Guinness is best slurped in Ireland; croissants are best noshed in France; hairy crab is best crunched in Shanghai–and Philly cheesesteaks? Outside of the City of Brotherly Love, cheesesteaks are just crappy sammies with substandard and under-seasoned meat, soggy bread and, (to add insult to injury), Cheese Whiz.
It’s just wrong! Would you order a bagel in Paris? Non!
I am married to a Philly-born cheese and meat fanatic for whom the cheesesteak represents the apotheosis of culinary excellence, and in Philadelphia proper, there are only six to eight (depending on his mood, the season and how long it’s been since his last visit) shops in the city itself that are capable of putting out a decent cheesesteak.
Outings to cheesesteak huts are treated with the same reverence, high degree of pomp and intolerance for tomfoolery with which attending Sunday mass was approached in my youth.
Never in my wildest dreams did I think that we would find a cheesesteak joint in New York “bagel ‘n schmear” City that would ever pass muster. Then there was Wogie’s.
Squatting for the past seven years at 39 Greenwich Ave. in New York, the unassuming diner-cum-sports bar has the best damn cheesesteaks outside of the warring corner of 9th Street and E. Passyunk Ave. in South Philly (home of arch cheesesteak rivals Pat’s and Geno’s–a corner memorialized in a huge photo near Wogie’s bar).
It was opened in honor of the owner’s father, a Philadelphian who had a soft spot for Gotham. He does his father, and his hometown, proud.
Unlike the cheesesteaks’ many pallid and greasy imitators, this steak is hard to wrap one’s eager hands around; it fairly oozes cheese (the traditional Whiz, provolone or American–or Mozzerella for clueless New Yorkers); it exudes an excellent, juicy drip that is neither too thick and greasy nor not thick and greasy enough; it plops like a nice, healthy, brown meat tear.
Bud and Yuengling are $3 a pop all day, every day, nnd the jukebox cranks out a charming mix of Interpol, Radiohead, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Rick Derringer and old-school Aerosmith.
“It’s alright,” a group of Philly boys I know said, after polishing off a half a dozen in 15 minutes. High praise indeed.
TOPICS: Eat to the Beat, Kathleen Willcox