Cheesesteak in South Philly

While exploring southeast Pennsylvania earlier this week, my daughter Cheryl and I ended up in Philadelphia. After a visit to the Liberty Bell and other downtown sights, Cheryl said she wanted to follow up on determining the best Philly cheesesteak sandwich. She had seen an challenge, probably on the Cooking Channel, about dueling sandwich stands, Geno’s and Pat's King of Steaks in south Philly. So we headed out walking from downtown – past South Street and through the Italian markets to cheesesteak central – Genio’s on one side of 9th Street and Pat’s on the other.

Not knowing which to choose we assessed the situation and determined that the line was longest at Pat's. So it was off to Pat’s where we ordered up a steak with wiz, mushrooms, and peppers (Cheryl said that wiz was the only authentic way to go). You order and pay for your sandwich at one window and then proceed down to the next one for drinks, fries and such. It was around 1:00PM on a Tuesday afternoon and not an empty table in sight … so we waited and snagged one as some folks were finishing up. It was an awesome and delightful artery clogging sandwich, I must admit.

When we finished, we walked across the street to Genio’s – and wouldn't you know it, we decided we would never know which was the best unless we tried both…so we ordered another…identical to the one we had just consumed.

It didn’t take our jury of two long to decide the verdict – hands down it is Pat’s King of Steaks!