Although I gradually ate more freely in the weeks after my spring oral surgery, some favorite food items remained off limits until fairly recently. Cheesesteaks, with their crusty seeded rolls and sometimes chewy meat, were among those.
When it came time to return to eating steaks, I had a huge array of options between revisiting the purveyors on my top 20 list and trying one of the many highly regarded cheesesteaks in the Philly region that I had yet to sample. I opted to go for the latter route with my friends John and Robert. The three of us ventured to The Iron Oven in Southampton, which is in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and is the town in which John and I grew up on the same block.
The Iron Oven opened in 2018 and based on both what I’ve read online and saw for myself during our visit, it’s hugely popular in addition to being just plain huge. I had the strong feeling that it’s the go-to spot for numerous Southamptonites looking to head out for a casual bite and beer. It’s also a great spot for watching sports in one of their large bar areas.
And I was pleased to see that they paid tribute to some of the places from the Southampton of my day on their walls.
The menu featured a long list of appetizers, burgers and mostly hot sandwiches in addition to an array of pizzas and strombolis.
It was a given that we’d get one of their highly touted cheesesteaks to share. One would be enough in light of the fact that The Iron Oven’s steaks come packed with a pound of meat. My regular readers know I’m not fond of such huge steaks, preferring a more balanced and proportionate sandwich instead.
While the photos I had seen of the pizza were enough to erase it from consideration, there was some temptation to try a burger or stromboli. But we instead decided to share orders of cheesesteak egg rolls and the house mozzarella sticks among the three of us. Robert and I would each take a half of the steak.
In spite of the fairly large crowd there that afternoon, our server dropped off our two appetizers after a relatively short wait and I immediately set about taking photos so my companions wouldn’t have to wait too long to dig in.
It might not be possible to tell from the photos, but these were very healthy-sized appetizers. Each cheesesteak egg roll and slice of fried mozzarella was a hefty piece of food.
The increasing prevalence of house-made fried mozzarella – as opposed to the crappy frozen sticks people of my vintage grew up on – has been a positive development of recent years.
What we were served at The Iron Oven was clearly made from scratch and not of the frozen variety. Yet it wasn’t one of the better versions of the dish that I’ve sampled. As previously alluded to, the heftiness of each piece was an issue. I prefer fried mozzarella to be a bit thinner and lighter. There was a lot of chewing to be done with this and I struggled to get through my only piece of it.
The cheesesteak egg rolls looked good at first glance, but when I picked up a piece, I noticed that the meat-to-cheese ratio appeared to be slanted more in the direction of the cheese than I prefer. On top of that, with my first bite, I found that the crust didn’t have the crispiness that I normally associate with a good fried egg roll wrapper.
While I generally enjoy cheesesteak egg rolls, this version missed the mark.
That left the cheesesteak, which arrived looking every bit as enormous as expected and accompanied by French fries.
I snapped a few photos before Robert and I each grabbed our halves. Picking it up and taking a bite without significant spillage was a bit of a struggle, but I managed pretty well.
Although the kitchen staff went a little too heavy with the cheese for both of our appetizers, it was evident at first glance that they did a much better job of proportioning and mixing in the Cooper Sharp on the cheesesteak.
The roll was abundantly soft inside, but it had a pleasant crustiness and a bit of crunch when I bit into it. It also held up well under the weight of all that meat and cheese.
I’ve had the misfortune of eating a number of such monster cheesesteaks with so much Cooper Sharp that it’s all I can taste. That was not the case at The Iron Oven. As mentioned above, the cheese was well proportioned and blended in nicely with the chopped ribeye throughout. And that ribeye was juicy and nicely seasoned. The overall flavor of this cheesesteak was quite good.
But as good as the cheesesteak was, I’m not sure how often I’d visit The Iron Oven if I still lived in Southampton. The massive portions for seemingly everything they serve, which are priced accordingly, are a bit of a turn-off. Having said that, I’m clearly the one who is out of step with the times given the crowds they attract at The Iron Oven and the prevalence of oversized portions at casual restaurants generally nowadays.
BZ Maestro Eats 