Checking Out the Region’s Hottest Cheesesteak

More than ever, there is a steady stream of new restaurants and sandwich shops in the Philly region serving high quality cheesesteaks. The popularity of a more “gourmet” version of the sandwich has spread so that most of these new places use high quality seeded rolls and offer multiple cheese options, including Cooper Sharp. 

Of those that have burst onto the scene in recent months, none has garnered more attention and praise among the denizens of the social media cheesesteak groups than Johnny’s Pizza of Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. One person after another has pegged their steaks as one of the very best in the area. 

My first attempt to check them out – in December – didn’t go well. Perhaps my one fear when going to try a cheesesteak for a blog post is that the grill chef or another employee will see me snapping photos, figure I’m there for a review, and throw extra meat and cheese on my sandwich in an effort to influence me. And that’s exactly what happened during that first visit. 

My regular readers know that I prefer a well-proportioned sandwich to one that is overflowing with meat and cheese. So I wasn’t thrilled with the steak being so heavily stuffed that it was difficult to pick up and eat. But rather than give a negative review, I decided to hold off and give them another try at some point. That happened a couple weeks ago. 

The photos in this post are actually a mix of shots from both of my visits to Johnny’s Pizza. I also ordered a small square pizza during the first visit and will include that along with the more recent cheesesteak. 

Johnny’s probably does a lot more takeout and delivery business than dine-in, but as always when it’s an option, I ate my steak on site in their rear dining room after ordering it at the counter. 

When it arrived, I was very pleased to see that while there was a lot of meat on there, it wasn’t as overstuffed as the previous one. They offer eight and 16 inch options and I went with the small. Given how filling it was, it’s hard for me to imagine ever considering a large. 

The wider-than-average roll was toasted. I normally prefer that fresh rolls be left untoasted, but it worked well on this occasion from a textural standpoint. And the quality of the roll was unmistakable. 

The ribeye was chopped fairly coarsely and seasoned beautifully, while the Cooper Sharp was perfectly proportioned and blended with the meat throughout.

My only issues with it had nothing to do with flavor.

While there was plenty of meat on there, it wasn’t evenly distributed. Rather it was sort of bunched toward the center with one end not having much. But that’s not that hard to rectify with a fork. 

Also, the uncut and extra-wide roll combined with the large amount of meat and cheese made the sandwich slightly awkward to pick up and eat until I had taken enough bites for the size and shape to no longer be issues. 

But those are minor annoyances. This was a great-tasting steak that will likely land in my top ten if I update the top 20 list I put out in November. 

As previously mentioned, I also ordered a pizza during that first visit to Johnny’s in December. Square and rectangular pizzas of various levels of thickness have become the rage in the Philly region – not unlike seeded rolls and Cooper Sharp for cheesesteaks. 

The one from Johnny’s had a fairly thick crust with crushed tomatoes splattered on top of the cheese. 

While the crust had a nice char, as with most of my square pizza experiences, I came away from this one with my preference for a good traditional round pie intact. I’ll have to try a regular slice from Johnny’s at some point to see how it stacks up to my favorites. 

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I also finally got around to making a cheesesteak at home last week after threatening to do it periodically for a fairly long time. 

The process started when I visited a South Philly butcher to pick up some hot sausage a few weeks ago and noticed they had one-pound packages of chipped ribeye. I grabbed one and threw it in my freezer until the opportunity arose to give it a shot.

I also had an onion and Cooper Sharp cheese on hand, so obtaining a high quality roll was the last required step before I could proceed. To take care of that, I headed over to Pagano’s Italian Specialties in Drexel Hill, PA, which I’ve written about in a previous post. They have the best selection of Italian rolls and bread in my suburban area. The other option would have been to drive into South Philly to hit one of the bread bakeries there. 

I picked out a nice two-foot Italian loaf made at Carangi Bakery, which is the roll provider for several well-known steak shops, including John’s Roast Pork. 

The ribeye appeared to be uncut in the package, but when I opened it, I discovered that it was, in fact, pre-cut and probably a little finer than I’d have preferred. 

Once the chopped onions were fried to the desired light brown, I threw the meat into a pot and browned it. When the pink was just about all gone, I threw the slices of Cooper Sharp on top and mixed it in with the meat once it had melted enough. The chopped onions were then added to the equation and it was ready to go.

The finished product was far from perfect. I’d have preferred the meat to be sliced a little thicker and will get freshly sliced ribeye at a butcher if I decide to do this again. It could have used another slice or two of Cooper Sharp to improve the ratio of cheese to meat, but I miscalculated on how much I had left and used all of what was available. And the very moist meat soaked through the bottom of the bread. I’ll probably go into South Philly and get a roll from Sarcone’s Bakery if there is a next time. 

Yet in spite of all that, the flavor was still good overall. I seasoned the meat just about perfectly and the bread was very good, even if it didn’t hold up to the moisture of the meat.

I’m not committing to making another one. But if I do, I will learn from the problems with this one and likely wind up with a better finished product.