Eating The History-Making Crawfish Cheesesteak with Councilman Bill Green

Last night, history was made on Sansom Street when the kitchen at Chris’ Jazz Cafe turned out what I’m pretty sure was the world’s first-ever crawfish cheesesteak, a combination of shaved rib eye, chopped crawfish tails (hand picked from fresh, flown-in-from-Louisiana crawfish that were boiled – alive! – earlier that day), provolone and American cheeses, and homemade Cajun remoulade, all served on a Liscio’s roll from South Philly and garnished with whole ‘dads (whether you suck the heads or not is up to you).

And the world’s first tasters of the world’s first crawfish cheesesteak were none other than me and Councilman-at-Large Bill Green (we had a scheduled happy hour meeting to talk about the inefficiencies of government).

Coincidentally, I had All Bran with yogurt for breakfast and the Councilman had the same for lunch, but we agreed to set aside any notion of dietary restrictions in favor of becoming culinary adventurers, so we split one three ways with a guy named Mets, who does not eat seafood but for some reason felt moved to join us.

The verdict was that this is not just some gimmick to promote the arrival of crawfish season in Philadelphia (Chris’ expects to bring in 3,000 pounds of the mudbugs between now and June) or to advertise the bar’s Mardi Gras party on Tuesday ($25 all-you-can-eat crawfish, $3 Abita beers, $5 Sazeracs and Hurricanes, live music), though it is definitely that. But it’s also a great little sandwich, a worthy spin-off on Philadelphia’s pride and glory. Said Green, “Take that Nagin…. This thing is delicious.”

And at $10 with a pile of Cajun fries (plus $2 for a pint of beer), it just might be my dinner again tonight. But this time, Bill, I’m not sharing.

Chris’ Jazz Cafe [Official Site]