March 24, 2008 – Toronto

Place: Buddah Dog

Dog Style: Small Sausages

Bun Style: WhiteCame With: Nothing

Cost: High.

Condiments: 1-Red pepper jelly and aged white cheddar. 2-Habeniro Aioli and pepperjack.

My Thoughts: If there’s one thing I’ve learned during this trip, it’s that hipsters make good hot dogs. When I walked in, I was greeted by a friendly hipster who walked me through the overly-complicated hot dog creation process. I was in no mood to wait any more time than I had to before eating, so I left them up to her discretion. What emerged 5 minutes later were two mini-sausages on tiny rectangular buns, with a squirt of sauce on one side and cheese on the other. Not exactly the knife-and-fork ordeal that usually comes with a hot dog place. The buns had been cooked on a sandwitch press, and were made of a soft and thick sourdough. The sausages were small but flavourful, and well complimented by both the sauces and the cheeses. I was suprised, but the small amount of topping was the exact amount needed to make all the flavours come together, but stand out. This place was wonerful, and I highly reccommend it.

Image: Buddha Dog

Rating: Mmm…

Left me feeling: Smarter

March 18, 2008 – Kingston

Place: 7-11

Dog Style: Unknown.

Bun Style: White.

Came With: Nothing.

Cost: Low.

Condiments: Ketchup, Mustard, Relish, White Onion

My Thoughts: Somehow I ended up at 7-11 at 3 a.m., wanting a hot dog. The gaggle of goons before me cleaned out the entire grill, except for the one creature that looked more like a fire starter log then anything edible. As it was the only optio, I had to go for it. It turned out to be a thick tube of ground “beef”, completely devoid of anything resembling a flavor. The condiments helped somewhat, but overall this thing was just gross.

Rating: Ugh.

Left me feeling: Ebola-ish.

March 16, 2008 – Montreal

Place: Le Neuveau Palais.

Dog Style: Processed

Bun Style: A slice of fried wonderbread.

Came With: Mustard, Ketchup, Coleslaw.

Cost: Low.

Condiments: Included.

My Thoughts: I wasn’t sure what to expect from the local all-night diner in Outremont, and I’m not sure what I got. It’s like they had only seen hot dogs in movies, and weren’t sure what all the parts were. First, the “bun” was a slice of white bread, fried, then folded in half. Sure we’ve done this at home when there’s nothing left to eat, but don’t we expect a bit more from a restaurant? Second, both the hot dogs were covered in a huge mound of coleslaw, like they had seen sauerkraut in photos, and tried to re-create it. While the overall appearance of these things was a bit off-putting, biting into warm fried bread into a thick layer of crunchy and cold coleslaw was really quite nice. Despite looking like Frankenstein, this hot dog had a heart of gold.

Rating: Surprising.

Left me feeling: Saturated with grease.

March 15, 2008 – Montreal

Place: Patait Patat

Dog Style: Processed

Bun Style: Toasted Whole Wheat

Came With: Nothing

Cost: Low

Condiments: Ketchup, Dijon, Mozzarella, Tomatoes, Red Onions, Mayo

My Thoughts: While certainly not the fastest hot dog, this was one of the best I’ve had. The restaurant was a tiny diner with a full house of customers. The two owners worked frenetically, producing sandwiches, poutine, hamburgers, hot dogs, and salads both to go and to stay. For the assembly line style system they had set up, a whole lot of love was included on each meal. The hot dog was well cooked, good meat, perfectly condimented, and accompanied by good fries and a salad. I highly recommend.

Rating: Just what I needed.

Left me feeling: Heady.

March 14, 2008 – Kingston

lace: in between Food Basics and LCBO

Dog Style: Spicy Italian Sausage

Bun Style: Toasted

Came With: Nothing

Cost: Low

Condiments: Ketchup, Honey Mustard, Sweet Relish, White Onions

My Thoughts: I demanded to go back to the one hot dog guy in Kingston, and I wasn’t disappointed. He was a lot busier, but still made a good hot dog. I think  prefer the Polish sausage, as the Italian wasn’t that spicy, but it was a notch above many others.

Rating: Pretty good.

Left me feeling: Sleepy

March 13, 2008 – Kingston

Place: in between Food Basics and LCBO

Dog Style: Polish Sausage

Bun Style: Toasted

Came With: BBQ Onions

Cost: Low

Condiments: Ketchup, Spicy Mustard, Sweet Relish

My Thoughts: There is only one place to get a hot dog in Kingston; a traveling Polish vendor who moves around the town like a flavor sirocco. The Polish sausage was quite good, despite sitting on the bbq for an indiscriminate amount of time, while its raw brethren sat on ice in a large cooler. It was well prepared, with the bun nicely toasted, the meat well spiced, and cooked to perfection. The vendor himself was an ex-taxi driver from the south west of Poland, who emigrated in the late 70’s. He was happy to chat, and a pleasure to buy a hot dog from. Dziekuje! prosze, prosze, prosze.

Rating: Quite good.

Left me feeling: Wanting more.

March 8, 2008 – Toronto

Place: Spadina and Queen st W

Dog Style: Processed Dog

Bun Style: Egg

Came With: Nothing

Cost: Low

Condiments: Ketchup, Mustard, Sweet Religh, White Onion, Spicy Mustard

My Thoughts: My first street hot dog in Toronto was kinds dissapointing. The vendor seemed to be taking great care over the cooking of the dog and the toasting of the bun, but the sausage diddnt warm up all the way through. There was a pretty good selection of condiments, and the bun itself was really good, but the chilly sausage was not what I wanted on a cold winter’s day. Im sorry friendly hot dog vendor man, but your lack of care or perhaps hot dog know-how ruined what could have been a great experiance.

Rating: Mediocre to Poor.

Left me feeling: A little bit gassy.

Editorial:

3 day bus rides are painful but…

Medicine Hat is really nice, even if they but bizarre sweet sea-foam on donairs.

Swift Current is cold.

Winipeg is even colder.

Kenora is very pretty.

The big nickle in Sudbury is very dissapointing.

Toronto is wonderful.

March 3, 2008 – Calgary

Place: Tubby Dog (Round 2)

Dog Style: Processed Dog

Bun Style: White

Came With: Smooth Peanut Butter, Strawberry Jam, Lucky Charms

Cost: High

Condiments: All included.

My Thoughts: I wasn’t sure what to expect from this. I’m still not confident about eating a hot dog smothered in peanut butter and jam, then frosted with kid’s breakfast cereal. All I can say for sure is that I ate something delicious, messy and unique. From a gastronomic point of view, the savory spiced meat of the hot dog overpowered the milder, sweeter pb&j, and the lucky charms added texture and sweetness was mitigated by gravity’s effects. From a pleasure perspective, I had a lot of fun eating this. I can still taste peanut butter in my beard. I’m not sure if it’s the huge amount of sugar in me talking, but I would definitely order this again.

Rating: Yum!!

Left me feeling: Confused in regard to hot dog identities.

Image: Tubby Dog – Captain’s Dog

March 2, 2008 – Calgary

Place: Fatburger

Dog Style: Tube of Meat Paste

Bun Style: White & Toasted

Came With:White onions, mustard, pickles, sweet relish.

Cost: High

Condiments: All included.

My Thoughts: This was a pretty bad hot dog. It came piled with toppings that I had no decision over. There was a distinct lack of ketchup, and no room for me to add it myself. There was far too many pickles, and the dog ended up tasting vinegary. I guess I shouldnt have expected more out of a burger chain hot dog.

Rating: Bleh.

Left me feeling: Melancholy.

Image: Fatburger Hot dog