as a son of habitues of Philly, Ive only seen about 3 JITBs, and they were on the "main line" and near the Delaware border. Philly area is loaded with mom and pop sammich shops that develop loytal(that is loyal) clientele.
Like Capulottis(or maybe its Capazellis), Anyway they started in lower Market st and spread to the suburbs. they only use real cheeses and meats that can be identified by a species name, not some processed and congealed animal matter.and green vegetable stems.
Philly is not a good place for the erzats form of its own regional cooking (like Olive Garden)most Philly folks consider fast food (generic) as the way the Irish consider Pub food 9its crap, but if your starving it will pass)
McDonalds, with all its market studies, has never found placing its restaurants in downtown Philly a great idea. As far as I know there is only one in the Market Street Gallery area and one near the Liberty bell square area in the Bourse Building, (mostl;y for the tourists who miss their own regional foods)
In Philly , its never called a Philly Cheesesteak (they take the Philly part for granted) The big debate is whether or not to use Cheeze Wiz or real cheeze, or how you like your onions and peppers.
The regional debate is which cheesestaek is best. the past votes have had either Pats or Ginos (I personally will not wait in a line to get yelled at by some cheesesteak Nazi, when almost every place in The Italian Market or on South Street can make a great sammich)
The real quest , much written about in the local and regional newspapers ,used to be for the best crabcake on the Delmarva, from Philly , South to the CApe MAyLight oras far south as the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel.
Thats a good weekend trip involving ferry rides, backcountry swamp restaurants in the Pine Barrens, wild creatures, and uncouth barbarians
but that has nothing to do with Jack in the Box does it?
For the record: I have eaten at Jack in the Box only two or three times over the past dozen years. I generally cook my own foods.
Phoenix, What did you see at the Philly art museum that impressed you? c.i.
Jack in the Box may be legally able to serve horse meat if they so choose. I just heard on the local news that someone in the Texas legislature is about to push for a law to allow it to be sold as food. I don't know the percentage of chance it will pass.
ahhhhhh, the Delmarva. The best place in the world.
Jack-in-the-box was owned by the Ralston Purina company, which made, among other things, dog and cat food, and used processed horsemeat, so this could be the origin of the horsemeat thing.
Farmerman - and what about the sticky buns? Now I understand why I've never had a cheese steak. Down in South Philly we used to get the steak and onion sandwich on a hard roll, and sometimes some cheese would be thrown on it. Mostly I remember Philly for really great Italian food, ind ices in the summertime. I used to go to this big, open-air concert hall in Fairmount Park called the Robin Hood Dell, and we would buy flavored ices from a cart, and then go and listen.
Spent a lot of time on the Delmarva, eh. But the absolutely best place for a crabmeat anything is down in Crisfield, MD, which calls itself the crab capital. About a 2 hour drive down from Rehoboth Beach, DE, and an interesting drive at that.
Most restaurants in the Delmarva are addicted to using that OLD BAY seasoning which, IMHO, adds nothing a but salt and celery seed taste to everything. The best crabcakes are in the little out of the way places,(Crisfield is one of those) wherein they make a version of Sen Mikulskis crab cakes. These are amazingly simple.
2 lb lump and 1 lb claw
3 fresh eggs
2T ginger mustard
1/2 c breadcrumbs
about 5 t water
mix and place in a refrigerator for a day
pull out of the frig and mold into cakes lightly dredge in crumbs and deep fery or broil in butter (I like the bropiled best)
This , served in a Maiers bun with a fresh tartar sauce , is some of the best eatin from Philly to Norfolk
Old Bookbinders used to have a good cake but they too , have succumbed to the desire to add OLD BAY to their cooking.
OLD BAY should , like all things, be used in moderation and only in things that will be served cold like boiled shrimp or crab salad.
The lower Delmarva adds onion into the crabcake mix and someplaces add some spices like mace or nutmeg.
About 5 years ago, in the early winter, a bunch of us went on a crab cake quest. We traveled from the lower Delmarva to Pocomoke on one weekend, then a few weeks later we went to the mid Delmarva up to about Chestertown, lastly we did the upper BAy to Philly and two couples did Cape MAy and S Jersey. This sounds like total waste of time and kind of shallow I know , but we did an article for the Lancaster paper and a freelance for a number of the Delmarva papers. It added a legitemacy and sense of mission to our trips and it was a lot of fun.
The result was a flat tie among about 4 reswtaurants. these were
Phillips in OC md, The taproom in Chesapeake city, The Bridge in Taylors Bridge, The Harrison House in Elkton, and a hotel restaurant in Salisbury. There were a great number of second tier restaurants that had good cakes but were missing some other component like not great rolls, or Kraft Tartar sauce (all salt )
The most outrageously good crabcake for the money used to be at a restaurant that you can only reach by boat. Its a dockside restaurant in Rock Hall Md and these are so good that they are always sold out unless you get there for breakfast. Ever since Rock Hall has gotten suburbanized and cutesy, all the DC pukes come over and hogged em all up by sheer numbers . This was an example of success killing the attraction. It also is a sad commentary of how something like the Chesapeake has been defiled by uncontrolled and tacky development
Crisfield is great - went there a few times with hamburger and mrs. hamburger.
I can't have crustaceans due to allergies. I always loved the other seafoods offered at Don's in Chincoteague. Good eatin'.
The thing about the Delmarva (now that we've soaked up Philly) is that it has all these hidden litle gems. All around Crisfield are teeny towns, and some of the best chicken, crab and oyster dishes can be found in litle diner-like eateries. (And some wonderful old Masonic Temples.) And, until it closed, in Greenwood (I think) Delaware there used to be an Amish farm that turned itself into a restaurant on the week-ends. But you had to know about it and call them.
And then there were the fish my husband caught and brought right upstairs, where we cooked them and ate them looking out at the ocean.
In my Philly, we always went south, not north.
