Italian Beef in St. Louis

For lunch, I had half an Italian beef sandwich and "Italian broccoli slaw", with an iced tea to drink. The location was Adriana's on the Hill, an Italian sandwich shop in the old Italian neighborhood of St. Louis, The Hill.

I've never had two Italian beef sandwiches that taste the same. Jon is from Chicago, so he is very picky about his Italian beefs. His favorite outside of Chicago is at Chicago in Denver. I am not a fan of Chicago's Italian beef, instead preferring the olive oil-soaked version from Fontano's. A quick read of the wiki confirms that Italian beef is in the eye of the beholder; Jon scoffed at today's sandwich because it contained cheese, but it appears that this isn't necessarily verboten.

In any case, this Italian beef was pretty tasty, despite its lack of Chicago street cred. The beef was on the bland, lean side, with roasted red and yellow peppers, Provel cheese, and a sparse coat of olive oil and au jus, on dense sub bread flecked with sesame seeds. The bread lacked chewiness, and the cheapskate in me is bothered that Adriana's charges extra for au jus, but no major complaints. I ordered the lunch special, so my half-sandwich came with slaw. I've never seen anything like it, and am still not clear on what, exactly, it was. I suspect it's not very unusual, but I am working on a decades-long hatred of slaws, so it was new to me. I think it consisted of pickled, julienned broccoli stems with red onions, shredded carrots, italian seasoning, and a ton of salad oil. Its great potential was drowned by said salad oil, but the concept was interesting.