Another Foodie Find on the Road

Seek out little local eateries when you're on the road.  You can stumble upon some great finds in unexpected places!  This time it's in the Atlantic City area.

Route 30 from Garden State Parkway to Atlantic City is Motel Row - oodles of more modest motels than the glitz and glamour of high-rise casinos.  But here sits one of 6 family-owned sub shops in the Atlantic City vicinity.  Sounds pedestrian - but far from it!  Best sub or sandwich I've ever eaten anywhere in the world.

Sack O' Subs started back in 1947.  The Sacco Family, originally butchers, still butcher their own beef for delicious steak & cheese subs, and grind their own beef for hamburgers, meatballs and Italian sausage (the family recipe has been handed down for over 100 years).  They bake their own baguettes for the subs, bake their own rolls for the burgers and sandwiches.  "Foot-long subs?"  Bah, humbug!  These homemade baguettes run about 18 inches long, so a half-sub - very generously filled - actually will satisfy 2 for lunch.

Yes, they are in those glitzy hotels, too, both Bally's and Harrah's.  And they ship next-day priority overnight in insulated shipping containers anywhere in the US.  Yes, they do get orders from Hawaii, about as far cross-country as you can get.  I'm told a California computer mogul - transplanted South Jersy-ite - regularly orders 100 subs shipped to the California company for employee lunch parties.

Sack O'Subs, 784 White Horse Pike (Route 30), Absecon, NJ; www.sackosubs.com.  Locations in Ventnor and Ocean City, in addition to Bally's and Harrah's Casinos' food courts in Atlantic City.

The best pizza I found over 1,300 miles from the Pizza Capital of the World: Mike's Stone-Baked Pizza in Tallahassee, Florida.  I found the best Hong Kong Noodles in Singapore, and the best Singapore Noodles in Hong Kong (Foreign Correspondents Club, so unless you're a member or guest of one, you won't get any of those - sorry for your loss).  There's just no telling where you're going to find the "best" whatever - it could turn up wherever.

May your road rise up to meet you (with good food!),

Best, Ann

Road Warriors’ Need for a Fast Feed

In Asia, food fast means a trek to the nearest hawker stalls.  Europeans take their food so seriously they sorely disdain the very notion of food-on-the-run.  Unless you grab a gelato from a handy cart, you’re may be out of luck when you need to grab some food fast.  The fast food industry is biggest in the US.  Americans often eat on the run. 

And wherever you go, there are times you just want something familiar – an old reliable standby, rather than risk more strangeness.  After months in Indonesia, where any ground beef was jokingly referred to as “roo” (as in kanga-), the first stop on leave in Singapore was McD’s for “real” burgers.  The best McDonald’s cheeseburger I ever ate was in Moscow the day the city ran out of bread.  McDonald’s had burger buns: they owned wheat farms and controlled bun-making with typical McD’s precision.  They grew fantastic tomatoes (like Grandma’s garden) and leaf lettuces in the deep, rich Russian soil, too.  Very satisfying after months of riding the rails through China, then Siberia.

Road Warriors need fuel, and sometimes have to fuel up on the run.  Five Guys Burgers & Fries currently tops various lists of best burgers or best fast food.  I think they are hideously greasy.  Manhattan prices, when outside of Manhattan, do not sit well with my wallet either.

A better answer is Steak & Shake – an old chain founded in 1934.  Sparse on the ground – they are not present in every town or crossroads – they’re still worth tracking down if one is near wherever you land.  Roadside diner service at less-than-McD’s prices.

The Cheesy Cheddar Burger is a double steakburger with enough genuine Wisconsin cheddar to swim over burger, plate and fries.  Lettuce and tomato tops the burger.  The fries are skinny and good enough to disappear down the hatch even if you swear your diet is not going to allow you to tackle the entire pile.  Not so greasy – neither burger nor fries.  And really quite tasty.  At $4.99, it’s such a good deal.

If you are on the road Stateside, Steak & Shake beats McD's, Wendy's, Five Guys, et al.  On the fast food scale, it rates fabulous.  The burgers are thin, so do get doubles.