Gordon's Cheese Steaks

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518 Bailey Rd.
Crystal City, Mo.
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For several years I've extolled the virtues of Gordon's Stoplight Diner. A small, simple, old fashioned, no frills burger joint. For the last few months, the owners of that perfect little burger diner have decided to branch out. I was quite excited to hear about the new Gordon's Cheese Steaks.
I've been to Philadelphia though and had a cheese steak sandwich, so I knew what one ought to taste like. Would they be up to that challenge?
It finally opened, we gave it a few days. I did notice that once or twice they posted that they were sold out for the day and were closing early. I told Angel about that and she merely responded "I could handle a good sandwich for lunch."
So I mapped out a task list for Saturday morning. First I'd stop at the Hillsboro Post Office to drop off five books I'd sold on line that week. This was an unusually high amount of sales, I can go a month or two and not sell any of the nearly five hundred books I have for sale on Half.com.
After that I would go in for my semi-regular oil change. I like the convenience of pulling into an oil change place and having three guys running around my car checking things and topping off fluids. I don't care for the inevitable up-selling, radiator flush, transmission fluid exchange, new battery or wipers, etc. This time though I did accept the offer of an overpriced air filter. He showed it to me and I could see it was more dirt and grime than actual filter. Sure, I could easily go to Wally-World and get a cheaper one and replace it myself, but that's exactly what I'd said I was going to do the last two or three oil changes, but didn't.
After this, I finally headed to Bailey Road, arriving around 11:30. (they open at 11 on Saturdays).
It was chilly, gray and snowing thick, wet, but non-threatening flakes.
The Place:
This little shed of a place has been a walk up food joint, off and on, for as long as I remember. Maybe pizza and something else, I don't recall exactly what and when.
There is no dining area. You don't even go indoors, a good, ol' fashioned walk-up. There was an awning or canopy in the front and on this occasion, about five or six people in line.
Everything is made to order, so every order takes a little time to assemble. I got in line and waited. At my turn I told the charming red headed young lady at the counter that I just wanted two 'Originals', nothing else.
I'd originally planned to get more than that, they boast a pretty good sounding 'Coney' for example. But a hand written sign cut me short. 'Cash only'. This severely limited my options. At the post office earlier I'd asked, for no particular reason for $20 cash back.  This gave me a grand total of about $23 in my billfold. I had also seen the overhead menu that stated that the 'Originals' were $7.99 each. I am quite capable of doing broad math calculations in my head and decided to keep it simple this trip. Keep to the basics. This should be their flagship sandwich.

Upon ordering the young lady handed me an IPhone sized pager. She'd said to the people in front of me earlier that their order would take twenty minutes or so.
I took the pager back to my car and browsed the internet and social media on my somewhat new 4G smartphone. That 's always a time killer. I had a book in the car as well. Actually there are five or six books in my car most of the time. I'm a reader.
So I whiled away the time. I watched as the five or six people doing the prep inside worked furiously to fill orders. The wait was noticeable, maybe fifteen or twenty minutes, but I hoped the wait and the higher than fast food prices were worth it.

The Food:
The pager finally went off. There was a wait at the line, the young lady was explaining to the guy that there was some confusion with the orders and that it would be a few more minutes.
I didn't get too frustrated by that. A place that has only been open a couple of weeks and one that was proving quite busy is going to need some time to get the efficiencies and processes figured out. So I waited a few more minutes until they acknowledged that they'd sorted it out and she handed me a plain white bag.
I left and sped home, by then, pretty hungry.
We unrolled our sandwiches threw some chips on a  paper plate and dug in. We had each cut ours in half, we just can't eat a big sandwich in one sitting.

It was indeed good. There was not too much bread, the meat was cooked perfectly, juicy with smooth, creamy cheese (product) mixed in in a near perfect proportion. We both enjoyed our half sandwiches thoroughly.

Summary:
Long time fans will recall that I do not judge the service at newly opened eateries too harshly. As I pointed out, these things take some time to build a flow, so I'll not say anything much about the wait, or the confusion with the orders, etc. These owners have had a successful diner running for decades. They'll figure it out.
I will point out a little thing that could be addressed soon, to cut overhead. There were enough napkins in the bag I was given to mop up an oil spill. Sure the sandwiches are juicy and cheese melty, but they're not that messy.
As for the sandwich itself, yes it was good. Angel commented that next time she might want a milder cheese since there was so much of it, the artificial cheddary Cheez-Whiz taste was a bit over-powering. They offer provolone, that should do the trick.
You can get sandwiches a lot of places for less than eight bucks. You can even get a bigger sandwich for less than eight bucks. But those sandwiches are franchise burgers or too heavily breaded subs. This was a real sandwich. Not too thick, not too greasy. It was fresh and authentic. So yes, in my mind Gordon's Cheese Steaks are better than a fast food burger or a Subway club. But nearly twice the price? I don't know. I did like it and I want it again. I also want to try out the dogs and slaw and fries and chili. . . so there is no question, we will go back. I can also highly recommend the place. They've taken the Stoplight's philosophy of simplicity and applied it well to the new menu. Just remember to bring a book and a fist full of cash. This place has been doing quite well in the first few days of operation, I certainly hope it continues to do well.

But was it as good as the one I tried in Philly?  I don't know. That was like fifteen years ago and I recall not being all that overly impressed. Yes, the real Philly philly was good, but perhaps over-hyped. The one I had here was easily as good, as best I can recall.

Home Subs

Klondike Rd.

Hillsboro, Mo.

Ha! Fooled you!

This is not a restaurant. It's our home. We made sammiches.

 A couple of things that we knew about ahead of time kept us on the compound, warm and cozy. It was my turn in the on-call barrel again and there was an ice storm rolling through. Angel properly stocked the pantry for the almost certain hunkering down.

I noticed the groceries. Interesting stuff. Three kinds of special bread. Sub rolls, soft pretzel bread and some square buns.

Looking in the fridge I saw deli sliced meats, three or four kinds, and various flavors of deli cheese slices.

Yeah boy, sandwiches!

The Place:

A modern but modest looking house nestled into a five acre spread a few miles outside of Hillsboro. We moved in nearly nine years ago, we've lived here longer than anywhere else. The house sits three hundred or more feet from the road and is surrounded by a 89 acre fence-less wooded plot of land that's unoccupied and has been on the market since before we moved here. Our parcel was carved out of that land, sold separately to enable the owner, who inherited the property, to get at least some money out of it. 

Across the driveway from the house is a 30x60 foot steel outbuilding that we've converted into a training center for dogs. We've built out several fenced areas, large and small, to accommodate the many dogs that come and go.

We board and train dogs. By we, I mean Angel.

During the week we both work and don't even dine together. By the time I get home her and Adam have already had dinner, she often makes enough for me too, but isn't required to. I'm perfectly capable of cooking for myself with whatever we have on hand.

This is one of the reasons we started doing the restaurant per week thing. To take some time out and spend time together.

The 300+ foot driveway is the reason ice is a bigger problem for us than most people. Twice I've slid off of it and into the yard, missing the mighty oaks by mere inches.

But it's home.

The Food:

Knowing ahead of time of the plan, I thought about my sandwich and sides for a couple of days. 

She bought a bag of potatoes too. Options.  We don't keep potatoes in the house very often. Adam wanted to make fries, we wanted potato salad.

I peeled and cubed the potatoes, boiled up a pot of water and microwaved the potatoes for five minutes to reduce the boiling time.

Angel finished them up, I had some work stuff to do.We pulled out everything sandwich-able and laid it out on the kitchen island. At several points of the prep stage we were all three in the small but open kitchen preparing something. I was thin slicing some hot house tomatoes and shredding some lettuce, Adam  was expertly twice-frying his hand cut potatoes, he peeled and sliced his own as well. He watches food shows too.

I also sliced some of the sub rolls and square buns, fired up the oven to 400, slathered just a little butter on the open faces and toasted.

Once the potatoes were done we took turns building dream sandwiches

I took one of the toasted sub rolls, pushed in the crunchy, buttery faces (they hold on better to stuff if you do this.)

On the bottom, lettuce and tomatoes. On the top, smoked turkey, roast beef and ham, topped with provolone and Swiss cheese and a thin bacon slice. I didn't use mayo, choosing instead to squeeze a little herb-vinegar-oil on it all.

A few fries, a pile of potato salad, and freshly brewed tea, done!

Angel and Adam weren't so particular about presentation. They used the same ingredients though, except Adam doesn't like tomatoes.

Angel also picked a sub roll. She took more fries than me and poured ketchup over them. She's one of those people. I'm a dipper.

She also slathered her meat in mayonnaise. I like mayonnaise too, but thought the potato salad would have enough for one meal.

Adam picked a square bun, they had toasted up beautifully. He doubled up on the bacon as well. He's a chip off the old heart attack when it comes to bacon.
His fries were exceptional. Better than any fast food joint, he made small, manageable batches, took them out before they were too dark, then, once he'd done that he repeated the process with the already cooked ones to crisp them up. He nailed the process. My sandwich was, of course, perfect. Fresh deli-sliced meats, fresh cheese, about as good a tomato as you can find in February. Lightly sauced, crunchy, buttery bread. Mmmmm.
Summary:
This was nice-restaurant quality stuff. We know what we're doing. The potato salad was slightly relish-sweet, the extra we paid for the sandwich ingredients made this meal just really, really good.
As has been my nature lately though, I couldn't finish my sandwich. The other half sits in the fridge as I type. Lunch on Sunday maybe?
With home-made meals like this, I can't say why we go out so often. We're certainly capable of making restaurant quality meals ourselves.
Highly recommended!