Penn Station Subs

[Thanks for the Crepes]

Today I tried them out when they sent me a coupon for a "Your first one's on us" free 6" sub. I also got a small order of fries. The fries were good, made to order and skin on, but probably not double fried, although I've had much soggier and limper examples. These were cut pretty thinly, so I think that probably helped them out with the single fry technique.

 

I chose a Philly cheese steak, which is their signature sandwich. It comes standard with grilled to order steak, onions, mushrooms, provolone, pickled banana peppers and pizza sauce. I thought the last two ingredients were weird on a Philly cheese steak, but decided to leave the banana peppers on because I could see no option for the more common grilled bell peppers. I did ask them to hold the pizza sauce. I found the portion for the price quite skimpy. By their own admission on their website, the 6" I had contains only 2-1/2 oz/71 grams of meat. Their twelve-incher only has 5 oz of meat. The photos they post of overstuffed sandwiches are lies, as is becoming more of a norm these days. It does help that the bun is only 2"/61 cm wide. You get the picture. The bread isn't bad, but I can buy better 10" sub buns across the street at Harris Teeter grocery at 2 for $1. As predicted, pickled banana peppers have no place on my Philly cheese steak, although I like them on a cold Italian sub. Also even though the the sandwich was only a six inch, I started at the cut end and thought there were no mushrooms on it. There were, but they were all down their on their lonesome at the other end that had no meat. At $5.09 plus tax for this small sandwich with only 431 calories and 27 grams of protein, I probably won't be back even though I also have coupons for free small fries and lemonade with purchase of 6" or larger sub and one for small fries only no additional purchase required. The nutrition calculator I linked to just reverts to the home calculator instead of my custom sandwich info, but if you eat at Penn Station and want to know the nutritional composition of your food, you're gonna need this calculator that Jeff Kayser generously cooked up for us, because in complying with the letter of the law, Penn Station does nothing to unveil their nutrition stats to people not willing to do a lot of semi-complicated and unwarranted math. Thanks Jeff, and BOOOOO! Penn Station.

 

To their credit, everything is made to order and comes out steaming hot. Also the place was fairly clean, although I had to use their napkins to brush off a table, and the staff was very nice to me. They seem to be popular, so YMMV. 

 

I've had a better cheese steak at a pub I had to walk past to get to Penn Station. It comes with a boatload of cooked to order better fries too for about $2 more than the tab would have been without coupon at Penn Station. For $2 more, you can turn that side into fried mushrooms. Gotta love that! In fact there are quite a wide array of choices for sides to burgers and sandwiches. At Mac's Tavern, I could have taken home half the sandwich to eat later too. So for me Penn Station Subs is not a winner on value at all.

 

Has anyone else eaten at this chain? What do you think? Has anyone ever heard of pickled banana peppers or pizza sauce on a Philly cheese steak before? Maybe I have been living under a rock, but these were both new to me.

 

 

[gfweb]

Interesting name for a chain. Anyone who has spent much time in the real Penn Station would expect the chain to specialize in health violations and rat turds.

[chileheadmike]

There is one close to my work. I go there once a month or so. Their version of a philly is odd and I never order it. 

 

I do like their Italian and I usually get the 8" rather than the 6". Bread is good, I think the amount of meat is fine, veggies are fresh. The fries are pretty good and always server hot out of the fryer.  I agree that it is pricey, hence the once per month visits.