The American Cheese Steak Co.: The Cowboy, 3 Layers of Flavour Heaven

The American Cheese Steak Co.

781 Davie Street, Vancouver

Anthony Sedlak‘s black olive and goat cheese tart has been one of my go-to, fail safe recipes for years so you can imagine my excitement when he opened The American Cheese Steak Co. in downtown, Vancouver. Ok, and I’ll confess that I’ve noticed between his stint as host of The Main and the opening of The American Cheese Steak Co., Anthony Sedlak has transformed his image from being a wholesome, low key, boy next door to an edgy, tattooed, culinary rebel. Not that it takes edgy rebels to sell Philly cheese steak sandwiches but it couldn’t hurt to have some street cred.

I have been hearing endless stories about the Cowboy cheese steak sandwich. It’s always the one that Anthony Sedlak makes on TV appearances, and it also seems to be the sandwich that every food blogger in town has been ordering so I was dying to try it too! I was also famished that day and the Cowboy seemed like it was the sandwich loaded with the most ingredients: shaved prime rib, crispy fried onions, bbq sauce AND bacon mayo with aged white cheddar. I was pretty excited about the bacon mayo.

When the sandwich was served to me, I could smell the deep fried onions right away. And true to its reputation, this sandwich is packed! I could barely hold it closed.

I have read that Anthony Sedlak and his team spent an extraordinarily long time developing the recipe for the bread and it shows. Just like the freshly baked bread from Meat and Bread, the bread at the American Cheese Steak Co. is soft like a dream but somehow, magically is not soggy from all the bbq sauce and creamy bacon mayo. Even the moisture from the shaved prime rib didn’t make the bottom of the sandwich soggy. I’m impressed. You have no idea how much I hate soggy bread. Not that I had to worry about that at American Cheese Steak Co.

The shaved prime rib was delicious! Tender, moist and flavourful, dressed in just enough bbq sauce to give it a healthy kick and a tangy aftertaste. And the onions were salty and crispy, adding a wonderful texture to the sandwich.

The bacon mayo! OMG. I’m pretty sure I can drink this stuff. I already love mayo and adding crispy bacon bits to it just pushed it over the top for me. I regretted not ordering a side of it for my fries.

Here’s what I was concerned about when I saw this sandwich, I couldn’t see any cheese on top. I began wishing I ordered one of the classic cheese steaks that have globs of melted cheese just slapped on top.

Thankfully, on my second bite, giant globs of gooey, melted cheese started oozing out of the bottom of the sandwich. I was in heaven! The top of the Cowboy cheese steak is smothered in bacon mayo and bbq sauce with crispy onions, the middle, jam packed with moist, tender prime rib, and the bottom of the sandwich is slathered with melted cheese. These are the three perfect layers in a sandwich. I really should’ve gotten the larger sandwich instead of the 6 inch.

I also ordered a root beer to wash it all down. The sweet and bubbly pop went wonderfully with the salty bacon and cheese in the sandwich.

The reason why I ordered the 6 inch cheese steak was because I also wanted to try the famous ACC fries, tossed in garlic, parsley and parmesan (just in case I didn’t get enough cheese in the cheese steak sandwich).

Touted as being twice fried, ACC fries really were very crispy. They still managed to absorb some great flavour from the parsley, garlic and parmesan though.

The insides of the fries were interesting, crumbly and soft, a bit like the inside of a baked potato as opposed to a super limp, oil soaked french fry (I guess I am thinking of those skinny McDonald’s fries).

I can’t wait to go back to the American Cheese Steak Co. to try the other sandwiches and their milkshakes!