‘Heavy and tasty.’ This is the place to go in Tacoma to sample Philly’s finest sandwich

My hand fell by a foot as I accepted the brown paper bag. It must weigh five pounds, I thought.

Turns out it’s closer to three, according to my digital kitchen scale. A pound-and-a-half of steak and peppers, cooked to order, for $15? Two of these cheesesteaks will easily feed a family of four, if not more.

I was only serving a couple, so we gladly consumed what we could squeeze, the seasoned juice and vital grease cascading into the crevices of our fingers. The bread — Amoroso rolls, traveling 2,830 miles from the City of Brotherly Love because a cheesesteak cannot be without them, so say purists — was soft, almost too soft under the weight of these leviathans. We turned to a fork to rescue the skinny stragglers of chopped steak off the plate, a foil wrapper.

For lunch the next day, we clicked the oven to 400, wrapped the leftover sandwich in foil and baked until the bread had slightly crisped and the whole thing was once again steaming. I almost preferred it, as the contents this time remained mostly in the roll.

The full-sized cheesesteaks at My Philly, a year-old shop on Tacoma’s Eastside dedicated to perhaps the most duplicated and usually off-base sandwich in America, are a masterpiece or a mess, depending on your perspective.

“Best cheesesteak this side of the Alleghenies!” says one online reviewer, nodding to the section of the Appalachian Mountains that runs from north-central Pennsylvania through Maryland and West Virginia. “Heavy and tasty,” says another.

My humble born-and-raised on the other side of Pennsylvania opinion: it’s hard to say without traveling to every state eating nothing but cheesesteaks, but positively yes and yes to the second. Similarly styled steak sandwiches were a staple of the sub shops and pizzerias my family frequented. I texted a photo of My Philly’s tribute and my mother replied that, incidentally, she had a cheesesteak for dinner that night, too.

Torrence and Dalita Moffett opened their first restaurant at 4314 E. Portland Ave. in June 2021, with the help of their daughters Imani and Kierra, as well as a couple of cousins. Originally from Seattle, they moved to Tacoma about six years ago.

“Everybody asks me that question,” said Torrence Moffet when I inquired of inevitable assumptions. His wife’s grandfather hailed from West Chester just outside Philadelphia, and he often encouraged the Moffetts to open a shop in Seattle.

They both learned from a native, though, having worked at Philly’s Best, a cheesesteak joint at 23rd and Union in Seattle’s Central District. It’s now closed, but the memories live on in the impressive rhythm of Moffett’s chop-chop-chop of a metal spatula hitting the flattop, audible from the no-frills dining room in Tacoma.

MAKING A PHILLY CHEESESTEAK IN TACOMA

Here you can order a cheesesteak with or without peppers and onions, with white American cheese or Cheez Whiz. There are no other cheese choices, which means no one will send you side-eye for ordering one, wrongly, with Swiss. According to Moffett, “mostly people from Philly” opt for the Whiz; it’s not his preference, but it’s been essential to the Philadelphia cheesesteak experience since Kraft introduced the spreadable product in the 1950s.

The sandwich itself — at first just steak — dates to the 1930s, when the Italian owner of a hot dog stand in South Philadelphia stuffed grilled steak into the bun instead. Amid the battle between Pat’s King of Steaks and Geno’s, Jim’s hit the scene, and by the ‘40s the cheesesteak as we know it emerged.

Essential to My Philly’s rendition, and any good cheesesteak, is the technique, that repetition of the play-by-play.

Moffett starts with the meat, spiced with a 10-ingredient house blend, including but not limited to garlic, onion and chili powder, plus steak seasoning. He chops about seven times before giving it a good flip. Onions and peppers follow, the mound spritzed with a touch of oil and — this is key — water.

“Get the steak nice and juicy, then you layer it with that white American cheese,” said Moffett, and “melt until you see it going down to the grill.”

As for the rolls, “It has to be Amoroso rolls — no other rolls will work!” The rare occasion that supply has been an issue, he said, they simply closed for the day. The rolls spend a few seconds atop the meat, before the whole thing is flipped right-side up and double-rolled in foil.

My Philly also serves the confusingly named chicken cheesesteaks, subbing thigh meat for beef. Ishkabibble’s on South Street purports to have created this version after opening in 1979. It’s a worthy alternative here, too, available with the same add-ins. There is even a veggie deluxe for non-meat eaters. (Note to strict vegetarians and vegans: no veggie-only grill.)

The brave among us might try the cheesesteak hoagie, finished with lettuce, tomato and raw white onion. In a special 2018 cheesesteak issue, Philadelphia Magazine called this style “an absolute disgrace” and “a lesser form of both the cheesesteak and the hoagie.”

Do your thing. I’ll take the East Coast-style Italian hoagie — all-cold capicola, genoa salami, provolone, LTO, dressed with oil and vinegar — a sandwich as elusive in this region as snow in summertime.

MY PHILLY TACOMA

▪ 4314 E. Portland Ave., Tacoma, 253-301-2022, myphillytacoma.com

▪ Monday-Saturday 11 a.m.-8 p.m.

▪ Details: cheesesteaks with classic ingredients in no-frills setting; order in-person or by phone

▪ On the menu: cheesesteaks with steak, chicken or veggies plus cold hoagies, half/6” $8.49-$9.49 or full/12” $13.99-$15.99; seasoned fries with or without meat and cheese, $3.99-$8.49

This story was originally published August 3, 2022 at 5:00 AM.