There is the meat itself, I told them. It can range from rib-eye to top round to, yes, even beef knuckle (gulp!?). But most important, how it is cooked? Look at the color of the meat before it hits the griddle. Is it as faded as an unripe tomato, drained of its flavorful juices? Or does it have a fresh crimson blush, marbled with the lacy white lines of fat that will baste it?

Is the griddle a glorified factory, lined with a tall berm of precooked steaming meat? Or is each sandwich cooked to order, seared to a caramelized brown around the edges and placed on a roll still dripping its natural essence? Is it shredded to a hamburger fineness (a method I always find dry), or is the thinly sliced meat left largely intact? Is the meat seasoned?

This, we decided, was key. But there was so much more. The crusty rolls versus the soft ones. Whether the onions were fried to a sweet golden brown. The girth of the sandwich (for which we were armed with a ruler) mattered. So did the quality of the cheese (was it real Cheez Whiz, or imitation?) The fire of the chiles and sauces on the condiment bar counted for extra points. As did an authentic level of atty-tude at the cashier's window.

Ultimately, we judged each restaurant on three sandwiches: a traditional steak with Whiz or American cheese, a specialty steak, and a chicken cheesesteak.

The variations we found were numbing. In fact, Josh Brawer returned home from our forays so bursting with nuances of the day's investigations that his father - awakening to our project's critical merit – soon wrote me to address the "great chasm" between him and his son.

"I come from the Secret-to-a-Great-Cheesesteak-Lies-in-the-Roll School and I have not been able to convince him of this basic truism. I wish you would work with him on this."

If only it were so simple. The truth is that a transcendent steak must exist in perfect harmony, an ethereal melding of cheese and onion and juicy meat, swirling at the height of its flavors through your roll at that very moment you take a bite. Call it the perfect storm of steaks.

Jeffrey Steinberg has his own name for this elusive trait: Good Drip.

I placed it down and opened it a tiny bit just to glance at the onions, meat and cheese all united. I then took a large and scrumptious bite. The Whiz, oil and steak juice dripped out of the bottom. It was breathtaking. -- Jeffrey Steinberg's cheesesteak diary

Devotion to a particular cheesesteak is, for most Philadelphians, a territorial birthright.

If you are from Roxborough, for example, you will most likely consider a sandwich piled with finely chopped meat at Dalessandro's the quintessential steak. If you are from Bala Cynwyd, the cheesy pouf of shredded meat that plumps the roll at Mama's will define your preference. If you are from the Northeast, perhaps you were lucky enough to be weaned at Chink's on Torresdale Avenue, the charming old-time soda shop that, despite its un-PC name, serves one of the city's best traditional steaks. That's the only steak owners Joseph and Denise Groh will make - succulent rib-eye, American cheese, soft roll and onions.

If you are a visitor, a newly minted Philadelphian, or a night owl with a 2 a.m. case of the munchies, it is more likely that you have been initiated into the rites of steakerie at the corner of South Ninth Street and Passyunk Avenue.

There's still something quintessentially Philadelphian about making a pilgrimage at least once to this particular crossroads, where rivals Geno's and Pat's King of Steaks stare at each other across the sharply angled intersection like neon battleships ready to rumble. Sandwiched between the clang of the auto body shop and the grunts of local boys playing hoops in the park, muscle cars cruise to a double-parked halt in the crosswalk. And the faithful hordes wait as long as it takes for the taste of a Whiz-slathered steak on their lips.

In local lore, Pat's King of Steaks has long been ceded the honor of having invented this delicacy (without cheese) in the 1930s. But if these rivals were the focus of our debate, it wouldn't last long. The tough-but-flavorful steak from Geno's was far superior in heft and drip to the skimpy, gristly sandwich from Pat's.

Neither titan, though, came close to snaring the crown. Nor did the sandwiches from two other tourist favorites - the dry hamburger-like steaks on squishy rolls at Jim's on South Street, and the bland, water-splashed skinnies at Rick's in the Terminal Market, a descendant of the Olivieri family that founded Pat's.

The best of the big-name eateries was Tony Luke's Old Philly Style Sandwiches on Oregon Avenue. Snug in the shadows of the I-95 overpass, it has all the genuine South Philly ambience one could want. The broad sidewalk awning is lit with yellow neon. The walls are covered with celebrity photos (though, as Tommy Conry observed, mostly of people who were "big back in the early '90s"). Even better, Tony Luke's has a staff that seems to relish heckling its clientele, a mix of businessmen, contractors and grandmothers, as well as police and paramilitary officers - ranking this among the best-armed lunch crowds in town.

A gunshot goes off somewhere in the distance. Not a soul in line flinches. Not with the promise of a juicy steak Italian - tender meat wrapped with broccoli rabe and aged provolone - snug inside one of the excellent house-baked rolls.

This was a true contender, but not quite the top. No, the real joy of cheesesteaks, the ultimate proof of their vitality as street food, is that the greatest sandwiches are still being cooked at some smaller places you might never have heard of.

The Schmitter, for example, was a wonderful sandwich layered between garlicky salami and tomatoes on a kaiser roll at the virtually unmarked McNally's H & J Tavern in Chestnut Hill (which also happens to make a superb chicken steak). But the Schmitter, we decided, was a fancy steak variation rather than a purely great steak. So was the kaiser steak with a mop-top of onions at Donkey's Place in Camden that was copied recently with wild success by an eatery in Manhattan.

We found our nirvana of steakdom at a take-out sandwich shack wedged between a train track and a chemical plant off Snyder Avenue near Columbus Boulevard. John's Roast Pork has been in business there since 1930, and its juice-drenched pork sandwiches are so good, it is little wonder I hadn't tried the steaks until I brought my posse here in search of a sleeper.