midas wrote:One thing that I think is often missed in these tests is value. While the amount of beef per dollar isn't the #1 factor, it should at least enter into the discussion. While I like the taste of Johnnies and the original Al's, both would have to rank at the bottom based on value.

Agree on Al's totally disagree on Johnnie's:

Johnnie’s Al’s Luke’s Portillo’s

Beef $3.43 $4.95 $4.00 $4.29
Sausage $2.57 n/a $3.50 $3.29
Combo $3.75 n/a $4.55 $4.79
Peppers $0.25 $0.45 $0.35 $0.35

Marshall K wrote:

midas wrote:One thing that I think is often missed in these tests is value. While the amount of beef per dollar isn't the #1 factor, it should at least enter into the discussion. While I like the taste of Johnnies and the original Al's, both would have to rank at the bottom based on value.

Agree on Al's totally disagree on Johnnie's:

Johnnie’s Al’s Luke’s Portillo’s

Beef $3.43 $4.95 $4.00 $4.29
Sausage $2.57 n/a $3.50 $3.29
Combo $3.75 n/a $4.55 $4.79
Peppers $0.25 $0.45 $0.35 $0.35

My beef (pun intended) with Johnnie's is the quantity. I need to order 2. I wouldn't mind paying more for more beef.

Another perspective: Although I feel Tore's makes an above-average beef, I feel the portion size really hurts the sandwich. I think it's overloaded, and would be much better with maybe 2/3 the meat.

My solution at Johnnie's is to get a sausage (dry, hot) and a beef (juicy, hot), rather than a combo. I feel it's a much better solution than overloading what is, to me, the ideal beef.

gleam wrote:Another perspective: Although I feel Tore's makes an above-average beef, I feel the portion size really hurts the sandwich. I think it's overloaded, and would be much better with maybe 2/3 the meat.

Glad to hear I'm not the only one who feels this way! I also feel the same way about Jay's. Though I don't like Jay's half as much.

I saw this thread and it forced me to register so that I could post a reply.

I am a born and raised Chicagoan and have had this argument many times before. I think your blind taste test is a great idea.

I have tried all of the places on your list and think it's a pretty decent list. It includes my #1, which I will not disclose for fear of influencing anyone or starting WWIII.

That being said, it appears that you have not limited the places to the city (i.e. Johnnie's is in Elmwood Park). Therefore, I think you should also include Duke's on Harlem in Bridgeview. It would not surprise me to be a winner in a blind taste test.

I also live in Ukrainian Village and would be happy to lend my support in any way possible to this most worthy cause.

Brian wrote:
That being said, it appears that you have not limited the places to the city (i.e. Johnnie's is in Elmwood Park). Therefore, I think you should also include Duke's on Harlem in Bridgeview.

Brian, just FYI, but Duke's was included in Beefathon V.

Brian wrote:I saw this thread and it forced me to register so that I could post a reply.

I am a born and raised Chicagoan and have had this argument many times before. I think your blind taste test is a great idea.

I have tried all of the places on your list and think it's a pretty decent list. It includes my #1, which I will not disclose for fear of influencing anyone or starting WWIII.

That being said, it appears that you have not limited the places to the city (i.e. Johnnie's is in Elmwood Park). Therefore, I think you should also include Duke's on Harlem in Bridgeview. It would not surprise me to be a winner in a blind taste test.

I also live in Ukrainian Village and would be happy to lend my support in any way possible to this most worthy cause.

Welcome to the board - I myself am pretty new but also kind of addicted. It took a few months of building my courage to start a post like this here, let alone try to document a blind taste test. The forum can be pretty intimidating but overall it has a nice and knowledgeable group.

Thanks for the tip on Dukes. In order to convince 7 of my buddies to try this, I not only had to bribe them with beer but also give them a beef stand that is on their way to my house. Unfortunately, Bridgeview is a bit out of their way.

As for lending your support - I appreciate it but with eight grown men eating beefs and drinking beer in my little condo, it may be pretty crowded. However, in the future, I may open something like this up to people on the board. I'll see how my maiden voyage goes first. Thanks much.

Sorry for the long entry but it finally happened yesterday – a blind taste test of 9 different Italian Beefs. It was pretty successful and surprising.

Each participant was to go to a specific beef stand, order three beefs – dry, with gravy on the side and hot peppers on the side. They were then to arrive at my house at 1:30pm for the blind tasting. The logistics of eight other guys arriving at my house at 1:30pm on a Saturday afternoon was enough to make me think that this could be a nightmare. Actually, everyone arrived within 10 minutes of each other and the beefs were in good shape.

Each person was to rate the beefs on the following criteria (total 50 pts):

-Bun/Bread (scale of 1-10)
-Beef Quality (scale of 1-10)
-Seasoning (scale of 1-10)
-Overall sandwich (scale of 1-20)

Then they were to rank the beefs in the order they liked them, 1 to 9 with 1 being the best beef.

Now, I know that there are some who thought that this idea wasn’t going to prove anything. You’re right, it doesn’t prove anything – and it wasn’t a scientific testing, nor was it a statistical success (with only a sample size of 9) but it was interesting tasting these sandwiches side by side without knowing their origins. Statistically, the numbers don't mean much but using the criteria, you can see some trends.

The tasters themselves are not professional critics but they have had their fair share of Italian Beefs. Some were actually able to guess some of the beefs correctly. Some had their preconceived notions of the best beef in Chicago and were very disappointed at their own observations. I had an idea that associating the name of the stand with the beef would change a taster’s perception of how good it was.

I can't seem to link the photos from shutterfly (there's no specific image name - the link just takes you to the photo folder) but I'll see if I can figure it out. The results are below.

Beef stands:

-Al’s Original
-Chickie’s
-Johnnies
-Portillo’s
-Jay’s Beef
-Torre’s
-Mr. Beef
-Boston’s
-Roma’s

The results:

It looks like the most favorite three beefs were: Jay’s, Chickie’s, and Torre’s and the least three favorite were: Johnnie’s, Portillo’s and Mr. Beef. I’ve also listed an overview below:

Bun (scale of 1-10):
1. Al’s - 7.56 ave.
2. Boston’s – 7.44
3. Jay’s – 7.44
4. Roma’s – 7.17
5. Chickie’s – 7
6. Torre’s – 6.78
7. Portillo’s – 6.44
8. Mr. Beef – 6.33
9. Johnnies – 5.67

Beef Quality (scale of 1-10)
1. Torre’s – 7.6 ave.
2. Jay’s – 7.17
3. Al’s – 6.78
4. Boston’s – 6.61
5. Chickie’s – 6.44
6. Portillo’s – 6.33
7. Roma’s – 6.22
8. Johnnies – 5.67
9. Mr. Beef – 4.83

Seasoning (scale of 1-10)
1. Chickie’s – 7.33 ave.
2. Torre’s – 7.06
3. Jay’s – 6.67
4. Boston’s – 6.61
5. Johnnies – 6.06
6. Al’s – 5.94
7. Roma’s – 5.72
8. Mr. Beef – 5.61
9. Portillo’s – 5.33

Overall Sandwich (scale of 1-20)
1. Torre’s – 15.61 ave.
2. Jay’s - 15.5
3. Chickie’s – 15
4. Boston’s – 14.56
5. Al’s – 14.44
6. Roma’s – 13.17
7. Portillo’s – 13
8. Johnnies – 12.77
9. Mr. Beef – 12.33

Total Points
1. Torre’s – 37.11 ave.
2. Jay’s – 36.89
3. Chickie’s – 35.78
4. Boston’s – 35.22
5. Al’s – 34.75
6. Roma’s – 32.28
7. Portillo’s – 31.1
8. Johnnies – 30.17
9. Mr. Beef – 29.11

Subjective Rankings (ranked by taster’s form 1-best to 9-worst)

1. Jay’s – 3.33 ave. ranking (two #1 rankings)
2. Chickie’s – 3.44 (two #1 rankings)
3. Torre’s – 3.61 (two #1 rankings)
4. Al’s – 4 (two #1 rankings)
5. Boston’s – 4.72 (one #1 ranking)
6. Roma’s – 5.89 (two #9 rankings)
7. Johnnies – 6.56 (four #9 rankings)
8. Portillo’s – 6.67
9. Mr. Beef – 6.78 (three #9 rankings)


Overall, it was a great time. Each person ate a total of about 3 beefs in the process! Some people tried all the peppers but some steered way clear as to not add that much heat to a stomach full of three Italian beefs. I can say that most did not like Chickie's unique style of hot peppers - claiming that jalapeños do not belong with a beef sandwich.

Although taking the beefs to go is not the same as eating them at the stand, all the beefs were subjected to the same conditions. Sure, you can say that this little tasting shows which beefs travel better, but the tasters all understood that there would be some travel issues and didn't fault the beef for travel reasons.

One taster summed it up well when he said, "Even though I rated Johnnies poorly, I still think it's one of the best."

I opened an account on Flickr so I could post a few pics. (Thanks Ramon - for helping me post).

Here is the beef plate in process. Each person had two plates of beef sandwich tastings, divided into 4 and 5 beefs respectfully. On the plate was a piece of wax paper with a grid indicating the beef designation - A,B,C,D,etc.



Here are the hot pepper and gravy options with letter designations.



Here is me prepping the beef plates, trying to use all the available counter space and oven top.

tyrus,

You need to click "all sizes" above the picture linked. Then select medium size. Scroll down to "grab the photo's URL" and use that link in the middle of the {img}'s. I hope that helps.

-ramon

I feel a slight sense of vindication, as I have been a longtime huge fan of Torre's ib, and post it regularly when ib discussions start. I do think, however, that in a "combo" tasting, that Johnnie's might kick the pants off of the others. Thanks for posting the results. VERY interesting.

seebee wrote:I feel a slight sense of vindication, as I have been a longtime huge fan of Torre's ib, and post it regularly when ib discussions start. I do think, however, that in a "combo" tasting, that Johnnie's might kick the pants off of the others. Thanks for posting the results. VERY interesting.

Torre's finished very high in the Beefathon ratings (at least among the group it was tested with) as well. I've always been a fan, but default to the great meatball sandwich rather than the IB most of the time.

seebee wrote:I do think, however, that in a "combo" tasting, that Johnnie's might kick the pants off of the others.

I agree.

tyrus
In the pictures it appears (given the absence of juice on the bread and plates) that the Beefs are being tasted dry.

I am curious as to how and when the gravy was combined with the appropriate sandwich to do the overall rating in order to remain a blind tasting?

Marshall K wrote:tyrus
In the pictures it appears (given the absence of juice on the bread and plates) that the Beefs are being tasted dry.

I am curious as to how and when the gravy was combined with the appropriate sandwich to do the overall rating in order to remain a blind tasting?

Most of the tasters wanted to taste them dry at first. The juice/gravy was also "blind" and associated only with the corresponding letter of the beef (as were the peppers). Most, would taste dry, then put some of the gravy on the beef and re-taste. Sometimes this helped, sometimes hindered as a couple of the gravies were referred to as "greasy." Having the gravy helped with the "seasoning" tasting a bit.

Everyone likes their beefs different. We had a few guys that only order their beefs dry. Me, I like like it juicy but not dipped since I like the bun to have some integrity. It actually wasn't a problem keeping it blind since all of them use plain white, clear plastic, or paper cup containers. I guess if you really know the stand, you could figure it out - but what fun is that? Funny thing is, some of the guys were faster eaters and had a hard time waiting to find out which beef was which.

In my humble opinion, an Italian Beef sandwich that's not dipped is like a cheeseburger without cheese. It's a similar sandwich, but it doesn't really capture the whole concept.

eatchicago wrote:In my humble opinion, an Italian Beef sandwich that's not dipped is like a cheeseburger without cheese. It's a similar sandwich, but it doesn't really capture the whole concept.

LOL -

I always order them "dry."
I'm also the person who orders the double cheeseburger - hold the cheese at Mcdonald's. I do this with the Wendy's double stack as well. As a funny yet sad "I could've had a v-8" aside:

Last week, I was around Brickyard Mall (diversey, and naragansett nw side) around 7pm. From there I needed to get somewhere around Maywood Race track. Had to grab dinner to go. There is a mcd's on the outer rim of the mall grounds where I was at, and I saw the 2 for 3.00 sign for qp's, and big macs. So I walk in, grab 2 qp's (hold the cheese) and head to my next destination. So, I head south, to North avenue, and West to Maywood park. I drive right by Johnnie's with a mouthful of nasty, cheap, qp thinking that I must be the dumbest person alive.

I'm a big fan of Johnnie's, but also Boston's, Chickies (two pet projects in the very early days here, BTW) and Al's. And I was happy to learn through Beefathons that Torre's, practically down the street from home, is great too. I wouldn't say that anyone really fared "poorly" here, since you chose to rank the members of Chicago's pantheon of beef. This is a little like "ranking" Ivy League (and Stanford, and Chicago and whatever) schools. (Though I'll end the analogy there; I won't compare you to a news magazine that, itself, would be third tier in any ranking of news magazines.) Not legitimately valuable as a decision making tool, except perhaps at the margins, but interesting nonetheless. In the end, we are lucky to have them.

JeffB wrote:I wouldn't say that anyone really fared "poorly" here, since you chose to rank the members of Chicago's pantheon of beef.

I couldn't agree more. We all thought the same. We didn't really have a "bad" beef in the lot. I would go to any of these and be happy. Basically, our group has either had a friendly discussion over which stand makes the best beef or has made mention that they had never tried one of the stands (most had not had Boston's, for example).

The event was more of a reason to get together and have a few beers. Where else would you get to sample a little of each of "Chicago's pantheon of beef?"

With that being said, why isn't there a "Beef Fest" in Chicago? Seems like a worthy cause...

I really enjoy the process of these things. You do learn something, even if the ranking part is not that important in the abstract. The thing about having so many good beefs in one place is that beefs, when they are not good, are so damn bad. It isn't pizza or ice cream, foods that many feel can't really be bad. I disagree and offer most pizza in the South and West as proof, but I do think it's a common sentiment.

Great post!!!!
What a fun way to explore the world of beef, and a great excuse to drink some beers with your buds. I'm inspired to do something similar, just have to figure out what to rate.

drshoebocks wrote:Great post!!!!
What a fun way to explore the world of beef, and a great excuse to drink some beers with your buds. I'm inspired to do something similar, just have to figure out what to rate.

We had an idea of sub sandwiches (Bari, Alpine, etc.). They travel much better and there is a limited number of good ones.

It was a good time. Just pick something and remember to document. Cheers.

Just want to thank Tyrus for organizing the best use of my time I can think of for a Saturday afternoon. And for the record, not one edible thing was consumed the rest of that day (or inedible as well I suppose). Didn't want to tarnish the taste and memory still fresh to me. Maybe subs in the summer for a dinner time competition and wash it down with a Cubs night game.

It is a beautiful thing, tyrus, well done.

All of these places do a good job, so I have no issue with your results.

Stopped by Carm's (Wolf Road, Westchester) at lunch today, and my reaction was the same as the last time. Somehow I think they put fresh beef in the gravy but leave in old bits, because every sandwich has a small, but not insignificant, percentage of the beef that is dry and overcooked. Maybe 10%???

But a very good sandwich, excellent giardinera (lots of jalapenos, tyrus, to you would disapprove, almost like a jalapeno relish, but fresher, less vinegar), and the beef that is not overcooked is quite good.

Anyway, thanks for furthering the study of Chicago IB. I suppose the real message is that there are maybe 10 places in Chicago that make high quality IB, no real flaws in any of them, and the one you like is more a case of personal preference. For me, there are three or four that are a little better, but that next group of six or so are also very good.

eatchicago wrote:In my humble opinion, an Italian Beef sandwich that's not dipped is like a cheeseburger without cheese. It's a similar sandwich, but it doesn't really capture the whole concept.

I agree. Italian beef is more than the sum of its parts.

To me a great Italian Beef Sandwich is indeed the sum of it's parts. While I totally dislike Johnnie's Sweet Peppers, Johnnie's Beef, Dipped, Sweet & Hot is still right there at the top of my favorites[/quote]

Okay, I'll make my 1st post here about Italian Beef, although pizza would probably be more appropriate.

I went to Jay's last week and ordered an IB wet w/hot peppers. When I got home the "hot peppers" looked like sweet peppers w/ one or two pieces of celery. Is that their version of hot peppers? I guess I was expecting giardiniera.

I'm no foodie, so be gentle.

furious styles wrote:Okay, I'll make my 1st post here about Italian Beef, although pizza would probably be more appropriate.

I went to Jay's last week and ordered an IB wet w/hot peppers. When I got home the "hot peppers" looked like sweet peppers w/ one or two pieces of celery. Is that their version of hot peppers? I guess I was expecting giardiniera.

I'm no foodie, so be gentle.

If it didn't look like this, they screwed up:



(This is hot and sweet peppers)

Drove past Carm's Beef in Hillside at lunch today.

Dark inside with a "Closed by Hillside Building Department" bright orange sticker on the front door.

Anybody know what happened?

I think they were closed by the Hillside Building Department, but I'm just taking a stab at it.
Oh relax, it's just a little humor. (Yes, VERY little.)