My wife and kid like the cheapest dogs you can find at the market, which is really weird to me.
When I buy for myself, I usually get Oscar Mayer Bun-Length Beef dogs. Good flavor, good texture. I like crispness to the skin, so grilled is best, but when that’s not possible, I warm them slowly in a skillet until the skin gets crispy.
Hot dogs are best over fire. When I was a kid, one thing I liked about winter was a return of great hot dogs. We heated our house with a woodstove, so whenever I could, I’d put a hot dog on a roasting stick, wrap my hand in a kitchen towel to shield it from the heat, open the woodstove door, and spit-roast a hot dog over the coals. Magnificent! Just like camping!
Oscar Meyer beef. I prefer them over many of the fancy brands. If I upgrade it’s going to be to a good Italian sausage cooked with green peppers. I don’t want if fried, stuffed, burnt or any other trendy way. I always eat 2 at a time, one with mustard and one with mustard,ketchup and pickle relish.
Occasionally I’ll make a casserole out of them with instant potatoes (has to be instant) onions and cheese.
Nathan’s are verrry good. The first time I had one was at a rest stop on 95S just outside of NYC. I almost turned around to get another but it would have been almost 20 miles. Some grocery stores sell mini-Nathans (pinky finger size)… they are really good sauteed in a pan with some garlic cloves with mustard for dipping.
Speaking of cooking… try wrapping your hot dog with strip of bacon, score the contraption with a sharp knife and roll it around a hot pan until it is all done.
Bratwurst… in Germany… from a street vendor… cooked over an open flame… served in a broechen so that the brat sticks out 2 inches on both ends, and a good German beer. That’s a good bratwurst!
One of my go to give away meals at Burning Man is Dodger Dogs, just to try to piss off my friends from San Francisco. Other than that, I never cook hot dogs. Any time I’m in Berkeley, I go to Top Dog.
Hebrew National - the larger four pack version.
A bit pricier than the others, but worth it.
I like to grill them and get them just a tad “burnt”.
I sort of like the Smoky Links from Oscar Mayer - but oddly they are rarely found in supermarkets here.
When I lived in NYC, I used to love eating those hot dogs from those carts all over the City - who knows what was in them, but they tasted great…I think New Yorkers called them “dirty dogs” due to the water being somewhat, uh, dirty. Still - you can easily get addicted to them.
I love hot dogs! Being near Chicago, I have had some of the best hot dogs in the fucking nation. booyah!
Portillo’s hot dogs are the closest to me, and are very good but not the best. They’re manufactured by Vienna beef, but it’s a special formula/recipe. So you can only taste that Portillo’s flavor at Portillo’s, you can’t buy it anywhere else.
Best hot dogs I’ve had in the area? Gene’s & Jude’s, no question. Cash only. They wrap fries up with every dog, they’re open balls late on the weekends, and they have lines down the goddamn block. They’re so fucking awesome, I can’t even describe it.
When I was a kid, we would eat generic hot dogs, boiled in water and wrapped in white bread folded diagonally. With ketchup. And I liked it. Hard to imagine now.
These days, we get the Oscar Mayer all-beef bun length franks, cook them on the oven rack with a grease-catcher made of foil underneath, and serve them on actual hot dog buns. I use stone ground horseradish mustard with onions and dill relish.
I suppose I’ll have to try this Hebrew National brand, if people are so sure about it. I just assumed it was one of many generic brands.
Gene & Jude’s rocks. Plus they serve hot dogs the way I grew up with them in my part of Chicago (mustard, relish, onions, optional sport peppers. No tomatoes. No poppy seed bun. No celery salt. However, we did usually have the pickle spear around here, which they omit.)
Portillo’s is surprisingly good, and they use natural casing dogs. If you want the stereotypical dragged-through-the-garden “Chicago dog,” you can’t go wrong with Portillo’s. It’s almost the supposedly canonical Chicago dog, but not with the neon-green Vienna Beef relish. When I’m out and about and about in an unfamiliar neighborhood and have a hankering for a hot dog I know will not be a disappointment, I head to Portillo’s.
I like Nathan’s for beef and Empire for turkey or chicken. Nathan’s hot dogs are strangely watery, though…it’s weird. Maybe I’m just not used to juicy dogs.
Yeah, an “Armor” Hot Dog would be something different altogether.
Every Friday our cafeteria has a serve yourself hot dog area. I dressed one w/ chile, cheese and onions and the other with ketchup, mustard and relish. Delish.
I think you will notice the difference immediately. I have had many people for BBQ’s and almost every time, someone will say “That hot dog was great - what brand was that?”
Maybe because they are all beef, maybe because of the spices, but it really is far and away above your average hot dog.
Every time I’ve been to G&J’s I’ve been baked out of my mind, which probably has a significant effect on my positive perception of them. Still, I’d recommend them to anybody
I tried Hebrew National and did not think they were that spectacular. The fiancée talked me into the Koegels once and there was no going back. The snap and texture are divine. I’ve even become “that guy” and bring my own hot dogs to cookouts.
Those look great. Unfortunately, according to the website, I have to go to Michigan to buy them. I think that’s part of the reason Hebrew National is mentioned so much here–so far as I know, it’s a national brand, no? Of the commonly available brands, they’re among the best (if not the best.)
I tried a Hempler’s uncured hot dog for dinner, cut in half and cooked on a cast-iron skillet. It tasted ‘watery’. Or something. Maybe that’s how uncured hot dogs are supposed to taste? Or maybe I just don’t like the brand.
I think that’s part of the reason Hebrew National is mentioned so much here–so far as I know, it’s a national brand, no? Of the commonly available brands, they’re among the best (if not the best.)