Pat's King of Steaks (PA - South Philadelphia)

We were headed to Philadelphia for a wedding and figured we would sneak into town a night early for dinner at Morimoto. At the last minute, my wife suggested that instead of dropping a few hundred dollars on adding another restaurant to our trophy collection, we ought to go find an authentic Philly Cheese steak.

Neither of us had ever had one and I was excited at the prospects of trading another boring night of four star dining for some real culinary adventure.

My wife had done some advance research with a colleague from Philadelphia and I scoured her notes on the train - a jumbled mix of words and addresses with phrases like, "Pat's - claims to be the original," followed by, "order wiz wit," and finally, "cash only - don't forget Geno."

Confused by the notes, which read like a cross between the scripts from A Beautiful Mind and Goodfellas, I began looking for a real live Kurtz the moment we arrived at 30th Street Station. We were in search of THE quintessential Philly Cheese steak and didn't have time to waste on pretenders.

I began with the cab driver. He claimed that Pat's was the best, but confessed that he didn't eat cheese steaks that often. The bellhop at our hotel also suggested Pat's. The hostess at the check-in desk suggested Geno's, but added that, "I really like their French fries," which completely discredited her.

Upstairs, in our room, we ripped through guide books, scrutinized ads in the yellow pages, read tea leaves and contemplated enlisting the services of an Augur before journeying forth into the darkness.

With the power of popular opinion behind Pat's, we hopped in a cab and barked out Pat's coordinates. We knew that if we didn't like the looks of the place, we could always go to Geno's instead - they are located across the street from each other.

As the cab drew closer, the horizon brightened - aided by the hundreds of neon lights dancing above Geno's and the pale glow of the countless florescent tubes illuminating the outdoor seating at both establishments. I felt like I had been had.

This glow-in-the-dark intersection looked like South of the Border dropped in the middle of South Philly. This had tourist trap written all over it.

I surveyed the outside of the two establishments, and as I rounded the corner next to Pat's, that sinking feeling of doubt in the pit of my stomach was replaced by hunger as a wave of caramelizing onions washed across my face.

I grabbed my wife's hand and charged to the counter.

The long line at Pat's gave me time to consider my order. I remembered reading the words, "wiz wit," on the train and now began to understand their previously cryptic meaning.

"Wiz," refers to Cheez Wiz - the preferred dairy accompaniment to a proper Philly Cheese steak. The menu offered Provolone and American as possible alternatives, but it was authenticity we were chasing, so "Wiz" it was.

The "Wit," portion of the cipher referred to whether or not you wanted onions. In Philly, nobody orders, "with onions." Instead, they bark, "wit," which causes any cheese steak jockey worth his or her salt to add onions to your "steak wiz."

After practicing this new language over and over in my head, I approached the Charon-esque woman behind the counter and recited an overly rehearsed and somewhat canned request for, "two wiz wit." She nodded in understanding and wheeled around to begin assembling the cheese steaks.

Next to her was a pile of sub rolls, a vat of warm Cheez Wiz and a griddle that had to measure at least six feet long. Piled high on either side of the griddle were towers of raw steak and sliced onion. In between these two towers was a veritable Death Valley of caramelizing onions and frying steaks. The fat pouring out of the steaks had pooled in the center and the result was that the onions and raw steak more or less braised in the runoff - rather than frying on a clean griddle.

Charon grabbed a sub roll, slathered it with Cheez Wiz and then stuffed a mound of steak and onions into it. She repeated this process and thrust the two creations back at me through the window.

Buoyed by my mastery of the Philly lexicon and perceiving more of a rapport than I had actually established, I then said, "thanks - we also need an order of fries and two diet cokes." She stared back at me blankly, shot out her open palm and said, "$9.80." I said, "What about the fries and the drink?" She barked back, "next window - $9.80 for the steaks."

Completely crest-fallen, I paid and sulked to the next window to collect my fries and sodas. Once I paid the cashier at that window (I'm still not sure why they make it two transactions), we grabbed a seat and began to tuck in.

I was at first surprised by the size of Pat's cheese steaks. Pat's steaks are only about three inches wide and about seven inches long. These were not the monstrous, foot long, six inch wide imposters you sometimes encounter elsewhere. At these dimensions, they more closely resemble a French baguette sandwich than anything that Subway or Quizno's can churn out.

Each bite revealed salty Cheez Wiz and tender bits of steak, finished by the clean sweetness of the onions. The liberal amounts of fat and jus melted into the bread, converting an otherwise average white loaf into a sort of chewy, beef flavored bread pudding.

Pat's is the real deal. After years of churning out good cheese steaks, they have perfected the ratio of bread to meat to cheese and onion. This ensures that every bite of your Pat's cheese steak will include equal portions of all of the ingredients.

We mopped up the last of the melted Cheez Wiz and jus and sat back, basking in the afterglow, convinced that we had found, "the one."