Simply Sandwiches

It’s wrong, I know. I went to Philadelphia and willfully ignored the siren call of the cheesesteak. But it wasn’t in vain. I had a higher calling – a sandwich that, to me, sounded much more appealing.

The Reading Terminal Market (1151-1183 Arch Street, Philadelphia, PA) is a food paradise. You’ve got your Amish apple dumplings, Amish pretzels, Amish chicken and waffles, Amish lemonade…there’s a lot of Amish going on (and they make a mean blueberry lemonade, let me tell you). But the Italians represent, too, at DiNic’s. And that’s where you go if you’re a (carnivorous) sandwich lover. DiNic’s has a very short sandwich menu, made even shorter by the fact that the roast pork ($7.00) seems to be the star of the show. Your topping choices are also limited: sharp provolone, greens and roast peppers. Don’t even think about skipping the greens or the cheese ($1.25 for 2 toppings).

My companion and I ordered one sandwich to share, because we weren’t voraciously hungry, yet when it came out we thought they’d misunderstood our order. Each sandwich half was huge, and they were nice enough to split our shared ‘wich into two baskets and give us each our own fork (in case you’re not into grabbing dropped pork bits with your hands). It proved to be the perfect amount of sandwich – and what a sandwich! The perfectly roast pork is moist and tender. The greens (spinach in our case, they sometimes have broccoli rabe instead) are sauteed just enough to be cooked through but not mushy and retain their vibrant color; you’ll find flecks of red pepper and garlic throughout the hulking green mass. And the cheese, oh the cheese. I have never had provolone as sharp as this was, and it worked perfectly to give the sandwich a lot of zing without overpowering the more subtle flavors of the meat and greens. The bread was your standard Italian sandwich bread, soft enough to eat easily but somehow sturdy enough to stand up to the outpouring of meat juice soaking into it with every bite.

In short, if you’re in Philly, you need this sandwich – you won’t miss the cheesesteak.

Not too complicated, but plenty of quality:

So much green goodness:

Close view of the tasty pork:

Simplicity is delicious: