Eddie's Philadelphia, North Park, San Diego, CA

 

Just to let you know this reviews takes place over two different visits to Eddie's, apparently I really really like it.  There is no way I could eat all the food presented in this review in one sitting... well maybe.

So my sister drops by for a visit, and the first thing that runs through my mind is that I need to find a tasty but acceptable meal, she is a bit of a picky eater, for her to enjoy.  I take a look around my kitchen but all I have is some cheese and a few saltine crackers.  Well that would fit the bill in terms of acceptable, but it wouldn't be very tasty.  After some consideration I remembered a place that I used to run by when I lived over in Golden Hills.  Well the place is actually in North Park, but I passed as I was training for a marathon so yeah it is a bit far away.  Anyway I'd gone there once or twice and remember it being amazingly tasty without adding too much spice/heat to the dish.  I look to my lovely wife and with a smile we whisked my sister off to one of the best little Philly inspired eateries in San Diego, Eddie's Philadelphia.

Eddie's is nice, comforting, and clean.  The inside is decorated with a wealth of items commemorating the great city of Philadelphia, from the Philly's (the baseball team) memorabilia to articles depicting some of the city of Brotherly Love's celebrities.  It is all bling, but nice bling, and you can tell just by looking at it that the owners went to a lot of trouble to make it known just how important Philadelphia is to them.  You can feel the love, for lack of better words, they have for Philadelphia.  Glancing at all the bling we walk up to the register and my sister and wife order the Avocado Burger, my sister with Sweet Potato Fries and my wife with the regular fries.  I order a Patty Melt with fries, and we all get drinks.  We pay up and grab a couple of cups sitting next to the soda machine, which is conveniently located right next to the cash register.  Then we amble on back to our table.  My wife and I tell my sister about the first time we came here.

Eddie's Specails

You see Eddie's has changed a bit since it first opened.  There was a time that you didn't automatically get fries with your burger.  My wife and I used just order a large fry and have this gigantic basket of fries placed before us.  More than enough to share.  Nowadays though fries just come with the burger, or sweet potato fries, or onion rings, etc.

A few minutes later the same woman who took our order brings out the food, and I take a bite, and it is just as good as I remember it to be.  The ground beef is seasoned perfectly, and for awhile we sit there and try and figure out why it taste so good.  Is it the meat?  There is no way this stuff isn't at least 20% fat, if not more, and its juicy, perfectly juicy, almost dripping down my hand, but not so much that it causes a mess.  My sister digs through her burger, and I take a bite of it with nothing on it.  I think I taste cumin, and we find a big piece of garlic in the meat, but that is as far as we get.  Whatever is in the burger, whatever is mixed with the ground beef, it is great, definitely in the top ten, maybe top five of my favorite burgers.

The fries are as good as ever.  Big thick, crinkle cut fries, second only to steak fries in my book, with not too much salt, and cooked just long enough so they are crispy but not burnt.  My sister's Sweet Potato Fries on the other hand are not that great.  After I steal a few I decide to stick to my own food.  Yet another tasty meal from Eddie's, which is why I went back a few days later.

I'll admit the first time I went to Eddie's I ordered their steak sandwiches.  Made with prime rib I thought, how could you go wrong.  Well I don't know how they did it but back then it was just off enough for me to prefer the burger.  Still I like giving places a second chance, and Eddie's definitely deserved it, so I went back there with my wife to try it again.  I ordered the Cheese Steak and Onion Hoagie, of which I have a great weakness for, and my wife got the regular cheese steak.  We also got an order of chilli fries, because I'm always looking for a good chilli fries wherever I go.

After a short amount of time the server brought out this gigantic sandwich for me, and my wife.  I could be wrong but the cheese steak seemed bigger this time than last time, or maybe it was because I ordered a hoagie.  Either way I was hooked on my first bite.  My wife took a bite of hers, and enjoyed it as well, but couldn't quite finish it.  That was probably my fault as we both dug into the chilli fries.  The chilli was all beef and had just the right amount of cheese and onion mixed in to it.  I wolfed down more than half the fries in addition to my hoagie, and was stuffed, but in a good way.  Eddie's had re-established my faith in their cheese steak.  Now I can't wait to go back, maybe I'll try the onion rings.

Update:  Not sure if they have new owners, but came back for the hoagie and it was different, and not in a good way.  Also the service was a bit sub-par.  I'll drive by and give it another chance before I declare it changed not for the better.

Eddie's Philadelphia Steaks Hoagies and Burners
3501 30th Street
San Diego, CA 92024
(619) 296-6325
http://www.eddiesphilly.com/

Gaglione Bros., Point Loma, San Diego, CA

Philadelphia has created a lot of great things over the years: revolutionaries, the Liberty Bell, and some pretty damn good Stromboli. Still, there is always one word that echoes throughout the halls of food history whenever you mention the city of brotherly love, cheesesteak. Whether you spell it as one word or two, the image always pops into your head of a long loaf of bread, cut down the middle, and stuffed with mouthwatering mounds of meat and cheese, but that is where the commonality ends. Over time this once great monument to unhealthy dining has been perverted by fast food conglomerates, mall outlets, and pseudo Philly restaurants that promise the most authentic replication of the cheese steak outside of Philly. I’ve seen and tasted a variety of combinations, from Steak Escape with its thin slips of steak and layers of American cheese, to Jack in the Box’s semi-long slices of wet bread with large sautéed onion slices and tasteless white goo. Still, I’m not here to condemn or even define what a cheese steak should be, they have enough trouble doing that in Philly. No, I’m here to tell you about the best cheese steak I’ve had a chance to eat, so save the hate mail, especially from you Philadelphians, for another day, like when I complain about the Stromboli.
The place, Gaglione Bros., the time, a few weeks ago, and the food, some of the best cheese steak I’ve ever had. My girlfriend and I pulled up to this very unassuming shop a couple of blocks away from the Sports Arena. At first I thought it was another hole in the wall eatery, and the inside did little to dispel my notion of that, white walls, with the occasional menu and placard depicting a write up in the local paper. A counter, behind which stood a single woman manning (womanning?) the cash register, and behind her five or six people running around putting together cheese steaks and other tasty looking sandwiches. The one thing I did not notice, and was very happy to see absent, was a heating lamp. When the Gaglione Bros. say they make everything fresh, they really do it. Though they also say you can watch them prepare everything fresh, but the counters are a little high for that so watching them put together your food is not really feasible. Still, if I wanted to watch somebody put my food together I would have gone to Subway or stayed at home.
Pulling up to the counter, my girlfriend ordered a Chicken Ranch Sandwich, while I resisted the urge to give her a dirty look for not ordering cheese steak. I ordered the Baja Cheese Steak, and we decided to split an order of cheese garlic fries. I gave my name and then found a seat outside where we sat and sipped on carbonated beverages until our order was ready. I went through two cups of root beer before they yelled my name, but when I took that first bite I knew it had been worth the wait.

My cheese steak was delicious. Not that you can see it, but the Baja Cheese Steak has the usual ingredients, cheese wiz included, along with jalapenos and onions. Now, I was expecting the usual big honking jalapenos you find in most Mexican restaurants, but instead I took a bite and found that the fine people at Gaglione Bros. actually minced the jalapenos and onions into itsy bitsy pieces before adding it to the cheese steak. It was different, and definitely in a good way. No more unexpected pieces of spiciness, instead there was heat and flavor in every bite. After wolfing down my cheese steak I hesitantly took a bite of my girlfriend’s sandwiches.
Now, I’m not a big fan of ranch, but for some reason I couldn’t stop sneaking a bite every few minutes. The Chicken Ranch has chicken, bacon, white American cheese, lettuce, tomato, and ranch dressing, and something about the combination was just magical. I mean, I liked my food better, but not by a whole lot. The only slight downside was the cheese garlic fries. If you look at the picture you will notice that there is a lot of garlic “clusters”, for lack of better words, on the fries, which is delicious at first, but can get a bit excessive before you finish them, besides that everything was perfect.

So ends another sunny day in San Diego, my stomach full of cheese steak, my girlfriend by my side, and thoughts of Philadelphia on my mind. For if the food at this fine eatery was any indication of what could be had there, was that not a land I was destined to travel to? So ran my thoughts as I sipped on root beer and wondered to how to convince my girlfriend that Philadelphia and not New York was the new mecca of rising culture and fashion in America, or at least see if we could stop there on the way over.



Gaglione Bros. Famous Steaks and Subs
3944 W. Point Loma, CA 92110
(619) 758-0646
http://www.gaglionebros.com/