BB’s wins the award for most-focused sandwich shop. Their menu has only one thing on it: cheesesteaks. I love this kind of focus! They also sell sodas and chips, but those must be there just to placate vegetarian friends of steak lovers. BB’s is tucked in a little shop that it shares with a cupcake store. How bizarre? Maybe the cupcakes are for the vegetarian friends? Seems like it’d be better to share the store with a cap store, or a knife store or something more manly like a WWE wrestling ring.

BB’s cheesesteaks ($5) are a bit different. Most cheesesteaks are served on a long roll, sliced lengthwise and stuffed with grilled steak and cheese whiz. Real cheese, onions and mushrooms are optional. BB’s cheesesteak is served on a kaiser roll with american cheese, onions and some kind of magic sauce. In most cheesesteaks, the meat and cheese flavor is all there is and it’s completely overpowering. In BB’s you get a lot of other flavors. There’s not nearly as much meat as usual can you can barely taste the cheese since it’s a tiny little sliver melted into the huge roll. The secret sauce loses some of it’s allure when you discover it tastes like ketchup. Most cheesesteaks are so big you want to plant your face in the second half and take a nap. Not BB’s, these are normal sized and you can get up and keep walking around the west village afterward, looking for old LPs, “tobacco use only” pipes, or fingerless gloves, because that’s all they have for sale. The sandwich is good, but feels more like a “house signature” deli sandwich, than a supremely refined cheesesteak.

All those differences aside, BB’s cheesesteaks are tasty little sandwiches. For $5 you get a sandwich that won’t debilitate you, a variety of flavors and a few minutes to consider their aggro slogan. No, it’s not the “Best damn cheesesteak”, hell, it’s not even really a cheesesteak! Sorry, BB, you’re out of the running. Nice sandwich though.

The roasted onions and ‘secret sauce’ make it a higher strategy than most, but the boring ingredients make it lower than average execution:

Their convenient dissection:

Served on a little plastic plate:

The angle makes it look bigger than it is:

Look how big the roll is!

Oh Wogies. Your cheesesteaks are incredible. They’re not like others (see 99 Miles to Philly and Carls Steaks): not greasy or terrible food-coma inducing. They are warm and cheesy and incredibly flavorful. There is no horrible yellow run-off of excess fluids. The bread is safe to touch and still bready (and not soggy), the wax paper is not soaked through. The outside is covered with cheese whiz, the inside a symphony of steak with backing from the onions and mushroom quartet (other members MIA). I’m not sure how Wogie gets the steak so delicious — perhaps it’s enriched with god or marinated in magic sauce. Any presidential hopeful who enacts a law to make Wogies magic-sauce public domain will get my vote.

Oh Wogie. You are the best cheesesteak chef (cheesesteak chefs in Philly have not yet been reviewed. Want to help alleviate that? Apply to be a regional correspondent!).

PS – Oh Wogie, your website looks like a post-college frat boy hangout, it wasn’t. You really ought to update.

Unwrapped:

Bitten:

Back at the office, I unwrapped my delicious morsel to find that it was soggy and cheesy and warm. I bit in a few times and was immediately returned to the womb. The cheese whiz coats your lips and the steak slides right down, filling you with warm grease. It’s an instant transformation from mostly-functioning society member, to gurgling infant. “chweez stwek.” You don’t even need teeth to eat these sandwiches; the bread is soaked through with grease and the fillings are so mushy, they might as well be pre-chewed. There is nothing hard or crunchy inside, no lettuce or toasted bread to worry about. It’s all soft and warm and mushy.

It’s not 1995 anymore, Carl. AOL ain’t top dog anymore, Carl. These cheese steaks are good, but I’ve had better, Carl. Sure they make me a baby, induce instant food-coma and make the site of consumption smell delicious all day, but they ain’t perfect. They’re too greasy and too soggy. Valiant effort Carl, but I think you should say hello to Mr. Wogie.

I’ll have a side of used grease too:

It’s really gross up this close:

Peppers add some color and unexpected texture:

Chicken cheesesteak is a sacrilege (and a paradox):

I struggled with this dual nature when crafting this post: on one hand they are delicious and people should celebrate them; on the other hand, they look a bit gross and the photos won’t be too appealing. I came to this conclusion: associate the slightly off appearance with melt-in-your-mouth sandwich happiness. See past the grease, through to the tasty wonderland of cheesy meats.

This fine specimen comes from 99 Miles to Philly(94 3rd ave, New York, NY), a little Philly cheese steak joint in my hood.