Why Can't You Find an Italian Beef Sandwich on the SouthCoast?

From time to time, a TV show or movie can feature a specific food or drink and lead to a big boom in its consumption. Think Reese’s Pieces and E.T., Eggo waffles and Stranger Things, or White Russians and The Big Lebowski.

Yet rarely is the food the actual star of the show like the Italian beef sandwich is on the FX/Hulu streaming show The Bear.

There are numerous articles floating around the internet about how the popularity of the Chicago-style sandwich has exploded since The Bear debuted in June. However, it still hasn’t popped up on any SouthCoast-area menus that we could find.

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An Italian beef isn’t the same as a roast beef sandwich, or a steak and cheese sub. It involves specific cuts of beef (a top sirloin or a top round, preferably) and Italian seasonings rubbed in deep.

After a pan sear, the beef is slow-roasted and then cut paper-thin, served on Italian bread with a heavy dose of “the juice” that must be made along with it, and usually covered in hot giardiniera, a type of relish made with pickled vegetables.

Watch one episode of The Bear, and you’ll be craving one for yourself – but where can you get one around here?

There are plenty of recipes floating around to make a Chicago-style Italian beef sandwich at home, but who has that kind of time? The beef takes hours to prepare, and there’s no guarantee you’re going to get it right.

Someone needs to jump on this trend and start offering Italian beef sandwiches here on the SouthCoast. I’ll be first in line.

North Shore Roast Beef Places Worth the Drive

North Shore roast beef is its own kind of special sandwich. From the thin-sliced rare beef to the toasted bun, it may seem easily replicable, but not very roast beef sandwich is a North Shore roast beef sandwich. The best way to order one is as a "three-way" with James River BBQ sauce, American cheese and mayo. Here are some of the spots that our listeners say do it the best.

The SouthCoast Hot Wing Project

WBSM's Tim Weisberg and his son Adam spent six months touring the SouthCoast area from New Bedford to Fall River to Dartmouth to Norton and beyond, trying some of the supposed hottest wings around – and also gave some other unique wing flavors a shot, too.

The Best of South Shore Bar Pizza

There's pizza, and then there's South Shore Bar Pizza. Birthed in Brockton (and to this writer, perfected in Randolph – Lynwood Café is the true G.O.A.T.), it must meet certain qualifications to be considered "SSBP," which include: it's a 10-inch pie; it has a thin, cracker-like crust with minimal "flop;" the cheese is a blend that features more cheddar than mozzarella; and bonus points if you take it home between two carboard-type plates wrapped in flat brown paper bag. They also usually come with "laced" or "burnt" edges (terminology depends on where you are ordering), which is when the sauce and cheese are extended all the way to the edge of the pan, creating a crispy, flavorful coating to the crust. We reached out to the hugely popular South Shore Bar Pizza Social Club Facebook group to ask the experts to share the best of the best (in no particular order).

Filed Under: sandwiches