philadelphia – Page 2 – Movement Point

A Philadelphia Sandwich Tour, Part One

August 9, 2023December 13, 2011 by Chris Baer

Broad Street Subway or Best Sandwich Subway?

Let’s call it what it was: a pilgrimage.

Along with my intrepid travelling companion, I recently ventured up to Philadelphia for a three day Sandwich Tour. From Fishtown to the Italian Market, we hunted down the whole range of Philadelphia sandwich archetypes: roast pork, cheesesteak, chicken cutlet, and cold cut hoagie, with a few meatball hoagies thrown in for (mostly) good measure.

Seven stops, eleven sandwiches, and one birch beer. Follow along, and apologies in advance if you get hungry.

Our first sandwich stop: By George! Pizza, Pasta, and Cheesesteaks in Reading Terminal Market.

Most of the destinations on the tour were pre-planned; By George! was an impromptu stop, because we were hungry after the drive to Philadelphia. Our hotel was close to the Reading Terminal Market, making it an easy first target. But I didn’t think to have a camera on hand to immortalize the sandwich, a Provolone Cheesesteak with Fried Onions. And that’s fine, because the cheesesteak wasn’t quite worthy of immortalization. I’m not a cheesesteak guru, yet this one was adequate, verging on fine, but no more.

The steak, though plentiful, was chopped nearly to shreds and lacked much in the way of taste. The provolone and onions didn’t add much to the sandwich either. The onions and provolone should almost melt into the steak, but they were practically non-existent in this cheesesteak. Still, By George! gets major points for using a fresh Sarcone’s seeded hoagie roll rather than the typical Amoroso’s-style soft roll in which most cheesesteaks are served. The crisp crust provided good textural contrast for the soft meat inside. That’s a trend I’d like to see more of.

Thus fortified, we moved on to the first planned sandwich tour stop, a sentimental favorite: Tommy’s Pizza on the corner of Girard and Palmer in Fishtown.

Planning a Philadelphia Sandwich Tour

August 10, 2023April 6, 2011 by Chris Baer

This humble sandwich acolyte has decided to make a pilgrimage to Philadelphia this year, to worship at the various shrines of Philly’s four signal contributions to world sandwich cuisine: hoagie, roast pork, chicken cutlet, and cheesesteak.

My aim is to limit each sandwich type to one or two purveyors maximum, in the city proper, both for logistical and gustatory reasons. A guy can only eat so much!

So, where do I go?

Tearing Down the Spectrum, DIY Style

August 13, 2023November 5, 2010 by Chris Baer

The desire to obtain a keepsake, a memento, of a cherished place, roots deeply in the human heart. The entire picture postcard and souvenir industry relies on this need.

Sports fans in particular cherish the arenas, the stadiums, in which their teams do battle. What baseball or football fan (gridiron and association) doesn’t seek out a grass clipping or artificial tuft of astroturf from the field of honor?

Ice hockey fans have a slightly more difficult task, since ice melts and goals are inconvenient to get home. But with the impending demise of the Spectrum in Philadelphia, the current owners have decided to let people loose. Tomorrow, November 6th, you can enter the Spectrum floor for the low cost of $25 and have the run of what’s left for three hours:

Items available for the “If You Can Carry It, You Can Keep It” event include Spectrum folding chairs, used televisions, some office furniture, couches, computer equipment, and other collectibles. Items are first-come, first-served. Patrons will be allowed to take as much as they can carry (up to four chairs per person) with no re-entry into the arena. Tools and hand carts are prohibited.

The Flyers’ last game in the Spectrum is long since past, so perhaps with this controlled ransacking there’s no chance of the demolition Phillies’ fans wrought on Connie Mack Stadium on October 1, 1970, in the last game played there, when fans carted off bleacher seats. It doesn’t look like fans will be able to get into the actual stands and take railings, signs, and the likes, making this event more of a glorified garage sale than a smash ‘n’ grab, but it’s still a fitting way for the old arena to go out, Philadelphia style.

(Image courtesy of Doug Kerr via a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License.)

(via Deadspin)

Bill Lyon on Lappy

August 16, 2023May 2, 2010 by Chris Baer

With the NHL playoffs into their second round, Philadelphia’s Bill Lyon returns to the pages of the Inquirer to reflect upon heart, and blood, and the Flyers:

The on-rushing gunner has cranked up a warp-speed slap shot and the puck, a frozen rubber bullet, is zeroed in and dead on, with nothing but ice between it and the goal. So Ian Laperriere, a right winger whose specialty is killing off penalties, follows his instincts without a second thought: He drops and offers up his body as a sacrifice.

He blocks the puck…

…with his mouth.

Winning Lord Stanley’s Cup takes a special kind of dedication, a peculiar willingness (that is not so peculiar amongst the men who don NHL uniforms) to suffer and bleed for the team, for the prize, for the Cup. Bill Lyon, in one of his rare returns to print, captures this willingness in the person of Ian Laperriere, a grinder, a role player for the Flyers, who only made the playoffs on the last day of the season, in overtime.

What awaits the Flyers now? Elimination, if you believe the popular sentiment.

But do not be so quick to dismiss lightly a team that has a man willing to catch frozen rubber bullets. With his face.

Repeatedly.

Like Bill Lyon, the Flyers hold a special place in the hearts of Philadelphians, both native and expatriate like myself. It’s good to see them both working their trade in May.

(Image courtesy of Dinur via a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivatives License.)

Taylor Gourmet Takes on Roast Pork

August 16, 2023April 4, 2010 by Chris Baer

It’s one thing to re-create an authentic Philly hoagie south of the Schuylkill River, as the crew at DC’s Taylor Gourmet have done. Use the right bread (Sarcone’s seeded Italian), with premium ingredients, and combine with an assiduous touch and an generous eye, and you have a hoagie, not a sub. A hoagie from Taylor Gourmet could be served with pride anywhere in Philadelphia.

But there is science, and there is art, and with the recent introduction of the Philadelphia roast pork sandwich to their menu, Taylor Gourmet takes on quite a task.

The roast pork sandwich can’t just be created from good ingredients, any more than a painting is a mere agglomeration of high quality oil paints.

The pork has to be cooked just so, to hold the right amount of moisture yet still provide enough bite; the provolone needs to be ripped into pieces to coat the inside of the roll, with no extraneous cheese flopping over the edge; and the rabe (only rabe) needs to be tender, tearable by the teeth, and bitter without bringing too much “veg” to the experience.

The true masters of this sandwich have an kitchen infrastructure in place dedicated to the creation of this salty, bitter, perfectly balanced foodstuff. DiNic’s, Tony Luke’s, John’s—this trinity creates hundreds (thousands?) of roast pork sandwiches a day between them, and have for decades. The counter staff has an intuitive feel for the sandwich (and generally expects you to order and get the hell out of the way, because the line behind you is out the door).

So how did the DC rookies do?

Roast Pork in DC

Pretty damn well, actually.

The execution was flawless—good proportional balance between the pork and the rabe, with the provolone neatly sundered and the rabe layered just so. The bread held the moisture, and the roast pork was nicely flavored and tender. And the rabe…

Um, can we talk about the bread again? No? OK.

The rabe was, sadly, lacking, like the Flyers’ goaltending in any year except those when Parent or Hextall were in goal. The rabe had too much stalk and too many florets. It needed just a bit more cooking time to get it slightly more tender. I look for just a bit of snap in my rabe, but in this sandwich, I wound up pulling whole rabe stalks out of the sandwich when biting in. Though nicely seasoned and bitter, the rabe let down the sandwich as a whole.

Nonetheless, I’ll be going back for more. The Pattison Avenue, as Taylor Gourmet dubs this sandwich, would not be booed out of any of the stadiums lining its namesake street in Philadelphia. And if one measures the worth of a roast pork sandwich on a scale based on the distance from Reading Terminal Market (home of DiNic’s), this one is off the charts. It’s a true roast pork sandwich.

A Fan’s Dilemma: Union or United?

August 16, 2023March 30, 2010 by Chris Baer

In every major American sport, I root for the team from Philadelphia. Flyers? Orange and Black courses through my veins. Phillies? I wore a Phillies cap to elementary school in the midwest when everyone else was wearing a Royals cap (that should date me somewhat). Sixers and Eagles? Love me some Mo Cheeks and Doc and Jaws.

But soccer? Other than the defunct NASL Atoms and Fury, I had no specific allegiance, because there was no team from Philadelphia.

That changed this year. Philadelphia Union begins play this season as the latest Major League Soccer expansion team, and given Movement Point‘s focus on the Philadelphian, it should be easy for me to root for this team, to be a fan of Union. Not so simple, though.

But they sound so similar. Do I have to choose?

When MLS started up in the 1990s with a franchise in DC, where I’ve lived for some two decades, I followed DC United in the absence of a Philadelphia entrant in the league. I was happy when United won, I kept track of the scores and the players, went to a few games over the years, and even tailgated with the Screaming Eagles and sat in their nest occasionally.

And yet, I’m considering abandoning them.

Am I a faithless fan of DC United, or just a fickle follower? How do I reconcile my support for United over the years with a new, arguably more valid, contender for my cheers in Union?