Eatery - Philippe The Original Restaurant (CA)

1001 N Alameda St, Los Angeles, CA 90012 (Neighborhood: Chinatown)
Pricing - $ | Dining - Casual, To-Go | Cuisine - American, Sandwiches
www.philippes.com

One of the awesome things that Duc and I found out is that we both have the same goal of trying out foods in cities of their namesakes and finding places that were the creators of some common food item. We made a day/afternoon trip out of going to LA to finally get the French dip sandwich at Philippe's. Supposedly the sandwich was created in 1918 by accident when the owner Philippe Mathieu dropped a french roll into the drippings pan; the customer said it would be no problem and thoroughly enjoyed the sandwich. People started wanting more! Thus, the French dip sandwich.


When we both got there, boy was it busy! It was so crowded by regulars and newbies alike. You can see in my picture that it was nuts (and brownie points if you can spot me - let's play "Where's Minerva?"). We finally got to order and made sure to get an original beef sandwich. That was just fantastic. We both actually liked it better than the other sandwich we got. It had a nice thick helping of sliced beef and enough of the sauce on the bun to make the sandwich savory; the sauce kept the bites from being too dry. We also got a side of potato salad that boy oh boy, I loved. I'm a fan of potato salad but especially of how they had cut the potato up into small pieces.


The other order was a lamb sandwich with Swiss due to some suggestions/tips I had seen on Yelp. We also each had gotten lemonades for each of us since they were around 75 cents (can't remember) each. They were delicious! The lamb sandwich was pretty good but was the lesser of the two sandwiches. Nice chunks of meat though. What a crowded place to visit but it sure was fun to eat a bit of history. (Note: cash only place)