Friday, June 11, 2010

Michael's Deli - Double Philly Surf & Turf


Another stop in my quest to eventually eat every Philly Combo (aka Philly Surf and Turf) in the city. If you don't know, the Philly Combo is an old Philadelphia hot dog variation that consists of a hot dog and a potato-fish cake on the same bun, usually with mustard and onions, sometimes garnished with pepper hash.


At Michael's Deli at 4th and Wolf - an unassuming South Philly corner store with video poker and a kitchen in the back - this is the only way to get them. 2 smashed fish cakes, and 2 split hot dogs on a hoagie roll, with mustard and onions.

The result was better than I expected. The fish cakes were fresh (not too fishy) and Dietz & Watson dogs were decent. The roll was nothing to write home about, and the option of pepper hash would have been nice to add some moisture to the sandwich. But overall a success.



A tiny South Philly corner store with juice, cigarettes, and a few dusty groceries, walking in you might be surprised that they even serve food, let alone a giant menu with a zillion different hoagies, cutlets, burgers, hot dogs, wings, breakfast, pasta and even pizza. I don't really understand where they keep all the food.. maybe a kitchen or walk-in freezer in the basement?

The cheesesteak we also tried was just OK, but some of the concoctions on the menu have me curious enough to go back.

• Animal Farm
Big pile of Chicken breast, cheesesteak, bacon, cheese, onions...

• Brontosaurus Burger
3 burger patties served with fried onions, swiss, american, and mozzarella cheese.

• The Stray Dog
3 hot dogs on a large italian roll with fried onions, relish, saurkraut and mustard.

• Pizazz Pizza
Another obscure Philadelphia classic. Pizza with American cheese, tomato slices and sweet peppers.

Then for breakfast there's scrapple and eggs, pork roll, creamed chip beef, baloney & egg. And everything is cheap as hell.
Check out the crazy menu here (with music!) -
Michaelsdeliphila.webs.com

Michael's Deli
4th & Wolf
Philadelphia

more fish cakes and pizzaz-

Drawing For Food - Fish Cakes from Gus's Cart and Bubby's Brisket
Drawing For Food - Nicky & Pete's Famous
Hot Dog Of The Week - Philly Combo
Meal Ticket - Outside The Box (Pizzaz at the end of the article)

1 comment:

Philly Phoodie said...

That is right in my hood. I may need to check out that surf and turf. Looks pretty decent.