Fast Food Cheesesteak

Lately I've been hold-up at my parents house, recovering from this surgery and watching an immense amount of television. I keep seeing these commercials for Arby's new Philly cheesesteak, it's a stupid commercial... in fact I think their whole "It's good mood food" campaign is retarded.

I've been a fan of Arby's since I was a kid, specifically the regular roast beef topped with their now non-existent spicy brown mustard. But ever since the mustard went MIA, I just stopped going there altogether. Like I said though, lately I've been watching a lot of Food Network/commercials and finding myself craving all kinds of crap.





Speaking of cheese steaks, I was never a fan of them, especially since my first impressions were that of the ones served in my school cafeteria. I remember everyone loving them too, which was even more disturbing.

This is the stuff nightmares (and diarrhea) are made of.

Strangely enough, the first time I ever had a cheese steak was at Ledo's pizza about three years ago. It was pretty amazing even though technically it was a wrap, slathered in mayonnaise and hot peppers. Unfortunately, they stopped selling them probably 3 months later. Half a year late I had first real cheese steak from Pat's in Philadelphia. All I remember is that it was a blistering cold night and the combination of steak with this hot sauce they had was one of the most excellent things I've ever eaten. I think that without the hot sauce I would have not been nearly as impressed, but who knows. The only other memory of that night was running up and down alley ways in the dark looking for a place to piss without getting arrested.

Anyway, after seeing this Arby's commercial for the 700th time (combined with my limited yet positive taste for cheese steaks), I decided this is what I needed to eat for lunch today. Today is also the first time I've driven my car since the surgery, AND it happened to be snowing/sleeting outside. Snowing in October... actually, I don't know why I'm surprised by the weather anymore, it's obvious the apocalypse is coming next year so I should be used to it by now.

Combo #9 with curly fries and a bucket of soda.

This is way more food than I'm used to eating normally. I think the dude at the register was trying to hook me up with this turbo-sized drink... thanks for the diabetes, bro!

The sandwich looked pretty good; there was roughly one metric ton worth of meat on it.

After the first bite I realized that they actually use different meat from their regular sandwiches, which was a big surprise. For example, I worked at Panera Bread for 5 years and every time we introduced a new sandwich, 90% of them just used one of the meats we already had with the addition of a new specialty ingredient, like sun-dried tomatoes or something. So while the public is thinking "wow, new sandwich!", it was more like "wow, the ad-wizards at Panera sure know how to beat a dead horse!".

So yeah, as advertised, this cheese steak uses real Angus beef; maybe I'm wrong, but isn't ALL beef in the US Angus beef? Regardless, it was juicy and slightly pink on the inside, both things I would never expect from a fast food joint.

You know a sandwich is good when it's extra drippy with bloody juices!

The bun was chewy and toasty and the peppers & onions tasted real, too... notice how I'm still amazed by how it tastes like real food? The only thing that didn't impress me was the cheese. It's definitely some kind of over-processed cheez wizz-like stuff rather than real provolone cheese. It doesn't ruin the sandwich by any means, but it could be better.

As predicted, I could not finish the beast. The rest now resides in the refrigerator awaiting a questionable re-heating outcome.

In summation, Arby's Ultimate Philly Cheese Steak certainly does not live up to the commercial's claims of being "the best cheese steak not from Philly"... they'd be better off just saying "this is the best cheese steak you'll find at a fast food restaurant". Also, the $7.00 combo price tag makes trying it out for yourself very reasonable. Like I said though, I'm no cheese steak aficionado though, so don't come crying to me if it doesn't blow your socks off.