Dogzilla

I passed another milestone of true Bostonianality yesterday. I ate "the best" "hot dog" in "the world" from Speed's Hot Dogs. I say "the best" because it wasn't, "hot dog" because it was more like three hot dogs, and "the world" because it was purchased from a kiosk in a wholesale food service industrial park and furthermore, "the world" may just be, like, all in our heads man. First, the positives. The dog was massive. We're talking jumbo dome dog size if not larger. Here is a picture of said dog.



It's hard to tell the scale of that thing without a frame of reference so I've included a picture of common object by which to compare its TMJ-inducing girth and Ronjeremsonian length.


Second, it was perfectly cooked. Speed (not his real name) simmers them in a solution of apple cider and brown sugar all morning, then grills them until they caramelize and split when you order them. In addition to crisping up the skin, the splitting allows your mouth to divide and conquer since very few human beings could get their mouth around the whole thing, none of whom work in the wholesale food industry.

Now, on to the minuses. First, no kraut, which is strike one and two in my wienerverse. I originally ordered it with only mustard and onions but was talked into getting it "loaded" by the coworker who took me there. Loaded, I discovered, basically meant loaded with sugar. The extra toppings included a sweet BBQ sauce, sweet relish, and a chili whose sweetness could not be independently determined due to it's intermingling with said BBQ sauce. The toppings, combined with the sweet, caramelized exterior produced by its sugar/cider bath, produced a cloying (gmail word of the day a few weeks ago) sugar bomb. Even the onions were described as "The sweetest anywhere." If you want to get the Speed's experience without coming to Boston, take three regular sized hot dogs, cram them all into a nicely grilled french roll, and then dump a half a cup of honey and half a cup of molasses over the whole hot mess. In the interest of full disclosure, I'm not a big fan of mixing my sweets and my savories, I hate kettle corn, sweet and sour sauce, and sloppy joes. But this was just excessive. After a few bites I went back up to the counter to grab the bottle of Frank's hot sauce in order to get some other areas of my tongue involved in the party. Speed stopped me and told me that "Dirty Dick's" hot sauce was much better. I took his advice, dumped on a healthy amount, and took a bite. Somehow the sweetness factor was #$%@* increased! Then I looked at the bottle and saw that it was a Caribbean inspired, fruit-based hot sauce with brown sugar and bananas as primary ingredients. Speed, you diabetic SOB, I'm sorry but I think your true calling was in the pastry business. Will I go back? Yes. Will I order a dog with anything but onions, mustard, and Frank's? No. Will I bring my own kraut? Possibly.

Our cat would never lower herself to trifle with base meat products such as hot dogs, instead using her hypnotic eye lasers to compel weak minded humans into feeding her fresh Maine lobster.



Oh, and happy 32nd birthday to Liz. And happy zeroeth birthday (two days ago) to Nathan Tsatsos. I will practice my avuncular pull-my-finger joke delivery so it's ready to go when he is.