Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Nothing Quite Like Home

Welcome back dear Readers! This week begins a two week special on the sandwiches of my hometown.

Two weeks ago when I visited Philadelphia, PA, I was lucky enough to see a Phillies home game, something I had not seen in almost four years since I moved to Los Angeles.

Paired with that sweet homecoming game (despite losing to the A’s 4-1), I also was able to tackle a mythical sandwich that I had read about for so long: The Schmitter.

Created by McNally's Tavern in Chestnut Hill, the sandwich is actually not named after legendary Phillies 3rd baseman, Mike Schmidt, but while it does lack that famous connection, the sandwich does make up for in flavor and overall deliciousness. A forewarning though, readers. This sandwich is ballpark food, and by nature is messy and contains an unhealthy amount of carbs and cholesterol.

Then again, this blog wouldn't live up to its name if there wasn't some element of danger to it.

The sandwich is composed of grilled salami, steak, fried onions, a huge slab of tomato, three sliced of cheese (split up throughout the sandwich), and special sauce on a kaiser bun.

I thought that the salami and steak were grilled very well without burning the edges or becoming too crisp or dry. The cheese though is where I had a little bit of a problem as there was really so much of it that it overpowered a lot of other flavors and it was so present with every bite that it was sometimes hard to notice other components.

The onions were a little bit soggy, and this is probably because the sandwiches hadn't been made at the moment of ordering them. A downside to ballpark food. I'm also pretty sure the special sauce was just Thousand Island dressing

The kaiser bun also held up well under pressure, and also after being sealed in foil for a few minutes before I grabbed mine. It did its job.

All in all, I highly enjoyed the sandwich, and it should definitely be accepted in the canon of ballpark food. Sitting there in the outfield concourse with family, the smell of barbecue, a good sandwich, and the sounds of baseball, it was truly good to be home.

Until next week, Readers...

*** 1/2 Stars
The Schmitter
Citizen's Bank Park
Philadelphia, PA

4 comments:

  1. Would it be heresy to order a Schmitter with less cheese? I think you should really be able to taste everything in that bun, grilled salami and steak sound pretty awesome all on their own.

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  2. Ben, I don't think you can order anything but they give you, at least at the ballpark. Maybe at the other place they offer the sandwich, you could.

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  3. Good to know, hm methinks it's time to make a trip to philly, taste it then make it at home...

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  4. going this friday, maybe I will have to try it out even though Bull's is just too good :) good write up brother !

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hey, totally leave your name in your post so i know who is posting! thanks for commenting!