Pats vs Genos

This afternoon, I witnessed first hand the biggest battle in Philly - the battle between Pats and Genos - the two ultimate Philly cheesesteak places. We went to an area called Italian market (as featured in the fantastic Rocky films - if you haven't seen Rocky 1 and 2 you must (don't bother with any of the others) for your Philly knowledge and to enrich your lives!) Italian market is where you can buy everything from whole pigs to fresh pasta to luxury cookware.) The place is fantastic, busy as hell with people filling up wheely shopping baskets, passing spice shops next to fish mongers next to sausage sellers next to chocolate shops. After about an hour of wandering we made our way towards the battleground.

A Philly cheesesteak is a staple food over here. It is a white bread roll filled with shredded steak (which kinda looked like kebab meat) with or without onions and cheese, served with a drink and cheesy fries. Not so good for the waistline but the amount of nervous sweating you do before ordering cancels out the weight gain. There are very strict rules for ordering a cheese steak:

Rule no. 1: You have to know what you want before you reach the counter.
Rule no. 2: You must choose either wit or witout (meaning with or without onions) and which cheese you want - American (plasticy cheese) or Provolone (Italian white cheese) or Cheese Whiz (cheese in a can (I'm not joking)). Ordering must use strict cheesesteak language such as if you want a steak with onions and cheese whiz you must say "Wit Whiz" or a steak without onions and no cheese is "Steak witout".
Rule no. 3: You must not hesitate when ordering, ask any questions or deviate from the above rules or you risk being trampled under other more educated cheese steak experts desperate for their Whiz!

Easy eh? Once you've got passed all that the steak is definitely an experience, but may taste a lot better after a heavy night out and the only thing that will do is some calorie busting, cholesterol accelerating uber greasy messy meat and chip combo. Pat and Geno's are the best and most famous cheesesteaks places in the world with a long rivalry. As I understand, Pat was the original steak joint - successful, profitable and unique. Until across the street a new steak place, Geno's, opened up copying Pat's set up exactly, except for covering their whole building in orange paint and neon signs (Pat's decor is much more subdued). Nowadays, they eyeball each other across the street as Phillyites and tourists alike munch their way through the greasy sandwiches...it's all pretty cool to watch.

We also experienced our first " First Friday" which is one night a month that all the small art galleries in one area of town open their doors to the public until late for free and with wine and beer. We wandered in and out of galleries falling in love with some stuff and gasping at the crazy prices and looking at the conceptual pieces uttering "I could do that at home" knowing full well that you couldn't. There is also a fringe festival going on and we were lucky enough to witness the first toilet tricycle race - which is exactly what it sounds like tricycles with toilets for seats. It was a blink and you'd miss it event but a hellava lot of fun.

If anything Philly is pretty interesting.....

LOL xxxxxxxx

Listening to: my husband being very noisy in the kitchen

Feeling: tired - went out for my first run in months today

Learnt this week: the Bush administration is more evil than I could of ever imagined