Ok so there are a few questions, should I be having an Italian beef sandwich for breakfast? Did I have one?, and was it nice? Not really, yes, and it was. Luckily I am not charged with exhalting the culinary heights of Chicago or only seeking out the best of the best. This allows me to get down and dirty on occasion at one of the local classics such as Al’s Beef.

I should really make the effort and seek out the original location, but instead I went to the one located at 3420N Clark Street as I pass by this pretty often on Brown El Line which overlooks the store where the red and brown lines intersect just before Belmont Station.

Although you can see the place from the train, it is a bit of a walk, either south from the Addison Red station which was my option, or north from the Belmont stop, or even east from the Southport stop. So pretty easy to get to by El, only there are so many other places to eat you would sadly probably never make it there

I am not going to get really excited and claim that it is a brilliant sandwich, but its pretty decent and it filled an early Saturday morning void on a sunny November day. I had the Little Al Italian beef combo, which came with fries and a drink for about $8. The fries were good, not covered in salt, freshly cooked, and I did not need to drown them in sauce to make them palatable. The sandwich meat was nicely tender thinly sliced and had a good peppery gravy taste, considering its a franchise quite well executed, but I have only ever had this one Italian Beef in my life so far so it could have been awful or great. In comparison with a standard Roast beef Poboy in New Orleans, or a CheeseSteak in Philly it didn’t fair too badly, but I will need to put the best against the best to be sure.

The first location is at 1079 W. Taylor St. Chicago, IL in Little Italy, with the general webiste
http://www.alsbeef.com/

and the place was featured on Man vs Food too http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS8Lho118dQ having rewatched that clip, I now have to go to the W. Taylor location to do the hunch