If you've had the cheesesteak at the Truck Yard and found it to be life changing, congratulations. You've just found one of the better sandwiches served in Dallas and a homage to a great Philadelphian classic.
The Truck Yard has gotten a lot of attention for its food trucks but the cheesesteak served in the restaurant and bar that frames the lot might be the most delicious thing going.
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But it's also possible that you've had a cheesesteak at the Truck Yard and found it rather ho-hum. If that's a case you're surely bummed, but here's one reason it could have happened:
Owner Jason Boso has his cooks shave entire rib roasts on a deli slicer instead of buying frozen pre-sliced meat, a move that's common in better sandwich shops in Philly but relatively rare pretty much everywhere else. And while the technique produces meat with better flavor overall, it can also produce an inconsistent sandwich.
As that whirring blade slices through what might have been a Delmonico steak destined for a smoky grill, it liberates slices of meat with highly varied levels of fat content. Some slices are ribbed by thick bands of white fat, others are red and lean. The first cheesesteak I had at the Truck Yard was good, but it looked dry as I watched it cook on the grill and it ate that way, too. The second one I ate, which started with what appeared to be fattier, meat was a revelation. Fat equals flavorful meat -- always. Even when it's eventually covered in a blanket of cheese.
I asked Boso about the variability and he said he's noticed it too. And while we kicked around ideas for improving the consistency, it's not certain that anything will change anytime soon. So for now when you order your steak ask the guy that grabs one of the meat-wads from the bin to pull one that looks as fattiest. It will be better than a lot of the places in Philly.
