French Dip Sandwich

This sandwich has nothing to do with France. It was born in downtown Los Angeles, sometime around 1918, in a cramped kitchen where a cook named Philippe Mathieu supposedly dropped a sliced French roll into the drippings of a roasting pan. The customer loved it. The French Dip was born.

Cole's Pacific Electric Buffet, just blocks away, tells a different origin story. The truth doesn't matter much anymore. What matters is the sandwich itself: thin-sliced beef, a roll with proper crust, and a little bowl of jus so saturated with beef essence that dunking becomes an act of devotion.

The home cook's advantage here is control. You roast your own beef, which means you capture every drop of those precious drippings. The jus you make will embarrass anything ladled from a steam table. And because you've done the work, you understand exactly why this simple sandwich has sustained a city for more than a century.