Layovers are never fun. And I don’t mean the extended layovers that give you time to leave the airport to explore a city. I mean the layovers where you are just stuck in an airport waiting for a connecting flight. Yet, amidst that suck a lot of airports have begun to move away from only offering crappy fast food and overly expensive generic sports bar food. One of these places is Philly’s F Terminal, where a cheesesteak spot going by the name of Tony Luke’s can be found.

Tony Luke’s sports a full breakfast sandwich menu for such ungodly hours, but still has the classic cheesesteak available. I ordered mine large with whiz and without onions, then waited a few minutes as the steak was prepared. The sandwich looked pretty solid, however, I was a little disappointed to find the meat was just kind of a slab in the middle of the bread. I guess when it comes down to it, I’m just a chopped cheesesteak kind of guy. Everything else was as good as you might expect, with a nice, even spread of cheese and slightly crunchy and fluffy roll to take it all down.

If you’re a fan of unchopped cheesesteak, Tony Luke’s is a great bet, but to me there’s just something about that chop that takes a good cheesesteak to the next level.

I’m not sure any first-time trip to Philly is worthwhile without a trip to Pat’s and Geno’s. Yes, I realize that they probably attract more tourists than locals, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are bad. Yes, I also realize that this wasn’t my first trip to Philly, but the only other time I set foot in the city was long before I became a meat blogger and I was snowed in the whole time anyway. So, yeah, I feel confident in saying it wasn’t worthwhile. I began my taste test with Geno’s for no other reason aside from that spot being where my taxi dropped me off.

As per the instructions, I ordered “wiz without.” Within moments, the cheesesteak was ready. And I mean like instantly. I couldn’t immediately locate the cheese when the sandwich was handed to me, but I was able to find it after a bite or two. Unfortunately, the majority of the cheese was kind of just on the end of the sandwich with the fold, requiring me to take a couple bites to get the full cheese effect. Geno’s doesn’t chop up their steak so it looks a little flat, but it is plenty meaty. The bread was good, but not as as good as Steve’s because it was a bit too squishy, but otherwise it was quite satisfying.

While I had heard Geno’s might be a bit overrated, it didn’t disappoint. After I finished up, it was time to make my way across the street for another cheesesteak.

EDIT: Stack’d II quickly became The Ave which quickly became the Tipsy Cow. Gone are the sandwiches, but you can read about the Tipsy Cow here.

While the list of great sequels is quite short, a few stand out. And joining the ranks of X-Men 2 and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Secret of the Ooze is Stack’d II (hopefully someday they’ll update their site to include this). As you may recall, I once paid a visit to Stack’d in Shadyside, a build-your-own burger concept that found success on sales of beer, keeping their burgers cheap and not by the quality of burgers being pumped out. In fact, this was so successful that they made a sequel that swapped burgers for cheesesteaks.

I must admit I was skeptical at first. After all, a burger seems easier to make than a cheesesteak. But all the toppings from the original Stack’d were there, along with new toppings you’d be likely to find on a cheesesteak like cheese wiz, mushrooms and peppers. As an added bonus, Stack’d II cuts their sandwich prices in half on Wednesdays after 9pm so a base cheesesteak is only $3.

I went with the classic, just with steak and wiz, with Cajun fries on the side. It turned out that this was the best $4 cheesesteak I had ever had (cheese costs a buck, which seems somewhat ironic). The wiz was a little nacho cheese-esque, but the meat was pretty good and nicely seasoned. Clearly, making cheesesteak meat en masse is better than making burgers the same way and it showed. The roll was somewhat soft and although I would have liked a little more crunch to it, it did its job. I also felt like the fries were an upgrade from Stack’d, in that the seasoning was way more powerful.

As opposed to my first visit to the original, I am somewhat excited about a return to Stack’d II to see what kind of interesting cheesesteak concoction I can craft. It may not stack up to a more authentic spot, but for the value it’s hard to beat.

One day outside of my work, a new truck appeared. It was called Bera’s Custom Cheese Steaks and since the best cheese steak I’ve ever eaten came from a food truck, I thought Bera’s was definitely worth a try. They have a surprisingly robust menu for a cheese steak truck, ranging from Thai Chicken Steak to Stromboli Steak. But as good as some of these looked, I was thinking more about the “Custom” in their truck name.

Going custom meant I got a choice of meat, cheese, topping and sauce/dressing. For the meat, I chose their rib-eye steak and for cheese I went with the classic Cheez Whiz. For my topping, I went with bacon and then skipped out on the sauce. After all, Cheez Whiz is essentially cheese and sauce in one. I paid up my $8.99 for a full-sized sandwich, which also came with chips, then waited for my food.

Shortly after, my cheesesteak with bacon was ready. I opened up my little cheese steak box and and saw a beautiful sandwich. I couldn’t wait to get my mouth around it. As soon as I did, I was in cheese steak bliss. I don’t know where the roll came from, but it seemed to be the perfect cheese steak roll. The outer crust flaked just a little bit, and inside it was perfectly soft and easy to bite through. I was a little disappointed by the small dose of bacon, but when I considered it as a topping, it really filled the role well. It was perfectly crispy and really added a nice salty, smoky taste to the sandwich. The steak itself was chopped deliciously thin and the cooking process had made it juicy enough that even without the Whiz, I probably wouldn’t have needed a sauce. Yet, I did get Whiz and it complemented the cheese steak just perfectly. In my day, I’ve had some good cheese steaks and I’ve had some great cheese steaks (and of course some bad ones). The difference between good and great? Cheez Whiz. No doubt.

My custom cheese steak from Bera’s really surprisingly delicious. The combination of Whiz, steak and roll were perfection and the bacon served as a great icing on the cake. After that experience, Bera’s is a food truck definitely worth visiting again.

In North Hollywood there is a little sandwich place with a ’50s theme called Philadelphia Sandwiches. I’m not sure how Elvis and cheese steaks are related (unless it’s a fluffernutter cheese steak), but somehow they have managed to coexist since the sandwich shop was started in the ’80s. Specializing in Philly Cheese Steaks, I figured the place at least deserved a shot at meaty glory.

The place was set up like a diner, but without the bar stools. Ordering was at a counter, and since the place was pretty empty, I walked right up to the counter to place my order. Although they had a few different sandwiches, I chose their Famous Philly Cheese Steak. It came with onions and a choice of cheese. I got mine without the onions and then, since they didn’t have cheese wiz, chose provolone cheese. I also got a side of fries. Unlike fast food sandwich shops, after placing my order, they set to work on actually cooking my meal.

I could smell the delicious meat cooking on the griddle and then my meaty sandwich was ready for some tasting. I opened up the wrapping and it looked pretty good. There was a high bread to meat ratio, but since this was the end of the sandwich I was looking at, I was forgiving. I unwrapped it down to the middle, where it was cut in half and the bread to meat ratio seemed to improve a bit, but not much. I bit in and found the seasoning on the meat was delicious. The bread was pretty fresh, but a little bit spongy. I also was a little disappointed in the provolone cheese. It wasn’t that the provolone was bad, but that the sandwich would have been better with cheese wiz instead. At the very least, I could have chosen American, but had failed to do so.

Nonetheless, Philadelphia Sandwiches was pretty tasty. It certainly wasn’t the best Philly Cheese Steak I’ve ever had and won’t be unless they tone down the amount of bread and start offering cheese wiz, but it’s a good alternative to the same old sandwiches you can get at fast food shops any other day.

Before spending a weekend of hiking in Joshua Tree National Park, we stopped at a little shop near the visitor center called the Park Rock Cafe. We didn’t need too much before a day filled with jerky and trail mix, but we at least wanted to get ourselves a square meal. There weren’t a lot of options, as you would expect. It was mostly sandwiches and all of them had some sort of vegetable plopped inside to ruin it. Despite this, I still chose their Philly Cheese Steak Sandwich, which came with onions and peppers. I ordered mine without those sandwich killers and then was given a choice between soup and salad. I made the obvious choice for soup, which was cracked lentils. I don’t really know how you go about cracking a lentil, but I do know that lentils are more of a legume than a vegetable, and legumes are just fine by me.

The soup came out pretty soon and was halfway decent. The lentils were fully cracked and it had some nice-tasting croutons. It definitely could’ve used some more salt, but at least the flavor that was already in there wasn’t bad. After a longer-than-expected wait, my cheese steak was ready. It was a stubby little sandwich that had neatly sliced strips of beef on it, so it wasn’t the kind of cheese steak I’m used to. It looked more like a roast beef sandwich with cheese on it. I started eating and it was just okay. The beef was a little dry and didn’t really fill the bread to the edges like I always prefer. There wasn’t much seasoning, but all in all, it got the job done.

Park Rock Cafe was definitely not the kind of place to seek out, but that’s not really what it’s there for. It’s there to satisfy the hunger of Joshua Tree travelers and for that it is a success.

Where the mac and cheese balls from World Fare were my appetizer at the Silver Lake Jubilee, I still needed to find myself a main course. After a long stroll around the trucks, I found myself at a truck that I had never seen before, called Lee’s Philly. Lee’s Philly is born of the same vein as many of the Kogi-style food trucks. Their specialty is gogi beef, but while they have fused it with tacos and burritos, they have also created a Philly cheese steak out of the stuff. Wording on their truck claims that they have “LA’s Best Gogi,” but I took it upon myself to be the true judge of that.

I decided to order their Gogi Cheese Steak and when I asked what came with it, the lady told me it was beef and onions topped with cheese. Aside from the onion part, this sounded great, plus it came with chips for only $5.99. I ordered it without those terrible onions and waited a few minutes for it to be ready. It came rolled up in a combination of tin foil of paper. I peeled away the layers and it looked deliciously onion free. Then I took a bite. There was a crunch. Onions? No, kimchi! I walked back up to the truck with a sad look on my face and explained to the lady that I had no idea it would come with kimchi. She then explained to be that the kimchi was a part of the gogi style. I’m no Korean, so I wasn’t exactly in a position to argue with her, but I was under the impression that gogi only applied to the way the beef was cooked and had nothing to do with extraneous vegetables such as kimchi. Nonetheless, she offered to give me a regular cheese steak to replace it and I accepted.

When it was ready, I repeated the ritual of unwrapping. When I made it through the wrapping, I found that the beef looked less seasoned than the other one, and when I bit in my fear was confirmed. The beef didn’t really have much flavor and the cheese also didn’t add much. It’s hard to mess up cheese and steak, so I am hesitant to say that there was anything wrong with this sandwich, but it certainly was missing a special something that bulgogi beef may have added. Instead, it was just an ordinary cheese steak that failed to satisfy my desire for delicious fusion.

As an attempt to mix up the sandwich scene from the usual Quizno’s and Subway, I took a ride out to Jersey Mike’s Subs in Hawthorne. The inside of the place was pretty similar to the typical sub place, so I was a little disappointed. I hoped that the sandwiches would at least be different. I had heard they had great Philly Cheese Steaks despite being from Jersey, so I was planning on getting one of those. It wasn’t easy, though, because they had some really good-looking sandwiches.

They had a few different cheese steaks, but also some other meaty delights. Nonetheless, I went with the original “Jersey Mike’s Famous Philly.” It came in regular and giant-sized, so I ordered the giant, without grilled onions and peppers of course. These were not necessary for my cheese steak. It was nice to see them actually pull out some uncooked meat and cook it on a griddle, as opposed to the sub places that just pull pre-cooked meat out and think that’s good enough. When they pulled out the bread, I saw that this was truly a giant sub. A foot-long was nothing compared to this monster. Unfortunately, this came with a price of just over ten bucks. The man who handed me the sub looked me in the eye and said, “You’re going to eat this whole thing, aren’t you?” I replied that I was with a deep pride in my heart and ponied over my money. I hoped this price would be worth it.

It was. Almost. This cheese steak was damn good, with soft, yet tasty bread, gooey cheese and tender steak. The size was certainly massive and no bite went to waste. For a price like this, though, I would have like some more meat. The meat that I got was great, no doubt, but this was an expensive sub that deserved more.

Stuck in the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport on a layover, I set out to find some good food to eat. This isn’t exactly an easy task, especially considering that I had a very limited amount of time to eat and had to resort to fast food. I found Charley’s Grilled Subs and decided to try it out. The had a grill where you could actually see what was being cooked, plus the prices weren’t out of control.

I quick glance at the menu revealed to me what I needed to eat, the Bacon 3 Cheese Steak, three of my favorite foods in one sandwich. They actually had a pretty efficient system set up, where the guy grilling asked you your order before you made it to the cashier, so it could be prepared ahead of time. I guess when you’re eating in an airport, you notice these things.

After my sandwich was prepared, I was offered a wide array of veggies, which I promptly rejected. In anticipation, I brought my veggie-free sandwich back to my gate and ate it. For airport food, I was pretty impressed. It was better than Quizno’s and surprisingly filling. Plus I had watched it get grilled right in front of me rather than getting boiled or prepared the night before. The only complaint I have was that there wasn’t enough meat on it to cover all the bread. A couple of the bites I took were missing substance. In the end, though, I was definitely full.