Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Yo Adrian! Let's go to the Philadelphia Cheesesteak Festival

I know, I'm mixing my Philly things in the title. Yo! This weekend was the first annual Philadelphia Cheesesteak Festival at the Linc. My friend Marla of Luck Fupus ordered us $40 Wiz Wit tickets, which entitled us to 10 samples of cheesesteaks and a free t-shirt.

I'm glad they finally did something like this, and judging by the shit ton of other people there, everyone else is too. We arrived right at 11 and stood in line for almost a half hour before getting in, even though it was supposed to start at 11.

The theme of the day was lines, which is to be expected at food festival type things. The different cheesesteak places were set up in tents or food trucks in K lot outside the Linc. There was a map of where everything was. What there was not was clear lines - by 1 p.m. we had no idea where lines started or ended. Marla and I ended up only using five of our 10 tickets for samples, and we weren't alone in that - others were trying to give away or sell their unused tickets.

Here's what we did try:
1. I don't give a fork - Mac & Cheesesteak - Tiniest portion of the day, barely any actual mac on there.

2. Rockin' Road Grill apparently boasts a celebrity chef (Eddie Berner, and I see looking at my own photo that he's a former guitarist for Flock of Seagulls). I didn't see him cook, I just saw him come out of the tour bus. They were doing steak with broccoli rabe (that belongs on pork)and wiz. It was the worst steak of the day and had so much garlic that I could have murdered a league of vampires on an exhale.
3. Jay's Steak and Hoagie Joint held two draws for us: it's owned by Marla's cousin, and their location is my home town of Penndel. This was my favorite out of the box steak of the day. The meat was good and served on a pretzel roll with just the right amount of salt, this was awesome. Their t-shirts were my favorite too. I will surely be visiting them soon.
4. Next up:  Oregon Steaks. Delicious flavor on the meat, good roll from Aversa's.
5. Dalesandro's was our final sample. The line was long and snakey and it was worth it. I was scooping this meat up and eating it with my fingers in public. It was my favorite traditional and that is absolutely due to their use of my favorite roll - Amoroso's.
Speaking of, there was a freaking Amoroso's windsock thing there. I was more excited about this than I should've been.
Marla & I had a good time sampling some cheesesteaks, having a beer, wandering around, and meeting up with some of her family and friends and Dani from Faster Than Forever and her friend. The people watching was outstanding. And Philly is serious as hell about its cheesesteaks. My favorite steak is Jim's on South Street. Jim's was not in attendance, because they know they're awesome. MFD did get me one on Sunday night though.
There was also entertainment, much of which sounded off and not good. At one point they were singing a made up Philly cheesesteak song and it was hilarious.

Dunkin Donuts was representing with free shots of coffee, and there were some t-shirt vendors too. I had to get in on that.
***********************
Haikuesday
Good try but sorry... 
They are not Philly cheesesteaks
outside of Philly
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The crowd in general was pretty happy, which I wasn't expecting. I hope they do this every year, and that they figure out the line fuckery before next year.

What food is your town known for? Do they festival it up?


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38 comments:

  1. Had to laugh at the title, great work, lady! I love a good Philly cheesesteak, so yummy! I would have gained ten pounds at this festival, it looks amazing. Funny story, I was in Philly my freshman year of college on a Sunday for an NCAA tournament. After the games a friend and I tried to get a cheesesteak in PHILLY and everywhere was CLOSED since it was Sunday. It was, the worst!

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  2. I love food fests, or rather the premise of them. Most I've actually been to, haven't been the best. The one on the pretzel roll sounds like it would be my fave too!

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  3. I saw your photo over the weekend of the festival and it looked like a deliciously good time! I looooooove a good, authentic, Philly cheesesteak!

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  4. we're not known for a specific food type but i suppose the closest thing is Poutine? even though that's french/montreal people tend to associate that with all of canada. i love food festivals!! we have them every summer and the food is sooo good.

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  5. That looks like so much fun, but ugh the lines!! Tarpon is all about the Greek food and it is amazing! I'm sure they have a Greek festival, but I don't remember ever going. I just know they have trucks and vendors down on the sponge docks all the time.

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  6. Omg... I want a cheesesteak right now. Wilmington has certain festivals, but I haven't been to anything other than the Italian Festival, which I don't remember being terribly exciting. My company did do a tailgating event at Meals on Wheels last week, though, with samples from tons of restaurants and that was awesome! Mostly sliders and beer, but enough other stuff to keep us stuffed. :P

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  7. Upstate NY has lots of signature dishes! Of course, out in Buffalo, they have chicken wings, beef on weck and long hot peppers stuffed with sausage and cheese. Here in Binghamton, we have spiedie sandwiches (lamb, pork and chicken). Utica has Utica greens, which is escarole with hot cherry peppers, prosciutto and Parmesan, and also chicken riggies, which is chicken and rigatoni in a fiery hot tomato sauce.

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  8. That whole event sounds delicious. I could get on board with cheesesteak sampling any day.I guess LI is famous for seafood in general. Maybe Italian food too? Do Long Island Ice Tea's count? Ok I never even drink those but that was honestly the first thing that came to mind!

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    1. I don't know that I agree with seafood, except maybe out east. But bagels? Pizza? RALPH'S??? All those, definitely.

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  9. omg the no one likes us shirt!!! SO FUNNY. I love the idea of food fest in theory because you can try so much, but I just hate all the people. Crowds are not my thing.

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  10. Confession: I have never eaten a cheesesteak. A chicken cheesesteak once. That's it.

    Delaware isn't really known for much, foodwise. We have the Apple Scrapple Festival (let's not discuss this). OH! We have Dogfish Head beer. That counts, right?

    The guy in the cheesesteak hat is my favorite.

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  11. Fake Philly cheesesteaks are delicious, so I really want a real one. I blogged about my less than stellar endeavor last year and if we visit PA on the way to DE this year, then I want to try again. Anywhere good near-ish to the airport? Texas must haves are definitely Tex Mex and kolaches. And now I'm starving.

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  12. This sounds awesome. I wish we'd gone. I like Steve's Steaks!

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  13. Kansas City is known for BBQ. Much debate among locals on what is best. I find different places do different things best. Please ,if you ever get to Kansas City get Oklahoma Joes (Which I guess is Joes of Kansas City now), Jack Stack - especially their burnt ends and cheesy corn casserole, Bryants also has great burnt ends - and of the sandwiches at Rosedale but especially their fries; they've been in the same location for over 60 years and i think they've never changed the grease which is the key to the fries. People swear by Gates, but i can take it or leave it. Funny thing is we never actually go out for BBQ unless we have people visiting. I could go on and on. I won't.

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  14. Such a fun festival! All that food looks amazing, I would have been in a food coma :-P

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  15. I LOVE food festivals!!

    Our area is known for seafood, specifically Calabash style seafood. YUM!!

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  16. Yo,Adrian!! Love that. Love I don't give a fork and the roll windsock and Love Marla, too! I will try her cousin's place!
    Beauty of a day, too! I am trying not to concentrate on food in general, since I have been eating like a bear preparing to hibernate AND I need to lose weight so I can fit my wonderwears spanx-like pants under my jeans for warmth. Jeans are not warm and baggy jeans make me look horrific. Enough about me. An awesome day for some awesome ladies. Love, Your MOMMA

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  17. I love food festivals! Even though lines are always crazy, they are pretty fun :) Bummer that the #1 with mac n' cheese was such a wimpy sample- that one SOUNDED delicious! But I'd be good with anything on a pretzel bun too- how fun!

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  18. I kinda hate food festivals because I'm allergic to lines and chaos, but if it's a nice day and I'm in no hungry and not starving (and all the stars are aligned...), I can deal.

    My vegetarian bff took me to Jim's when I visited her in Philly before she moved because she said everyone says Jim's is the best. She was right. It changed my life.

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  19. yum, that looks so good! I remember when my Philly Aunt came into town and we went to a restaurant right from the airport. She wanted to eat something local so she asked the waiter for their local specials and he was like "Oh, i've got a treat for you!!! We have a Philly Cheesesteak today!", lol. She was like, nice try Oregon- pass.

    The food in San Francisco definitely has an Asian/Mexican theme and you can't go wrong with either.

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  20. No other city
    can serve cheesesteaks like Philly
    so many have tried...

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  21. All of those looks so delicious and fun! Disappointing about the mac though - pretty sure that would be my favorite if it had a lot! - Svetlana @Life With a Side of Wine

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  22. Can honestly say that I've never had a cheesesteak. I guess I will just hold out until I can visit Philly and try a REAL one!

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  23. Oh wow, this is an AWESOME event!! My husband is going to go nuts when he sees this is a thing!

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  24. so the only time i've had anything close to a philly cheesesteak was on a pizza, and obviously it was not very good. haha. i honestly don't know if louisville is 'known' for anything. they have something called a hot brown, which is apparently turkey, bacon and mornay sauce. interesting.

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  25. Ohhhhh I would love a cheesesteak festival!!! Food festivals in general are my favorite!! But yes, everyone thinks they are a damn foodie these days and they jack up the lines and steal all my samples. Haha! that stinks you couldn't use all your tickets. Does it count as a partial real cheesesteak if they order their bread from Philly and put wiz on it? A place here does and it is my favorite!!!!!!!!!

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  26. Looks awesome! Did they have any chicken cheesesteak offerings? Because if do I am TOTALLY GOING next year.

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  27. I've had similar but different issues with our local festivals. I love that there is so much seafood but at the last festival I went to there was no seafood for sale on the actual festival grounds, just typical festival food. Apparently according to the signs you were supposed to visit the local restaurants for seafood. After saying what a few times I bought chicken on a stick and left! I have been to a few local oyster roasts which are the best thing ever! :)

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  28. I'm so freaking hungry now after reading this. Sounds like such a cool event, minus the lines. I get really frustrated when big festivals like that can't get their crap in order to make things run more smoothly. If you know there will be a ton of people plan for a ton of people!

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  29. I haven;t had a cheesesteak in years! The portion sizes look really good so I don't know how anyone could eat 10 of them. LOL @ garlic breathe.

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  30. I know this is blasphemy, but I didn't really like the cheese steak I got with cheez whiz last time I was in Philly :(

    I need a cheese steak flight, like a flight of beer, to figure out what I like.

    I miss all the delicious Polish food from Michigan and the Polish festival, BUT Tampa has the market on the Cuban sandwich. It is delicious. Ham, cheese, special mustard, pickles, all pressed together on Cuban bread.

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  31. The people watching was on point- I especially loved seeing those with the crazy hats that looked more like Chalupas than cheesesteaks. We actually crapped out after 5 samples too (not including our packed takeaways). I feel like I have to have Jim's and Dalesandro's on the same day to figure out which one I like better. (Sidenote: I'm annoyed that spellcheck is trying to tell me that "cheesesteak" is spelled incorrectly.) Great meeting you and Marla!

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  32. So the idea of having mac n cheese on a Philly Cheesesteak sounds absolutely amazing, so I can't imagine the let down when there was barely any mac n cheese on it. That pretzel bun also sounds absolutely amazing, another thing you really can't go wrong with!

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  33. I love trying all different foods but I]'m so bad at lines. I just won't do it!

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  34. I love the name "I Don't Give a Fork" lolololol
    I would say the food Detroit is most famous for is a Coney dog... and supposedly square pizza, lol

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  35. That sounds like so much fun & so delicious!

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  36. I have a deep, deep passion for cheesesteaks but have never had an authentic one! The one on the pretzel roll though? Holy heaven.

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  37. This looks so good! But seriously, why is a member of Flock of Seagulls making cheesesteaks? Haha! I really want to try one on a pretzel roll!

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