Dining out: Fillet of Phillies

MURRAY — Phil Sainsbury has a simple dream, and he's willing to work for it.

At an age when a lot of men are looking forward to kicking back and enjoying a leisurely retirement, Sainsbury has realized a decades-old dream by opening his own eatery, Fillet of Phillies, and offering real "Philly" steaks and cheesesteaks to the Salt Lake Valley.

To Sainsbury, that means thinly sliced ball-tip steak, provolone cheese (the original cheese, though many Philadelphia eateries now offer Cheese Whiz as a standard topping) and locally baked rolls.

The result, visitors will find, is several steps above what you can find at the "Philly steak" places in local malls.

However, that quality comes at a cost: You'll wait a bit for your food. Fillet of Phillies, like others of its type, is a family store. On the recent Saturday we visited for lunch, we arrived at the beginning of a rush that left the young woman at the counter explaining to customers that the wait for a sandwich was about 30 minutes. They are freshly made one by one, after all.

It didn't take us nearly that long to get our large order. And as we ate, we heard several waiting customers, obviously repeat visitors, telling one another, "It's worth it."

I think they're right. We enjoyed everything at Fillet of Phillies, from the deliciously greasy hand-cut fries to the enormous, buttery cookies studded with various types of chocolate, courtesy of the local Durrant Crown Bakery.

There's a simple kids menu at Fillet of Phillies — an "Uncrustables" PB&J sandwich or a corn dog, chips, soda — and a couple of the kids in our party had that. But our oldest daughter and her friend Samantha shared a 6-inch hot ham-and-cheese sandwich, which the staff obligingly cut in half for us. Besides being piled with lean, smoky thin-sliced ham, their sandwich was ladled with Cheese Whiz-type topping, a true Philly touch.

My husband had the standard cheesesteak, chopped grilled steak and provolone melted onto a big soft roll with just enough crust to hold the whole thing together. This was a simple sandwich that shone, thanks to its good preparation and quality ingredients, The meat, in particular, was a revelation: juicy, tender, not at all stringy and with a full, beefy flavor that permeated the roll.

With it, he had a big cup of fresh house-made chili, chock-full of meat and chunky veggies in a thick, smoky soup.