Heading to South Jersey for a Steak and Burger

New cheesesteak shops open in the Philadelphia region with such frequency nowadays that it’s virtually impossible for me to keep up with all of them. One that slipped my notice until a friend invited me to meet him there for lunch last week was The Raging Bull in Pennsauken, New Jersey, which is only a few minutes by car from central Philadelphia and the Ben Franklin Bridge. 

They actually specialize in both steaks and smashed burgers. If you’re reading this, you likely know about my fondness for the former. But I also posted last year about my love for the latter since discovering that style of burger during my travels through the Midwest over the past 10-15 years.  As I detailed in that post, it’s a style of burger that has become increasingly popular in the Philly region – and probably nationally – over the past few years. That’s a welcome change from the predominance of thick, pub-style burgers not that long ago.

As I mentioned at the end of last week’s post, I intended to see if my friend, Hank, would be open to a sharing arrangement so that we could try both a cheesesteak and a burger. He read that and quickly agreed when I mentioned it as we approached the counter to order.

As you can see, there are no tables, but we were content to grab a couple stools at their wrap-around counter. It only took a few minutes for our cheesesteak and burgers to arrive. 

My first visual impression was that the steak appeared to be proportioned the way I like it in terms of the meat, cheese and roll, while the classic cheeseburgers were topped with as big of a stack of raw onions as I’ve ever seen on a burger. 

Although I always have onions on a burger, I’ve discovered over the years that there is such a thing as too many onions. I’ll get back to whether that was the case on this occasion after addressing the cheesesteak. 

The steak came on the same Liscio’s Bakery seeded roll that I’ve addressed in so many previous posts. It’s a quality roll but a bit softer and less crusty than I prefer. At The Raging Bull, they toast it very lightly – just enough to give the crust a bit of the body that it’s naturally lacking. Although I generally prefer untoasted cheesesteak rolls, it worked well with this particular sandwich. 

And as alluded to above, the meat and cheese were very nicely proportioned. There seemed to be somewhere in my preferred range of 10-12 ounces of well-seasoned chopped ribeye, and the Cooper Sharp cheese – which was also nicely judged – and fried onions were perfectly blended with it throughout. 

Raging Bull’s website features a prominently placed note indicating that they cook everything with beef tallow. I’m not sure how much that impacted the steak’s overall flavor, but while I wouldn’t quite put the taste up there with those in my top tier, it was good enough to receive consideration the next time I update my top 20 cheesesteaks list. 

Moving on to the burger, I’m pleased to report that appearances notwithstanding, there were not too many onions on it, at least for my taste. 

In the first place, the onions were sliced extremely thin and loosely piled on top of the patty, so there weren’t actually as many as it initially appeared. On top of that, they use ground chuck from the increasingly popular Schweid and Sons meat purveyors, and its flavor was strong and good enough to stand up to that pile of onions in addition to the Cooper Sharp, pickles and mustard that come on Raging Bull’s ‘The Classic’ burger. 

I also appreciated that they cater to those, like me, who think white Cooper Sharp looks better on cheesesteaks, while yellow has the right look for hamburgers. 

It was tough to get a decent photo of the patty because of all the toppings. But it didn’t appear to be smashed as flat or as well-crusted as the best smashed burgers that I’ve had. Yet there is no denying the excellent flavor of the meat. 

It was an excellent lunch. My thanks to Hank for clueing me in on The Raging Bull.

There are other smashed burger outlets that have opened in Philly and the surrounding area over the past couple years and I hope to get to those eventually. But if things go according to plan, my next few posts will feature pizza and cheesesteaks.