I am an American and I Eat Hot Dogs

2 x Hot Dogs with sautéed onions, kraut, and mustard

Awesome! This was my first trip ever to Coney Island and it ruled. Nathan’s lived up to the hype. Nothing fancy about this, just a good, honest hot dog. The sautéed onions were an excellent addition, as was the kraut. I’m sure these dogs are good served straight-up too. The whole place is just loaded with atmosphere. It’s almost as if this whole environment was created to simply sell hot dogs. Maybe it was! Georg and I rode the Cyclone and then went to the freak show. We searched all the arcades looking for a Ms. Pacman, and when we finally found one, it was this crazy Ukranian mod that was extremely slow, except when you pulled the joystick down and everything speeds up to 3x the normal speed. Very weird. Eventually, we went back to Nathan’s for seconds. I had never been all that impressed by their hot dogs at the supermarket, but eating them on Coney Island was a totally different story. This is definitely something I wouldn’t mind spending half an hour on the subway for.

1 x Chicago Dog with everything

Someone made a run down to Mustard’s in the middle of two Potters sets at the Boulder Public Library. It’s a nice taste of Chicago when you’re in Colorado. I ordered mine with everything and apparently this also includes sauerkraut. I’ve never had kraut on a dog in Chicago, so maybe this was just some confusion between the dog runner and the dog maker and the word “everything.” Anyway, it was still pretty good even though I ate it cold.

1 x Jumbo Beef Dog with onions, relish, and mustard, $1.50

Bogus. We were desperately in a pinch for sometime to eat after driving all day to Denver from Salt Lake City. And it was a Saturday in downtown Denver so nothing was open. We were left with a hot dog cart right outside the library. I went with the jumbo dog because I was hungry. Bad move. It was a jumbo dog all right, but on a regular sized bun! Christ! There is just NO WAY to save a dog like that. The proportions were WAY off! We had at least an inch of overhang on each end of the bun. There was hardly any room left for condiments and even then, there was no way to get an even spread. Total crap.

1 x Beef dog with special sauce, onions, and banana peppers, $2.65

Erine’s family mostly lives in Provo and his sister knows we love hot dogs. She told us that this place was pretty good and that the hot dog stand was started as a school project by a BYU kid. If I’m his teacher, I’m giving this guy an A.

All that you can buy at Dawgs are hot dogs and soda. That is IT! Very focused. There’s something beautiful about the simplicity of it, especially when it’s done right and you know you’re going to get something delicious. There’s a list of about 6 or 7 condiments. Nothing too fancy, but there is a secret recipe sauce that was damn good and very, very sweet. I tried to get the kid/owner to tell me what his specialty was, but he wouldn’t divulge any awesome secret combos. He just kept pointing towards the condiment list and saying I could put any of those on the dog. Condiment-wise, I kept it pretty simple and it paid off. Pretty much everyone else went with the Works and they all seemed a bit overwhelmed. Jalapenos AND banana peppers? Come on guys!