Phamous Philly’s popped up a few months ago on Chittenden at Summit — it’s near the OSU campus zone, and just few blocks north of Weinland Park and Italian Village. The place has a catchy name and a polished logo that gives huge hints about the menu; it’s based on the classic Philadelphia cheesesteak sandwich.
To make a classic cheesesteak sandwich, you’ve gotta have a few things: chopped steak, cheese, onions and a roll. According to the internet, the steak has to be “frizzled”, which is a novel culinary term that denotes a chopped-and-griddled treatment. There will probably be arguments about the type of cheese, the type of roll, and whether or not green peppers are required. That’s par for the culinary course.
At Phamous Philly’s, the basic Cheesesteak ($7.99) sandwich seems to meet those requirements. The house uses a long, split-top roll. It looks chewy and crusty, but it’s actually more dewy and soft instead; good for snuggly wrapping around the contents. The steak inside is something between sliced and chopped, massacred into a pile of easy-eating niblets. American cheese dissolves and holds it all together like an appealing glue.
With all due respect to the genre, it’s comfort food and it’s junk food; the place serves street fare. And it’s good enough by those standards. If you want artisan gourmet stuff, you probably need to keep driving on to Italian Village.
The menu has more than just cheesesteak sandwiches. Diners can venture off into all sorts of sandwich variations. For example: Special Cheesesteak ($8.99). That’s a combination of a pizza and cheesesteak in a soft roll. Griddled in the steak mix are peppers, mushrooms, pepperoni and some marinara. Having already embraced the fact that the joint is all about junk food, this option just guilds the lily. It’s a messy pizza sandwich packed with protein.
Chicken eaters have a world of options too. For one, there’s a Chicken Ceasar ($8.25) sandwich: it’s shredded chicken held together with caesar dressing and long strands of lettuce. It’s probably antithetical to any health reasons for ordering chicken (or a Ceasar, for that matter), but it’s pretty easy to scarf down in a fast food frenzy.
There are burgers and hot dogs too. The buns for the hamburgers are ginormous, soft and they fully envelop the burger inside. It makes the meat component look meager in comparison, but the offering is also a low-end Cheeseburger option ($5.99 with crisp bacon). Quality wise, the ground beef has a natural texture and is topped with cheese that seals the bun to the meat.
Sides are pretty typical: fries, rings and cheese sticks. The Mac and Cheese Bites ($4.50), provide clotted, cheesy starch inside cripsy triangles and are as likable as the ones you find everywhere.
While the menu and logo are polished, the joint itself is still developing. It’s working on a sports theme, with Crew player jerseys on the wall, and a growing collection of OSU football game ticket stubs. In the aforementioned zone between campus and gentrification, it’s more geared towards the area’s college students. It fills the same sort of stomach void that motivates a late night gyro run. In the campus area, that’s a big void to fill.
You can find Phamous Philly’s at 201 Chittenden Ave.
More details will be coming soon to www.phamousphillys.com.
Photos by Walker Evans. Photos are taken at a different time than review, so discrepancies between photos and review may occur.
