Hot Dogs and Soup

Mile High Vienna Stand has been in Denver for fifteen years. I’ve eaten there before and it’s solid. This visit, I got a Chicago dog.

This was during their happy hour so it was the cheaper version, which meant no poppy seed bun. Even without this, it was still great.

Chicagoans describe their hot dog as being "dragged through the garden" and I can see why. All the vegetables and pickled vegetables on this made this taste very bright and refreshing. The closest hot dog on the chart in terms of taste, in my opinion, is Argentina. Similar vegetables, with some kind of herby sauce or pickle relish. But Chicago adds more pickled items than Argentina does. Even among hot dogs, Chicago and Argentina stand alone for how much fresh vegetables they add. The Chile completo wishes it was on their level, but that dose of mayo gets in the way.

For the sake of completeness, I went to Billy's Gourmet Hot Dogs and got their take on the Chicago. Same toppings, with the poppy seed bun.

I tried what's considered the "original" Chicago dog- the Depression Dog. Per its description on SeriousEats, it's a hot dog with chopped onions, mustard, sport peppers and a pile of fries on top.

This was good, but 1) it reminded me of the Baltimore dog and 2) I can also see how this was a forerunner to today's Chicago dog.

Great Depression sucked, most people had barely any money, so the best thing for restaurants was to add on cheaper food as filler. You see that with the bologna in the Baltimore dog, and you also see that with the fries in this dog. Or maybe it was an efficiency measure by hot dog proprietors to just shove the order of fries on top of the dog and people liked it better that way. Who knows?

Either way, the fries on this are good, but the onions and peppers go a long way towards cutting through the starchiness and balancing it out. And ultimately people wanted more from those onions and peppers, leading to the dragged through the garden version.

I went to Mochinut and ordered an original hot dog covered in potato (per the chart). They also have regular hot dogs covered in breadcrumbs, hot Cheetos or ramen noodle bits. There’s also plenty of hot dog options there, including cheese. I decided to get the half and half with cheddar, plus ketchup on the side.

Plain, right? I did my research and this is supposed to be hotsilog, which at its essence is notched hot dogs, garlic fried rice (sinangag), an egg and maybe some sauce- soy sauce if you must. It’s also more commonly served as breakfast. Let’s make this with some sinangag:

There we go! This was pretty good. I can see why Filipinos eat this for breakfast. I followed a sinangag recipe that told me to make the rice more crunchy, but I’d prefer to heat the rice through next time. It went well with the other components, especially with the egg. The hot dogs were good, fairly rich, and went well with the banana ketchup. The banana ketchup consistency wasn’t quite what I expected, especially with the texture being so different, but it really didn’t taste that different from our ketchup on a hot dog.

Now, this meal isn’t the only way the Philippines uses hot dogs- there’s also Filipino spaghetti. I followed a reduced version of this recipe from here. Here it is: