Piccolo Trattoria (Pennington, NJ)

Full steak/ onions peppers/ mozzarella cheese

I was about to write this place off - even after dining there before - when the counter staff had somehow "missed" my called-in order.  What's that all about?  They made me consider the possibility that I had called the wrong Piccolo but, no, my call history confirmed that it was their mistake, not mine.  Needless to say, after planning to save myself fifteen minutes, I ended up waiting at least another twenty/twenty-five.  There are greater tragedies in this life, but still, I was a hungry man, and they were running the clock on my patience.

Any doubt I began to have about their competence disappeared, however, when I was greeted by this vision:

Ladies and gentlemen, this here is a window into a satisfied appetite.  Note the modest size: it should never exceed this.  (Also note the shape.  I love you too, Piccolo!)  Dry paper is for the kinds of sandwiches you wash down with kombucha (and if that's your jam, perhaps this would be more your speed...), but when it's soaked, you know your sandwich-makers are graduates of the Paula Dean Culinary Institute - that is, out of distrust for their ingredients or their own cooking abilities, they simply dump as much oil on the grill as FDA regulations allow.

$6.50

Bread: 7
Beef: 4
Cheese: 5
Flavor: 8
Misc: 4
Total: 28

Its lackadaisical service notwithstanding, Piccolo Trattoria gave me very little to criticize with this hearty and delicious cheesesteak.  Every one of my personal preferences was met: the vegetables were grilled rather than boiled; the beef was tender, finely shredded, and cooked just right; the roll was toasted but still fluffy; and, most importantly, all the contents were mixed before entering the hoagie, rather than forming layers in the sandwich.  This last part tends to make or break a steak for this reviewer.  For whatever reason, mixing the component parts during the cooking process allows them to seep into one another, giving the sandwich a more unified, satisfying flavor.  It could be all smoke and mirrors, since I doubt that those component parts differ much between sub-shops, but at the end of the day, all I care about is what I taste.

In this case, what I tasted was a solid, uncomplicated, well-balanced cheesesteak.  I remember that when I ate this, it was the first thing to enter my stomach all day.  A bias, therefore, was inevitable.  After all, to quote Miguel de Cervantes: hunger is the best sauce in the world.

Piccolo Trattoria

Hopewell Crossing

800 R. Denow Road

Pennington, NJ 08534

(609) 737-9050