Many of you already know that there are a lot of restaurants in the Philadelphia area that serve both cheesesteaks and pizza and that I do my best to try each when going to such a place. But there were only two eateries that made both my top ten list for cheesesteaks and top five for pizza eaten on the steak trail last year.* One was Angelo’s Pizzeria in South Philly, which I’ve raved to the sky about following each of my visits there. The other was Lillo’s Tomato Pies of Hainesport, New Jersey, which I returned to for an early lunch Friday.
Lillo’s has a Trenton theme. The owners are from there and they celebrate that fact on t-shirts and their walls, not to mention with their Trenton-style tomato pies. In addition to their regional take on pizza, the steaks they serve are unquestionably among the most popular in the entire area based on the amount of buzz and love they generate on social media. As was the case for my first visit last year, I brought my friend Jim along with the intent of sharing both a steak and a tomato pie and ordered one of each upon arriving.
While waiting for our food, I checked out the pizzas that were on display for sale by the slice and helped myself to birch beer from Lillo’s invitingly unorthodox soda fountain. When is the last time you saw RC on one of those instead of Coke or Pepsi?
The cheesesteak came out first and it was a beauty to behold. Lillo’s steaks come on fairly soft seeded Liscio’s rolls that are similar to the one I had at Lucatelli’s a few days earlier. They also generally come lightly toasted and brushed with a bit of garlic spread. Jim and I tasted the garlic, but it didn’t seem like the rolls were toasted. If they were, it was very lightly. And I had no complaint about that, as almost all of the steaks I eat come on untoasted rolls. That’s how I prefer them.
Lillo’s is one of the always growing number of steak outlets that use a pound of chopped beef and a healthy amount of Cooper Sharp cheese. While I often find those two attributes to be off-putting, especially when combined, that’s not the case there.
Although there was cheese oozing out of one end, for the most part, it was beautifully blended in with the meat and didn’t overwhelm it flavor-wise. The well-seasoned beef, Cooper Sharp, fried onions and the garlic spread combined for a wonderful overall taste that reminded me of why I had this steak in my top ten last year.
Our plain tomato pie came out while we were still eating the steak. That was a good thing, as it needed time to cool off before we could dig in. Check out the steam rising off the pizza in these photos.
As you can see, Trenton-style tomato pie features sauce swirled on top of the Mozzarella cheese. The crust isn’t as well-done or hard as you’ll find in Connecticut or Brooklyn, but it’s not soft either and manages to be extremely sturdy.
The sauce was bursting with flavor, including a touch of sweetness that I loved. Once again, it was easy to see why I ranked this pizza last year. I’d eat a whole lot of it if I lived nearby.
Unfortunately, it’s a bit of a hike for me to get there. But I’ll continue to make Lillo’s cheesesteak and tomato pie at least an annual treat. They’re both too good for me to neglect any longer than that.
*Joey’s Pizza of Thorndale, PA, just missed accomplishing that feat. Their pizza made the top five – in fact, it topped that list. But the cheesesteak had to settle for an honorable mention.
BZ Maestro Eats 
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