across the wide end of the slice. Surely this is a sign that the cheesesteak should be rolled up in the pizza, like a burrito or a flauta rather than a taco?

Sadly, this is wrong, as demonstrated below by a couple Youtubers and by The Pizza Show on VICE. Per Jeff Barg, the lengthwise wrap was a deliberate choice, and part of the challenge: “Lengthwise is definitely better: With each bite, you get more pizza than the previous bite. As a result, it actually gets more challenging as you go.” In my somewhat hazy state though, the pigs-in-a-blanket wrap made more sense, and I take some comfort in the fact that there are far more people doing it the wrong way, as I did, than the more taco-like lengthwise orientation.

I didn’t know any of this at the time though. The sandwich and the slice seemed to vibe perpendicularly and that is how I rolled.

Jim’s slings a great cheesesteak–I got American cheese, with fried onions, and it all just works–the steak is juicy, the onions sweet and still a little crisp, the cheese salty and gooey, the bread terrific. Lorenzo’s doesn’t put out a bad pizza either, surprisingly–the crust nicely browned, some decent leopard-spotting on the bottom, a simple sauce and a layer of cheese that is generous but not overwhelming. I’d eat either one of these again in a heartbeat.

There’s really no reason to have them together though. The pizza doesn’t add anything to the cheesesteak or vice versa (though I wouldn’t mind trying a slice of Lorenzo’s with Jim’s steak and onions baked onto it.) It’s a stunt, a food challenge, and worse, one that doesn’t get you a free T-shirt or put your name and photo on a wall anywhere. Nobody’s going to sing your praises for downing this thing; nobody’s going to refund the $15 or so you spent buying this food. This is entirely a bragging rights situation, and like I said, I’m not a competitive eater. My relationship with food is, ideally, one of enjoyment and appreciation, not mechanical mastication.

I got through about 1/3 of it. Aaron and Megan finished maybe a bit more of the Philly taco they were splitting.

Then we got back to the drinking. We popped in to a nearby sports bar called the Woolly Mammoth for beers, shots of Tullamore Dew, and an order of “Philly Special” tater tots.

Tots are not unheard of on Chicago menus–there have always been bars that specialized in them, and they seem to be more popular lately. Philly seems to be crazy for tots though–every place we stopped had tots on the menu, and usually multiple kinds of topped tots. Woolly Mammoth alone had Buffalo Tots, Super “Tatchos,” Crabby Tots, Chili Tots, and Pizza Tots in addition to the steak, onion, and Cheez Whiz topped Philly Special pictured above. It was tasty, and I helped pick at it, but after taking a chunk out of that Philly Taco I wasn’t sure that I was ready for more food.

So we continued on to cocktails at Banh Mi and Bottles, whose sandwiches looked great but I still could not think about food. We had PBRs and cheap whiskey at Tattooed Mom; liters of Doppelbock at Brauhaus Schmitz (a mistake; I probably didn’t need a liter of anything at that point, much less something like a doppelbock); Old Fashioneds at Bridget Foy’s. At some point Megan left Aaron and I to pursue other plans for the evening. Some of Aaron’s local friends joined at various points of the evening, stayed for a drink or 5, and moved on. We ended the night at Lucky’s Last Chance, a burger joint in Queen’s Village that Aaron was eager to have me try. I still could not think about food, though I picked at the Main Street Tots my companions ordered, a similar offering to the Crabby Tots at Woolly Mammoth–crisply-fried tater tots with Old Bay seasoning and a cheddar sauce.

Many plans were made for the day following and we parted ways, Aaron and friends into various ride shares, I to drunkenly stagger the mile or so back to my hotel. The hour was late, but the day was great.

Sunday

The day was not great. The day was stupid and awful and I probably deserved to die, or so my body tried to convince me Sunday morning. You know how in the holiday special “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” the Grinch’s heart grew three sizes in one day?

Yeah, I’m pretty sure Saturday night was just like that for me, only it was my liver.

We’d made plans, I knew that. I didn’t quite remember all of them–petting dogs was involved, and a burger? I still didn’t want food though. I drank all the bottled water in that hotel room, and most of the coffee, and went back and forth between the bed and the bathroom for a while, and eventually I felt… not quite human, not really, but ready to go outside and face the sunlight, such as it was–luckily for me it was an overcast day.

So I called Aaron, and he picked me up, and we drove out to his house, getting a (terrible) breakfast sandwich at Wawa’s first–I’m sorry, Wawa defenders, this thing had been under a heat lamp so long it was half-fossilized–that I was able to at least partially eat. I met his dogs, and pet them, as we’d planned. We walked around downtown Narberth, Pennsylvania, .5 square miles of pure suburb right near the western border of Philadelphia. Then we somehow ended up back at Lucky’s Last Chance–this time the Manayunk location, during the closing hours of the Philadelphia marathon, whose course reached its northwesternmost point 2 blocks away before U-turning back down Manayunk’s Main Street and heading back towards the center of the city.

Lucky’s is a bar / burger joint, one of the kind whose philosophy seems to be that the toppings make the burger. I don’t completely agree with that–I’m pretty happy with a simple griddled burger and ketchup/pickle/onion/mustard–but I’ve also had many a delicious burger that featured a wild array of toppings. Lucky’s offerings included a burger with the aspirational title of “Incomparable” Bacon Cheddar Burger. Ordered by Megan’s son who was kind enough to let it pose for me, the burger featured raw onions and barbecue sauce, two big patties covered in melted cheddar, bacon, onion straws, and sriracha aioli on a bun that again, was far better than the standard burger bun. Philadelphia does take their bread seriously.

Aaron and Megan both were very keen that I should try a particular burger at Lucky’s, the PB & Bacon burger, served with peanut butter and bacon and a side of strawberry preserves for dipping. I was still iffy on the entire concept of food. But I was intrigued by the idea, and Lucky’s offered a “Junior” version with a single patty that I thought I could just about handle, so I was game.

Less picturesque than the Incomparable one above, this burger was simplicity itself. Burger patty. Cheese. Bacon. And peanut butter. The peanut butter… it got everywhere. In my beard, between my fingers, down my wrist. It was a sloppy burger to eat. But there is of course something to be said for the combination of peanut butter, jam, and bacon, as discussed here previously. Adding a cheeseburger into this harmonious mix did not upset it to any great extent.

Megan also ordered the junior sized peanut butter & bacon burger but Aaron went for the Voodoo dog, a hot dog topped with American cheese, shredded Cajun chicken, onion strings, and a secret sauce that I imagine bore a resemblance to the kind of spicy mayonnaise/ketchup mixes that are often served with fried onion strings in bars.

Lucky’s Last Chance’s brunch menu was still in effect, a lucky chance for us to try probably the best rendition of topped tots I had that weekend, the sausage gravy tots. Well-fried tots, house-made gravy, good sausage… I’d eat this any time of day.

With lunch out of the way, hours yet before the Three Chambers concert started, and only one fixed point, one must-visit stop left on my itinerary for the weekend, I started to feel a little better. Oh, still hungover, yes, still groggy, still tired, less apt to crack a joke or even smile when someone else did. But I felt confident that I’d at least be able to hit my targets. So we killed some time, walked the parks and historic sites in Old Philadelphia–Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, the statues, the rose garden. We got some coffee at a place called Philadelphia Java Company.

Then, about 2 hours before the concert was to start, we drove to my final must-see, cannot-miss, absolutely vital destination of the weekend, John’s Roast Pork, which of course is not open on Sundays, is never open on Sundays, was not open on this particular Sunday, and, as a simple 10 second Google search could have told me, was not going to be a place I could visit on a Sunday and expect to get a sandwich of any kind.

But you know what? That hangover was nearly gone by now, and that coffee had brightened up my outlook a bit, and about a mile away there was a place called Charlie’s Roast Pork that looked promising.

Charlie’s Roast Pork consists of an order window at one end, a bottle shop at the other, and a dining space complete with TVs (tuned to the football broadcasts as this was a Sunday) inbetween. The glass overhead doors on either side of the dining area tell me that in an earlier existence it may have been a Jiffy Lube. I ordered 2 sandwiches to split with Aaron, a cheesesteak–wiz wit, despite Aaron’s preference for provolone (dammit this is my sandwich adventure) and a roast pork with broccoli rabe and sharp provolone.

I am not a connoisseur of cheesesteaks, not really. I have a pretty good idea what makes a good one good and a bad one bad but I haven’t done much in the way of head-to-head comparisons to fine-tune those senses, really drill into the science and art of the cheesesteak. The lighting in Charlie’s dining area was not great, so I was not able to capture this cheesesteak as competently as I’d have liked, those poorly-framed but mouthwatering photos so common to this website. I want you to believe me though when I say this–that Charlie’s cheesesteak was pretty good. Pretty damn good. The onions were cut large, fried well but a little livelier than those at Jim’s. The Cheez Whiz inundated the meat but did not drown it–more of a medium than a distinct cheesy presence. There are probably better cheesesteaks out there. But this one punched my ticket on this particular night.

The roast pork was also good, bitter but tender broccoli rabe playing off the sharp aged provolone takes center stage when ordering this sandwich topped this way but the roast pork was tender, sliced medium-thick but falling apart regardless, its juices soaking into but not overwhelming the good, sturdy bread. Though I may have missed out by not getting to John’s Roast Pork, it was a happy accident that brought me to Charlie’s and I’m glad we went.

Doors at the concert venue were soon to open though. I bought one more of each sandwich, to refrigerate overnight and bring home with me on my early flight the next day. We dropped the sandwiches and my cameras off at my hotel, since it was my firm intention to experience this concert jumping up and down like an idiot, not through a lens like a documentarian. We found a lucky parking spot less than a block from the venue, and were set upon by a fella hustling merch before we even got the doors open. $20 T-Shirt? Why wouldn’t I want a $20 T-Shirt? Why wouldn’t Aaron? 2, please!

Suitably attired, we walked unafraid into the 36th Chamber (otherwise known as Franklin Music Hall) prepared to have our minds blown.

GZA (aka the Genius) was who I mainly wanted to see, and to my surprise, was the first on stage, after a lengthy delay getting started and then a combination sound check / DJ set / history of hip-hop by Technician the DJ that got every ass in the house moving. GZA stalked the stage, fiery but contemplative, spinning philosophy in a set that heavily featured songs from his classic album Liquid Swords. It was a great set, but the energy in the room changed when Ghostface Killah stepped on stage to join GZA performing 4th Chamber. As good as his music is, as tight as his flows are, GZA is still the professor on stage, his set’s most manic moments more street preacher than carnival barker.

Ghostface, though… Ghostface brings the party. And when GZA stepped offstage and Raekwon came on, the crowd’s hype increased even more. I kept up with it for a while, that bouncing, shimmying mass of humanity. But I had a redeye to catch, and before long I said my goodbyes to Aaron, caught a rideshare back to the hotel, drank some more water, double-checked that 3am alarm, and tried to sleep off the adrenaline. I made my flight, yes. But Philadelphia and I have unfinished business. I have sandwiches to eat and if I spent a week there I don’t know that I could get to them all. Philly, I will be back.

As for the Philly Taco, I absolutely recommend that you try it if you are interested and you happen to happen to be in the area. I’d bring along a team though. You don’t want it to be the only thing you can eat that day.