So The Times Visited Citizens Bank Park…

New York Times cheap eats guru Peter Meehan just went on a comprehensive tour of America’s ballparks to find the best stadium eats around. Hell, the poor bastard even had to sit through a few Cardinals games and even try the abomination known as a “Dodger Dog.”

(A note to our readers, should they ever go to Dodger Stadium: Sell out to the chains and get a Carl’s Jr. It’ll help you make the best out of a bad situation.)

But the important thing is that he is all about Citizen’s Bank food:


shburn Alley is home to hoagies, Chickie & Pete’s crab fries (French fries dusted with Old Bay seasoning) and two of the city’s respected cheese steak purveyors, Rick’s Steaks and Tony Luke’s. Tony Luke’s had the better cheese steak of the two (though their other locations are notably superior). Even better is Tony Luke’s juicy roasted pork and provolone sandwich, dressed with tender broccoli rabe, as good a meat sandwich as there is in the majors.

Also not to be missed is the Schmitter sandwich from McNally’s, an outpost of an 87-year-old Germantown tavern at the end of Ashburn Alley. It’s not named for the Phillies legend Mike Schmidt, but rather, I was told, after a long-gone McNally’s customer who always ordered it with Schmidt’s Beer, the now-defunct Pennsylvania brand.

The Schmitter packs, from top to bottom: melted cheese, a generous squirt of a “special sauce,” griddled salami, more cheese, sliced tomato, fried onions, griddled steak and another slice of cheese, just to help keep the beef in place. It was the unhealthiest thing I encountered on my cholesterol-gathering trip, an unholy alliance of meats, cheese and mayonnaise tucked into a Kaiser roll. It was also impossible to stop eating after the first bite.

Mmm… heart attack on a plate.

Baseball Park Food Reaches Big League Status [NY Times]

So The Times Visited Citizens Bank Park…