Searching For Chicago Beef Sandwich Satisfaction In Seattle

Binge watching The Bear — the hit FX sequence now streaming on Hulu — is certain to trigger a yearning for an enormous juicy Italian beef sandwich. There’s a candy spot in Seattle’s Georgetown neighborhood that may assist scratch that nagging itch.

Chicago’s a good distance from the Pacific NW

It’s roughly 2,000 miles from Seattle to Chicago, however that’s the gap I used to be tempted to drive after devouring Season 1 of the heart-wrenching, humorous, completely entertaining sequence about life within the kitchen of a dysfunctional household restaurant within the Windy Metropolis. After the ultimate credit of episode 8 began rolling, I needed, no… I wanted a kind of sizzling mess sandwiches often known as Italian Beef.

The seemingly easy creation is synonymous with the classics from that metropolis and it performed a starring function in The Bear, although it was extra of a sequence of teasing cameo appearances. No slow-motion meals porn right here. Key elements are skillfully assembled, cooked with care, completed in a mad sprint which may embrace a half dozen particular requests. There’s lots of yelling, each within the entrance of the home and within the again. However the prospects consuming these sandwiches? They’re quiet, virtually reverential.

When The Bear opens, viewers may surprise why a celeb chef is cooking at a spot that appears barely seedy, a spot the place payments haven’t been paid and the proprietor dedicated suicide. That’s the chef’s large brother who left the restaurant to his youthful brother, Carmy. It’s intense and unhappy and in the end hopeful.

The meals is what brings all these disparate characters collectively, and what pulls them aside, time and again. Anybody who’s labored in the same state of affairs will possible acknowledge some truths. Some cooks I do know are taking a tough move on watching as a result of they’re afraid it’ll set off their PTSD. I get that, however I couldn’t cease. And as soon as I used to be executed, I needed to have an Italian Beef Sandwich.

Welcome to Georgetown

The as soon as gritty neighborhood south of Seattle’s downtown has reworked over the previous decade, or so. It’s now residence to dozens of locations to eat and drink and hang around. Fran’s Chocolate moved its HQ to the outdated Rainier Brewery in 2014 and Charles Smith opened the most important city vineyard on the West Coast in 2015.

Smarty Pants is arising on 20 years in that a part of city. The house owners — Tim Ptak and his accomplice, Michelle Braasch, — are Chicago transplants, who have been trying to deliver some Midwest taste to their new stomping grounds. The scratch-made menu is sandwich-centric, although there’s an in depth brunch lineup on weekends.

The Italian Beef is described as “thinly sliced, completely seasoned house-roasted beef served on a french roll and topped with candy peppers, giardiniera, and juice.”

Ptak mentioned the recipe was developed by way of a sequence of trial-and-error tastings: “In Chicago, there are about one million variations, however we needed one thing that tasted like what we grew up consuming. I feel it’s fairly darned shut.”

Granted, I’ve no earlier expertise consuming an Italian Beef, so I can simply declare this model to be the very best I’ve ever tried. What made it so compelling was that mixture of the savory, slow-cooked beef and candy peppers. The pickled Italian relish jogged my memory of the olive salad on a muffuletta. And that juicy juice was seeping into the roll was paying homage to the French dip at Philippe’s in Los Angeles.

It hit the spot, but in addition left me hungry for extra. A buddy who lives in Chicago promised to take me on a tasty Italian beef sandwich tour the subsequent time I visited. Deal!

Within the meantime, I’m wanting ahead to Season 2 of The Bear. And in the event you haven’t seen it but… nicely, what are you ready for?

Right here’s the official trailer:

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