Phillie Phoodie: New ballpark phood almost as phutile as Phillies

LET'S FACE IT: Going to a Phillies game these days isn't quite as much phun as it used to be. OK, it's a bummer.

But the Pharoah of Phillies Phood takes seriously the responsibility that comes with being the public taste buds of the Phillies Nation. Which is why I recently left Phood Phair, my palatial estate on the banks of Pennypack Creek, and spent some time at (a half-empty) Citizens Bank Park, taste-testing some of the new offerings for this season.

While the Phools - er, the Phils - recently did a major hype job on the new offerings, El Phoodito wasn't impressed all that much.

New England Dog

Quite phrankly, this abomination - which plops baked beans, cheddar cheese and bacon bits atop the dog - should have stayed in Havahd Yahd.

Yes, baked beans go with hot dogs like a smartphone and a selfie, but by having them on the dog, these uninteresting-tasting legumes served only to create an unpleasantly mushy mess.

To add insult to injury, Aramark, the industrial-strength provider of most ballpark edibles, promised before the season that this combo would be served on a New England-style bun (an extra-thick piece of toast). But mine was on a standard potato-bread hot dog roll. (The server confirmed that all are presented thusly.) Booooo!!

Cheesesteak Hot Dog

The biggest problem the Ol' Phoodista has with this bit of culinary engineering is its utter uselessness. You want a cheesesteak? Go to Tony Luke's or Campo's in Ashburn Alley and get a real one. You want a hot dog? Get a hot dog.

It's not that this is awful; it's just that the smoky sausage and the greasy beef do nothing for each other, while the molten cheese spread pretty much overwhelms the individual flavors.

Yo, Aramark, just because you can combine foods doesn't mean you should!

Wayback Cheeseburger

The Phoodinator didn't have the guts - or the gut - to order the Triple Triple, a highly publicized heart-attack-on-a-bun consisting of nine beef patties and nine slices of American cheese (totaling 2,200 calories), but we did try a single, standard cheeseburger.

The burger - which we assume started life as a quarter-pound puck of ground beef - was bedded on a (very) lightly toasted potato roll and topped with a slice of fully melted American cheese. It's a pretty generic item - maybe a step-and-a-half above McDonald's, but hardly anything special.

Rittenhouse Square Smoked Turkey Club

Right off the bat, this isn't technically a club sandwich, as it boasts two slices of bread, not three. Nonetheless, this was as good as it gets among the munchies sampled.

All the ingredients were fresh, and the bird was actual roasted turkey, not processed deli meat. The toasted sourdough was agreeably chewy, but unfortunately cold. We would love to have tasted it warm.

So, let's say that the Rittenhouse smacked one in the gap but got thrown out trying to make it to third base (on account of the cold bread and misleading nomenclature).

Northern Liberties Roast Pork

This was the most unpleasant item the Phoodster sampled in his gastronomic sojourn around Citizens Bank park. Our NoLibs was a dull, uninspired mess consisting of herb-salted pork, Yards Ale au jus, hot pepper relish and fontina cheese on a boring roll.

The texture was kind of yucky, and the flavors were MIA, except for the mild heat aftertaste from the relish. Avoid this at all costs!

South Philly Dog

Technically, this concoction has been around for a number of years. New this season, sweet red peppers have replaced the original long hots, and a standard hot-dog bun fills in for the seeded roll.

The individual ingredients - roasted reds, broccoli rabe and sharp provolone - complement both the dog and each other. The cheese, especially, makes a nice cradle on which the other flavors are bedded.