#71 - Jim's Steak and #72 - Lorenzo's pizza - Sandy's synopsis

What do you get when you wrap a Jim's cheesesteak with a Lorenzo's Pizza? A Jimenzo's cheesesteakzza you ask? No my dear friend, who is new to Philly, what you get is called a Philly Taco. Yes. A cheesesteak + a pizza = a taco. Oh America, always striving to be multi-cultural. 

For those of who have not heard of Lorenzo's, they are a pizza joint that sells delicious cheese pizza slices that are bigger than your face. They're really the only size of slice that could possible wrap a cheesesteak,

Here is what the monstrosity looks like:

I'm sorry I didn't have a banana for scale. Maybe I can use my face instead:

I hope that helps. It was huge but I've been known to be able to pack away a significant amount of food. I once ate a whole burrito from Cantina Los Caballitos and those burritos are the size of one's face. Granted there was $50 on the line, but still. It counts. 

However, today was not one of those days. I could barely eat half of the Philly Taco before I gave up. As far as what I thought of it - loved the pizza and didn't care much for the cheesesteak. Which is what I think of them separately, so combining them did not make them any better.  

I've attempted the Philly Taco twice in my life, I have failed twice in my life and therefore do not think I will attempt it again. Thank you to everyone who came out that day to try it out with Sam and I. We hope you had a great food coma afterward.

Jim's Steaks

400 South Street

Lorenzo and Son Pizza

305 South Street

Philadelphia PA 19147

#71 and 72 the Philly Taco - Sam's synopsis

Ah gluttony. One of the better sins in my opinion, and if you're stuck in Dante's Inferno lying around in icy smelly slush, well, that's a lot better than being submerged in a river of boiling blood and fire or being turned into a thorny bush and feasted upon by Harpies or being buried in a giant pile of poop. But back to gluttony, what better time than the holidays - when Thanksgiving leftovers are still rotting in your fridge as you attend holiday party after holiday party with even more food - to post our review for the Philly Taco?

the ingredients... pretty intense on
their own

For those of you unaware, the Philly Taco is a legend of sorts. For all my Rochester friends, it's the garbage plate of Philadelphia (spoiler alert: the garbage plate is better. But we already knew that). You take a cheesesteak from Jim's (better than Pat's or Geno's IMO) and wrap it in a slice of pizza from Lorenzo's. There's some nice information on it here, with a link to the original article describing the challenge. Again, for you non-Philly folks, this area of South Street is a pretty prime spot for late-night post-drinking food indulgence. A single slice of cheese pizza from Lorenzo's is larger than the size of my head. And I don't think I need to to explain the significance of cheesesteaks. But in any case, people love weird food challenges, so this has become a thing. It's even inspired a beer which we sadly did not drink. So of course we had to do it.

The first obvious condition of this challenge is that you must not be sober. Unless you regularly eat like this, do not be sober. Do not get drunk on beer unless you have an enormous appetite and a lot of room in your stomach. Get drunk real fast on straight up liquor and then go for it, because this is not for the light-hearted. The second condition is you should probably do it with friends. You'll need the motivation. 

With this in mind, we planned for a Friday evening so as not to ruin our whole weekend and we decided to start drinking on the earlier side so we could be functional the next morning. Man, we are boring adults these days. And to be honest, I think for the truly authentic experience, the Philly Taco needs to be done more on a whim. Sure, you can plan to go out that night and do it, but don't let it be at the forefront of your mind. Just let the night of drinking happen and see where it takes you. You probably shouldn't do it before midnight anyways, but like I said, we're a snoozefest these days so what can you do. 

I proceeded to drink two gin and tonics and get a nice buzz going. There were 5 of us enjoying the evening, with 4 attempting the challenge. So we divided and conquered, and since it was only about 9:30 pm both teams acquired the goods and returned back to the apartment within 10 minutes. Now, I stopped eating red meat a long time ago (I never really liked the taste and I am cursed by my genetics with high cholesterol despite leading a relatively healthy lifestyle, all things considered) but this was a time where I felt like it was my duty to the blog to get an actual cheesesteak. Whiz wit of course. It just wouldn't be a proper Philly Taco otherwise.

Fig. A

Onto the art of wrapping the cheesesteak in the pizza slice. There's some argument about the best way to do this (see the first link above), but it made the most sense to me to tuck the end of the pizza slice into the cheesesteak and then roll it up (imagine the cheesesteak rolled inside a crescent role, see Fig. A). Once this was done, it was time to get cracking.

The overall experience was... better than I was expecting. Despite not being a big fan of cheesesteaks, having it wrapped in a giant slice of pizza made it taste better. Any bite that contained a combination of whiz and cheese from the pizza was heaven. Any bite that was mostly cheesesteak was meh. I think most people agreed that the proper pizza to cheesesteak ratio was needed for full enjoyment. I also think that if I were a little drunker I would have been able to eat the whole thing, but I only made it about 3/5 of the way before saying fuck it - although one of our brave companions ate the entire thing! Great job Josh  (if you can celebrate an accomplishment like that)! I can definitely appreciate why people like it as drunk food, but I'd rather stick to a slice of Lorenzo's alone.

the aftermath

So this has turned into a very long blog post, but I think a local legend deserves it. I would still pick an iteration of the garbage plate over the Philly Taco any day, but I understand why people like it. If I had been a little drunker, I think I could have fully appreciated the concoction and maybe even finished it. But that will have to wait for another time in my life, which may (hopefully) never actually come. For now though, I'll stick to the slightly more traditional methods of gluttony, which involve eating a lot of free food at the department holiday parties while I still can.

Jim's Steaks
400 South Street
Philadelphia, PA
(215) 928-1911

Lorenzo and Sons
305 South Street
Philadelphia, PA
(215) 800-1942

#69 - Subway and #70 - Phileo Yoghurt - Sandy's synopsis

Sam and Sandy went to Subway for the second time as the blog demanded it. Neither one of them enjoyed the experience. 

Hello blog readers, welcome to the 70th review on our blog. It's always fun seeing how high we are getting in the numbers. I'm curious to know what the final number will be (+/- a couple of restaurants of course as we wont be accounting for all the places that opened after us). I noticed a new Afghani  place near South and broad the other day...many new places...

If it isn't apparent by now, yes, I am stalling as I don't have much to say about Subway or Phileo Yoghurt. 

This Subway looked like every other Subway. We each ordered a pizza, or rather a "Flatizza" to change things up. I get the feeling neither Sam nor I are hoagie fans. It was a flat piece of bread with some bottled sauce and a sprinkling of veggies on top. It tasted as exciting as I am making it sound. It's not terrible, just, boring. I also wonder if I went to a Pizza Hut and order a subway-esqe sandwich, what it would be called - a "Roundwich"? trademarked.

Phileo yoghurt was also quite awful. I always feel overwhelmed by the number of choices at yoghurt places. I therefore decided to order a strawberry banana smoothie and bypass all the yoghurt toppings and choices. 

It was overly artificially sweet and tasted like I was drinking a smoothie made from canned fruits. I couldn't even drink a quarter of it.

Nothing really to write home about, this experience was very forgettable. 

Subway

411 South street

Philadelphia PA 19147

215-592-4660

Phileo Yoghurt

419 South Street

Philadelphia PA 19147

215-873-8361

#69 Subway and #70 Phileo Yogurt - Sam's synopses

What can I really say? It's a Subway. Again. We were really hoping we'd be past this place before it opened, but alas, it was not meant to be. So we went here for dinner. They have pizza-like dishes now known as "Flatizzas," which are basically a piece of flatbread with sauce and cheese and whatever other toppings you want. I ordered the basic cheese, and it was pretty meh. Very bland and there were no salt and pepper shakers or packets to help spruce up the flavor a little. At least it was warm and the cheese had melted? Yeah, just don't buy things at Subway. Especially after all the horrendous things in the news about Jared the Subway Guy. He's a pretty terrible human being.

This was a twofer (hey, I didn't realize twofer was recognized as a real word and not slang. Also, the word "two" is really weird when you think about it for a long time, don't you think?), so we hit up Phileo Yogurt for dessert. I got a combo of chocolate and cake batter froyo with some assorted candy and strawberry toppings. I have to say I wasn't all that impressed. The froyo flavors weren't all that nuanced and the toppings weren't great either. They had some candy and some cookie bits, etc. as well as some fresh fruit, but their liquid toppings were limited and no sign of whipped cream anywhere! I like Kiwi a lot better (maybe because it's close to campus so I go there more often, but it also has a better selection of toppings and I found the froyo flavors themselves better and more... well.. flavorful). But let me admit something - I don't really care much for the whole froyo mentality. Maybe it's growing up in a summer vacation paradise where there are several homemade ice cream shops in every town within a 30 mile radius, but froyo is not really my thing - give me real ice cream any time of the day!

Subway

411 South St.

Philadelphia, PA

(215) 592-4660

Phileo Yogurt

419 South St.

Philadelphia, PA

(215) 873-8361

#68 Tuk Tuk Real - Ed's synopsis

You read that correctly... we've got a review of the now-defunct Tuk Tuk Real thanks to our good friend Ed. Ed finished up in the spring and moved to lovely England; but, he was (and still is!) a big fan of our blog and wanted to jump ahead and try Tuk Tuk before leaving Philly forever. We of course obliged, and were able to celebrate good friends and memories at one of our blog spots. Turns out Tuk Tuk didn't last so long, so you dear readers get a review of a fleeting moment in time (how fitting) as well as the current thai restaurant Circles from Sandya. So without further ado, here is Ed's guest review!

Our featured blogger
with Sandya!

Way back on March 24th, I got together with a great group of friends for one of my last dinners in Philadelphia before I moved to Manchester, UK just 6 days later! In addition to South Street stalwarts Sam, Sandya, Steph, the group included Lauren, Matt P. and Lukas. The place: Tuk Tuk Real, an intriguing Thai/Mexican fusion BYO that had opened up just a few months earlier. We brought an adventurous attitude, a big appetite, and lots of delicious beer. As for the food, I remember a really delicious plate of massaman curry nachos and some good tacos, but not much else. What I really treasure from that night was getting that group together, some of whom were meeting for the first time, and whom I almost certainly will never see again all in the same place.  When Tuk Tuk closed a few months later, it felt entirely fitting, as if to underline the nostalgia I feel for that night and the last years I spent in Philly. 

Thanks guys for all the good memories on and off South Street. Here are the more "restaurant review" thoughts I had immediately after the meal which I would have included in a more timely review (like if the restaurant were still open!). 

I love Mexican food, and I love Thai food, so I was really excited when I read about Tuk Tuk Real opening. Chili, lime, cilantro.... tamarind? Great! I also liked the backstory: Circles head chef Alex Boonphaya teaming up with his sous chef, Silvestre Rincon to bring us a combination of their national cuisines. Look at that photo, these dudes seem like friends, not just coworkers, Boonphaya drinking Modelo and Silvestre drinking Singha. My dad was a cook for many years in a kitchen with people from Austria, Germany, Mexico, Scotland and Switzerland, and learned bits of culture from all of them. (Science also involves working long, stressful hours with a very multinational coworkers, come to think of it). 

So what could go wrong, right? I think their biggest mistake was lack of clear focus in the menu. What does "Thai-Mexican fusion" mean, and what do we want from it? Typical Thai dishes (curries, noodles, salads) with Mexican flavors, or Mexican preparations (tacos, burritos, nachos) with Thai flavors. Tuk Tuk's approach appeared to be "all of the above." There were whole sections for tacos, burritos, tortas, curries, stir fries and other large plates, salads and starters.  Pretty much everything sounded good, but it was tough to choose, and it wasn't clear how big things would be or how we should order for a big group. We ended up ordering a lot of dishes which came out in an unpredictable hodgepodge. Some were good and creative (nachos), some good but not surprising (tacos with thai-flavored meat) and some were bland and poorly executed (obligatory vegan tofu/nopales curry). I think a Thai Mexican concept could be fantastic, but it would have to be really clearly focused on a few good dishes, not coincidentally like my favorite taco/burrito places in Philly: Tacos Don Memo and Honest Toms.

Tuk Tuk Real (now Circles)

429 South Street

Philadelphia, PA

#68 - Circles - Sandy's synopsis

I was extremely disappointed when I heard Tuk Tuk Real was closing. To have Circles take it's place however is the best consolation prize.  Circles is my wife's and mine go-to delivery place for Thai food - we think they are fantastic. We love getting their curries and soups on days when cooking at home seems too gargantuan a task. Now, we can walk 5 mins to go pick food up and eat it at home in our pyjamas. If it wasn't for the blog, I would never have known what it was like to have a sit down dinner at Circles.

Eating Circles food in clothes that were not my pyjamas was definitely weird, but definitely worth it. For some reason, when ordering delivery from Circles, I couldn't bring myself to order appetizers or any of their specialty curries. It was too fancy for delivery. And my pyjamas. So having the option to have a sit down meal meant ordering appetizers and fancy specialty curries.

For appetizers, we ordered the vegetarian steamed dumplings and papaya salad to start. I wasn't the biggest fan of the dumplings but the papaya salad was a win.

For the specialty curry I ordered the Roasted Rohan Duck Curry - which conjured up images of the vast plains of Rohan where...the duck roam alongside the majestic horses? I then realized that the default pronunciation for Rohan in my brain is the Lord of the Rings movie's pronunciation. Even though I grew up in an area of South India where Rohan (pronounced Ro-hun) is a very common name. I'm not sure how it is pronounced in Thailand but I guess what really matters is whether the curry tasted good - and it did. 

   

That duck was succulent and paired wonderfully with the coconut milk based, Panang like curry. 

I also got to taste a bit of the Khao Mok Gai - a braised chicken with a sweet chili and lime sauce on turmeric rice.

The sweet chili lime sauce was unbelievably fresh and delicious and paired very well with the chicken.

All in all, this was a great night of food, and a nice change from sitting on the couch and eating their massaman curry with tofu (also delicious). Circles makes some of the best fried tofu I've had in Philly. If you haven't ordered from Circles before you should. If you can bring yourself to order the fancy stuff on delivery you should, because Rohan would taste wonderful in pyjamas. If not they have three locations - Northern Liberties, South Philly and now Headhouse to choose from for a sit down meal. 

Circles

429 South Street

Philadelphia PA 19147

267-639-2396

#67 - Fat Tuesday - Sandy's synopsis

My favourite thing about Fat Tuesday was the 90s music they played in the background. The upbeat tunes of the Backstreet Boys was better than the food and drink at this fine establishment.

Fat Tuesday is known for their alcoholic frozen daiquiris. You can mix and match flavours and also add an extra shot of Everclear for a dollar extra. (Neither Sam nor I took them up on that generous offer, unfortunately). I ordered a combination of the banana and pina colada flavours and it unsurprisingly tasted like cough syrup instead. It made me regret not getting the extra shot of Everclear. At least that way, I might be too drunk to care about how awful it tasted.

For food, Sam and I shared a couple of appetizers - the fried green beans and the nachos. The green beans were actually decent and tasted like fried chicken wings.

The nachos  however were probably the worst nachos I have ever had. Food rarely makes me feel nauseous, but something about the cheese wiz on these nachos made me want to hurl.

We powered through as much of the food and booze as we could before leaving, vowing to never return. 

Fat Tuesday

431 South Street

Philadephia PA 19147

215-629-5999