There’s a cheesesteak place in New Zealand, and our reporter at the World Cup tried it

AUCKLAND, New Zealand — A fellow traveler here at the women’s World Cup tipped me off a few days ago that there was a cheesesteak place in town.

I groaned, because whenever I’m out of Philadelphia, the city’s local foods are the last thing I want to eat. Especially when I’m in a part of the world with so much of its own incredible cuisine.

I hadn’t quite picked up on where the place was, and it won’t surprise you that I didn’t bother looking it up. But on the eve of the U.S. women’s soccer team’s tournament opener, I was walking from Eden Park to a bar nearby where the American Outlaws’ supporters’ club was having its night-before-the-game party.

As I turned the last corner, I saw the bar. And right next to it, I saw the thing I’d been hoping to avoid.

Phat Philly’s opened just over a year ago. It’s full of neon lights and American cultural references, including a famous Getty Images photo of Barack Obama eating a cheesesteak at Pat’s when he was campaigning for president in April 2008.

I felt a certain instinct, the same one that my longtime friend Dan Orlowitz — a Montgomery County native in Tokyo who’s a sportswriter for the Japan Times newspaper — felt when he heard of a cheesesteak place in his adopted hometown. And I knew what was to come, whether I liked it or not.

It was my job to order one of those cheesesteaks, and write about it.

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I must confess that I don’t eat cheesesteaks very often. When friends visit from out of town for soccer games, I take them to Reading Terminal Market and tell them to get a roast pork sandwich. Or I take them to K’far for brunch, or Gran Caffè L’Aquila for pasta and whatever soccer is on TV.

(I am not a paid endorser, of course, but my Twitter followers know I’m at those last two places often. And it’s neat that both establishments’ owners are soccer fans.)

If my friends really want a cheesesteak, I tell them to go to Jim’s, because it’s good and near Center City. But it makes my point that I haven’t been asked since before the place tragically caught fire a year ago.

Anyway, here I was, staring at my fate halfway around the world from home. So I walked up to the touchscreen at the counter and ordered a Full Phat, the place’s name for the traditional sandwich. It was NZ$15, which is just over US$9, and despite its name it wasn’t all that big. Which was fine with me, because I wasn’t all that hungry.

There was one guy behind the counter, and I watched him go to work. The roll was called a “hoagie roll,” but it didn’t quite look the part. And the guy griddled the bread on the flattop grill, which surprised me a bit. I asked him where the bread was from, and he replied: “I don’t know, I just work here.”

At least he was honest. I didn’t say anything else.

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I saw what the menu called “cheese sauce,” which looked pretty close to Cheez Whiz but wasn’t the original. I was fine with that, since New Zealand has strict rules on importing food to protect its livestock and environment.

The meat looked the real thing, but that’s the easy part if you can get ribeye steak. And the onions were properly grilled, though cut a bit larger than the diced-up bits we’re used to.

Right as I was about to order, some friends from Telemundo walked by. I had run into them earlier in the night and told them of my plight. One of them volunteered to take some video of me eating (and judging), and you can watch it below.

The meat was quite good, with a bit of a spice rub. The cheese sauce was indeed a pretty close approximation of Cheez Whiz. And the onions hit the spot in quantity and quality. So in terms of taste, it hit the mark.

(Yes, I’m an easy grader, but I’m not Craig LaBan or any of our other food writers. If a place is good, and preferably cheap — hello, bosses reading this — I’m easy to satisfy.)

» READ MORE: Messi, World Cup, Premier League: Soccer heats up in Philadelphia and around the world

But when I picked up my order, I immediately noted one big problem. The roll was cut fully in half.

If you’re a cheesesteak or hoagie connoisseur, you know why this is a big deal. If you aren’t, I’ll explain. The reason why Philly’s specialties carry so much heft is that the bread is cut in a way that makes it a cradle for everything that gets stuffed into it. If you fully split the bread, that can’t happen. And if you pick up a cheesesteak with a fully-split roll, you risk half of it falling out before you take a bite.

Right on cue, gravity did its thing.

The roll also wasn’t it texture-wise. It was closer to an oversized hot dog roll than an Amoroso roll or the roll you’d get with a Vietnamese banh mi sandwich — and there are lots of those around here.

Judging from Phat Philly’s Instagram account, it seems I was there on the wrong night. All the rolls in the photos there look much more like the ones we’re used to.

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I know that for professional reasons, I should go again and see if the bread is better. I haven’t written to the place’s owners, either, to let them know about my reporting.

I don’t think I’ll go back though, and I hope the owners forgive me. It’s not about them — for one thing, I’m not sure if I’ll be over that way again while I’m here.

But more importantly, I didn’t come to New Zealand to eat a cheesesteak. So I’m going to pass on having a second one.

I wish Phat Philly’s a happy and profitable future, even if it makes me un-Philadelphian to be so polite in public. It just won’t involve me.

Update: The local media in New Zealand saw our story and added some more context. A reporter for Stuff.co.nz reached Phat Philly’s co-owner Tim Shallard, who said the bread shouldn’t have been fully sliced through. He also admitted it’s been hard to find the right kind of rolls in the country, and that the shop recently changed its bread supplier.

“The new one is a little bit less crunchy,” Stallard told Stuff. “It’s hard to find in New Zealand any bakers that make legit hoagie rolls, but we think this does the job. It tastes pretty good.”

This reporter appreciates the response, and thanks Stallard for not giving us visitors too much of a grilling.