Two Sandwiches, One City
Ask a tourist what Philadelphia eats and they'll say cheesesteak every time. Ask a South Philly lifer and you might get a different answer — one involving slow-roasted pork, sharp provolone, and broccoli rabe bitter enough to make you pay attention.
The roast pork sandwich is, by most serious local reckoning, the city's finest contribution to the form. Pork shoulder roasted low and slow with garlic and rosemary, sliced thin, dunked in its own cooking juices, loaded onto a seeded Italian roll with braised broccoli rabe and aged provolone sharp enough to cut through all that richness. Every element earns its place. Nothing is there for show.
| Roast Pork | Cheesesteak | |
|---|---|---|
| The bread | Seeded Italian roll | Amoroso roll |
| The filling | Pork shoulder, garlic and rosemary, dunked in its own jus | Ribeye shaved thin on the flat-top |
| The cheese | Aged sharp provolone | Whiz, American or provolone |
| The green | Braised broccoli rabe | Fried onions, if you want them |
| The crowd | Feeds the guys who built the city | Half pilgrimage, half theater |
The cheesesteak is genuinely great — ribeye shaved thin on a flat-top, onions if you want them, Whiz or American or provolone, on an Amoroso roll that collapses pleasantly under the weight. It is a satisfying sandwich. It is also, at this point, a performance. The long lines at the famous spots on Passyunk Avenue are half pilgrimage, half theater, and the sandwich you get at the end is often eaten standing on a concrete island between two drive-through lanes. This is not ideal dining.
The roast pork has no such mythology problem. It feeds the guys who built the city, not the guys photographing it. For generations it showed up in the lunch pails of South Philly workers and on the tables of the Italian Market neighborhood, where the pork was local, the provolone came from the counter at a shop you knew by name, and the rabe was a vegetable your grandmother grew up cooking because it was cheap and kept you honest.
Broccoli rabe — rapini — is the ingredient that most separates the roast pork loyalist from the casual sandwich tourist. It is assertive, faintly bitter, and absolutely correct with fatty pork and sharp cheese. It does not apologize. Neither does the sandwich.
Both exist on the same city blocks, and both are worth eating. But if you land in Philadelphia and only have one sandwich in you, consider going where the locals go, ordering the thing with the rabe, and skipping the line at the famous place for once. The cheesesteak will still be there tomorrow. So will the argument.
