Anthony's Pizza II (Easton, PA)

Full steak/ onions peppers/ American cheese 








$6.50


This was the best cheesesteak I have reviewed yet, and it caught me completely off-guard. When I entered the pizzeria everyone was speaking Spanish, and when I ordered the cheesesteak the Latino guy seemed a bit confused and asked me if I wanted sauce on it.  I said, "No, just onions and peppers."  I assume he meant tomato sauce, which I guess is something that they do in Easton, PA?


It sounds good, I might have to try that sometime.


Bread: 9
Great bread! Very crispy from being lightly toasted in the pizza oven and still soft and chewy. Lots of flavor in the roll!


Meat: 5
Good portion, better taste! You can see in the image above that there is a bit of redness on the meat, I don't think it was from being undercooked. I think he added some type of seasoning, if not, it still tasted amazing!


Cheese: 5
Full points for cheese because this guy put a lot of cheese on it. Most places would require you to ask for extra cheese to match this cheeseliciousness, but not here.


Flavor: 8
Everything tasted amazing, onions and peppers were all good. I can't justify giving a higher score then an 8 because there needs to be a better taste out there, but this was definitely one of the top cheesesteaks I've had in a long time.


Misc: 5
Bonus points for sheer awesomeness in a sandwich and they had ICB Root Beer, which I haven't had since I was a youngster. I was very impressed.


Total: 32

Anthony's Pizza II

3621 Nazareth Road

Easton, PA 18045-8335

(610) 515-0300

Hoagie Haven (Princeton, NJ)

Full Heart Stop (steak, 4 fried eggs, and bacon)/ onions salt pepper/ American cheese







$9.50

With this being my local sub shop, I knew from the beginning of this adventure that they do not make good cheesesteaks. They throw 2 slices of Steak-Umms on roll and then ask you if you want lettuce and tomato. It's not very appetizing or filling.

The Heart Stop is one of a few "specialty" sandwiches they make that include the two slabs of Steak-Umms. The other variations have things like chicken tenders, mozzarella sticks, and french fries in the sandwich as well. I decided on the Heart Stop because I knew that no matter how bad a cheesesteak is, if you add eggs and bacon, it will be delicious.

Bread: 8
Good bread! I could definitely eat that roll with some salt and pepper.

Meat: 1
Very small amount of meat. Steak-Umms are really gross, I use to eat them when I was a kid but back then I would have eaten a shoe if you melted American cheese on it...

...hmm that actually sounds pretty good.

Cheese: 3
I could taste a little American in there, but I'm real stiff with the cheese rating. There NEEDS to be a lot of cheese for me to be honestly happy.

Flavor: 8
This is where it all came together, the bacon, eggs, fresh onions and greasy sliced mystery beef really know how to party. The taste was mostly over-powered by the bacon and cheese but altogether it was delicious. In fact, I would not hesitate to recommend this to someone as a breakfast sandwich, that is, of course, if the person does not have to operate heavy machinery or can't afford letting their boss see them taking an 11:45 A.M. nap at their desk.

Misc: 5
Max bonus points because I love the guys at Hoagie Haven for bust'n their butts for years making the greasiest sandwiches until 2 A.M. for all of the weirdos that dwell in Princeton at night (me) and for hook'n my wife up with extra cheese and Sanchez sauce [creamy hot sauce that goes on the Sanchez, a hoagie composed of chicken cutlets, fries, and American cheese - Ed.], free of charge.

Total: 25

Hoagie Haven

242 Nassau Street

Princeton, NJ 08542

(609) 921-7723

Nelsons Corner (Hillsborough, NJ)

Full steak/ onions peppers/ American cheese

$7.50

Bread: 3

Meat: 3

Cheese: 3

Flavor: 5

Misc: 0

Total: 14

Not very impressive, beyond the fact that the ingredients were minced together. The roll was a bit stale on one end.  I understand that there are a lot of different styles of cheesesteaks even though most of the steaks I have reviewed so far have been Italian/pizzeria style cheese steaks. Bryan just reviewed a very deli/sub-shop style of cheesesteak, but this sandwich didn't fit into either category. The one thing that I did like about this steak is that they melted a decent portion of cheese into the beef before throwing it in the sandwich, so there was at least a little bit of cheese in every bite.

Nelsons Corner

601 US 206 

Hillsborough, NJ 08844

(908) 359-2253

Edison Sandwich Shop (Edison, NJ)

Full steak/ onions peppers/ American cheese





$10.00

Bread: 7

Bread was clearly fresh Italian bread and was delightful. They gave a full roll and it was flavorful and crispy without being crunchy.

Meat: 3

They cut up fresh roast beef in-front of me. It was delicious, however, they did not give enough of it. This ruined the sandwich. Poor quantity ruined the good quality.

Cheese: 2

Once again, good but not much of it...nothing to write home about.

Flavor: 7

This cheesesteak tasted great; the peppers and onions were fresh. The meat was tasty and the bread was good. It would have gotten a 10/10 had they given generous portions.

Misc: 5

I got to read a newspaper while I was waiting and that is what gave it two points, and the other three points are for the clearly fresh ingredients.

Total: 24

Edison Sandwich Shop

2270 Woodbridge Ave

Edison, NJ 08817

(732) 985-0766

La Strada Pizzeria (Warren, NJ)

Full Steak/ onions mushrooms peppers/ Yellow American cheese





$8.00
Bread: 7
Meat: 4
Cheese: 2
Flavor: 5
Misc: 2
Total: 20

This was a LOT of cheesesteak packed into a tiny little roll. The contents were flowing out of it with every bite! I was tempted to ask the man for another roll for all the leftover beef. There was American cheese melted on top of the sandwich but there was no cheese to be found within the massive mound of ingredients. I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with an overload of beef in a sandwich, I just think that there should be a better ratio of cheese to meat.

Beyond the beef overload, this was a good cheesesteak. Usually, when I have burns on my tongue after a steak, that means it was a good one... or it means that I was starving.

La Strada Pizzeria

118 Mountain Blvd Ext

Warren, NJ 07059-5633

(732) 469-2625

Desi's Brick Oven Pizza (Hillsborough, NJ)

Full steak/ onions mushrooms peppers/ mozzarella cheese

$7.50

Bread: 5

Meat: 4

Cheese: 3

Flavor: 6

Misc: 1

Total: 19

I was very excited to judge a sandwich from Desi's because I am familiar with their sandwiches and I know that they use great Italian rolls. Sadly, they didn't have their usual bread today...

The owner must have run out of their usual rolls and had to settle for something cheap and local. Other then that, the steak was pretty good.  It was filled with big hunks of meat and big hunks of fresh veggies.

This cheesesteak had mozzarella cheese melted on top of the sub, and barely any inside of it.

Desi's Brick Oven Pizza

(908) 281-5558

424 Rt 206

Hillsborough, NJ 08844

Piazza Orsillo (Somerset, NJ)

Full steak/ onions mushrooms peppers/ American cheese





$8.00
Bread: 7
Meat: 4
Cheese: 3
Flavor: 7
Misc: 3
Total: 24

This cheesesteak was great. The bread was delicious, the meat had good flavor to it and the sub was packed with ingredients. This was also a very large cheesesteak.

There were two different types of onions in the sandwich: fresh red onions, and fried white onions that had to have been from yesterday. There could have been more cheese on it; it's upsetting to see all the cheese on the bottom of the sandwich.

I gave it 3 Miscellaneous points for its large size and the cool bag it came in!

Piazza Orsillo

120 Cedar Grove Ln

Somerset, NJ 08873-6462

(732) 805-9506

The Rating System

After ruthless debate and hours of discussion, the Hot Beef Sandwich team have created a point system that will be applied to every cheesesteak experience.

This point system includes 5 basic categories:

1) Bread: 1-10

Since bread was concluded to be the most important part of the sandwich, we gave this category a 10 point scale. This part of the sandwich can make it or break it.

2) Beef: 1-5

Quality of the beef and quantity.

3) Cheese: 1-5

This category is primarily focusing on quantity. The more the better.

4) Flavor: 1-10

The flavor category refers to not only the general taste of the sandwich but also the freshness of any other ingredients that were included (onions, peppers and/or mushrooms).

5) Miscellaneous: 1-5

Was it huge? Was it wet and soggy? Was it relatively inexpensive? The points in this category are awarded for whatever reason the judge can justify. If the cheesesteak had no outstanding features or was dissatisfying, it gets no points in this category.

Ladies and gentlemen, that is the 5 pillar, 35 point Hot Beef Sandwich adjudication system.

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