I Made a Run for the Border but got Stuck in Philly – Review of the Classic Philly at The Great Steak and Potato Company
By Jesse | February 4, 2008
1/24/2008
As you may well know, the best time to eat Fast Food is after a night of too much drinking. You just crave the four basic food groups; beefy, cheesy, greasy, and greasy. Last Friday after a shutting down a local dive the night before, I needed some medicine. So during my lunch break I made a run for the border at a local mall food court in search of a grilled stuffed burrito. After exiting the glass elevator on the 8th floor I was distracted by another delicatessan, “The Great Steak and Potato Company”, reminiscent of another mall food court staple, The Steak Escape, where I dined on many delightful meals in my youth. I was captivated by the dirty and peeling posters plastered around the sub shops walls, each one depicting some a monstrosity of a sandwich or baked potato Frankenstein. I immediately forgot about my run to the border I knew I had to have one. But which one? There were so many choices. The Chicken Ranch and Bacon, The Super Steak, The Ham Explosion? After few minutes of indecision my eyes settled on a particularly offensive creation in full 300 dpi glory, the Classic Steak Philly. This beast was a medley of frozen grilled steak and onions, topped off by real Kraft liquid cheese. The poster even had the Kraft logo, and everyone knows that the makers of the cheesiest macaroni must know their oily, fluid cheese.
After a cold and bumbling exchange with my GED touting cashier, I was handed a small blue plastic tray and preceded down the cafeteria-style runway. Unfortunately, they only carried Pepsi products, so I was stuck with a Diet Pepsi instead of my preferred Diet Coke. From the runway I was given a view of the sandwich Picassos in their greasy hair nets as they sliced, diced and grilled a cornucopia of meats and vegetables. I was handed an overflowing serving of natural cut French fries in the typical steak stand’s paper cup. They even had a dented tin season saltshaker complete with a letter P on top for which obviously stood for Salt. Finally my sandwich arrived and I hurried to my seat.
After sitting, I took a closer look at my sandwich and was shocked to discover that it actually looked pretty similar to the sub in the poster. The toxic yellow cheese smothering the sandwich did a lot to cover the grade C “steak”. The bun was a spongy vibrant yellow, the sort of “bread” that you would never find at a bakery but seems to dominate fast food buns and vending machine sandwiches. My first bite was a moment of pure hangover fast food lunch bliss. The mixture of luke-warm liquid cheese, slightly over-down steak, grilled onions and the spongy, yellow sub roll combined to create an elixir for my hang over cravings. The steak was dry and flavorless, and I found myself wishing for bottle of Tabasco. The cheese was barely warm, but did not fail to live up the high quality of congealed cheese that I’ve learned to expect from Kraft. At least this semi-edible sludge helped to lubricate dryness of the steak. Slimy fried onions were adequately mixed with the steak, and the spongy spaceship bun held together in spite of the ounces of grease generated from the steak and processed cheese. About half way through the sandwich I began to wonder if I was actually eating anything created from an organic source.
I took a sip of my Diet Pepsi (God I hate Diet Pepsi) to clean my pallet, and proceeded to sample the natural cut french fries. They were darker in color then your usual fry, with the slight hint of potato peel suspiciously fried into the outer crispiness. How did the get the peel into every fry? Am I supposed to believe that every fry came from the outside of the potato? What about the middle? The fries had the natural cut mushiness in the outer layer of the fry and firmer in the middle. I had heavily doused them with season salt, and needed a hearty supply of ketchup to keep these things going down.
While moderate in size, the regular sub size was not the serving for the heartiest of eaters; however, it was enough to make me feel the nausea that you expect from a fast food dining experience. This became particularly apparent as I rode the glass elevator down the mall, where the feeling of descent almost made me lose my processed yellow cheese steak all over the glass walls.
Jesse
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