It probably wasn’t the best I’ve ever eaten, but the most memorable and most fondly remembered – the chili dog at the Orange Julius stand in Westwood Village. It was just a counter right on the street with about four stools. I think they just lowered a steel door when they were closed. It was between the Sweet Tree on the corner (which is now Stan’s Donuts) and Tomnoddy Faire (which is my most regretfully no-longer-around shop … with the Temple of Good Things and A Change of Hobbit).
People are probably going to throw up in their mouths a little, but it had parmesan cheese on top. And it was awesome.
I grew up with various types of all-beef Chicago dogs (not all are dragged through the garden, but even the usual one doesn’t have anything more exotic than onions, relish, tomato, and a pickle spear as the vegetation on it. Yes, optional hot sport peppers if you want. And I eat the pickle spear separately anyway.) So that’s always been the standard for me (no tomato at the hot dog stands of my youth.)
For me, it’s a char-grilled Sahlen’s natural casing pork-and-beef hot dog at Ted’s (Buffalo, with an outpost in Phoenix.) With the works, which there is mustard, relish, onion, their special hot sauce (which is really more like ketchup than anything) and a pickle spear. First time I had it back in 2006, I was smitten. Love those damned things.
I have nothing to contribute to the topic of this thread as hot dogs are not and have never been a food of transcendence for me. No judgment on anyone commenting in this thread! My hot dog tastes are plebeian, so I won’t bore you with them.
However, as to your quest to find a good Chicago dog here in Oregon, I offer Junkyard Dogs, now known as Junkyard Extreme Burgers & Brats, just a little to the north of Junction City on Highway 99 West. I sampled one at the exhortations of a good friend who was from Chicago and who raved it was the best she’d had since she left there. It seemed right, but I had no frame of reference. Still, she raved.
It’s a goofy place. Watching it elbow its way over the years into becoming a proper little joint from its humble beginnings has been fun. The turning point seemed to be when Guy Fieri featured them on his Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, but don’t let that stop you. The food is still good.
At Comiskey Park - not the old one, but back when the new one was still called Comiskey Park - there was a Best’s Kosher cart out in the center field concourse. The quarter-pound jumbo dogs were delicious to begin with with. Then they’d leave them on the grill just a little bit past done so the casing would have the slightest bit of char on it. Nestled in a fresh Gonella roll and generously topped with sweet caramelized onions… God, those were good. Sliding down into to right-field bleachers to chow down on a warm Sunday afternoon, with an ice-cold beer to wash it down. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.
Speaking of, for whatever reason, I also fondly remember the $1 hot dogs (back in 1994) at Elsie’s amidst Harvard’s campus (it was somewhere just north of Winthrop House; looking at the map, would have been Mt. Auburn Street.) I took a summer class there and just loved those hot dogs. I don’t know if it’s just because they were cheap, or if it was the novelty of the New England-style hot dog split-top bun, which I have not experienced until then, but those hot dogs and Pinocchio’s pizza are my two food memories of Cambridge, Mass.
I agree with Rough Draft that the best dogs are put on a stick and cooked on a campfire. It can actually be a hot dog, a brat, or basically any type of sausage. Let it kiss the flames and it is always wonderful no matter how it is dressed.
I’ll admit a good part of it is probably the atmosphere and memories.
At the old Prange’s department store lunch counter in Sheboygan, WI back in the very early 1960’s. OMG they were delicious. None better since!
Sadly, Prange’s is no more. First, their old store collapsed due to chronic seepage, and their replacement store along with the rest of the chain got bought out in the 1980’s or so.
In grade school, my brown bag lunches were usually peanut butter & jelly or American cheese or bologna. But a few times a year, Mom would simmer some cheap hot dogs and dress them with ketchup, mustard & sweet relish before rolling up in waxed paper. She isn’t from Illinois and didn’t know the Chicago hot dog orthodoxy and I didn’t know any better at the time but those were great. At some point, I was old enough to get two for lunch, awesome. If I may recommend pairing with a half pint of 2% milk…?
Some people lime to rip on Portillo’s and loudly complain that it’s all gone to hell since Dick Portillo ‘sold out,’ but I haven’t seen it. They have fine representations of a lot of Chicago fadt foods: hot dogs, Polish sausage, Italian beef, Chicago chopped salad. Maybe not the best at every one but at least better than average. And you can get a beer.
I used to look forward to the hot dogs at our county fair every year; the chili is still the best I’ve had. Alas, they stopped having the fair when I was 9 or 10. The ones we roasted over a fire at my grandparents house were excellent, as were the ones from the original Nathan’s in Coney Island.