Sometimes you just want a good hotdog

[mandru]

While you may enjoy a couple of good hotdogs or some variant of sausage on a good roll don't expect to find it here in Salt Lake City, Utah.

There's not a single gourmet tube steak establishment in this entire town. 

When I google "Best hotdog in SLC" the only three hits (that stay anywhere near the requested search topic) refer to a freaking vegan hotdog clone offered by some new age meat shaming excuse of a grazing zone for yogurt heads.

It's a genuinely sad state of affairs to admit that for the 22 years since I moved here from Seattle (home to scores of gourmet hotdoggeries in a range of styles and prices to suit any taste or preference) the best hotdog to be found in town is the worlds largest (and lowest grade offering possible to keep the health department from shutting them all down) hotdog fast food chain Wienerschnitzel where they charge extra to put sauerkraut on your freaking polishdog.

Once when trying to get more mustard on a sandwich I asked for mustard on the top and bottom piece of rye bread for a polishdog  and what I got was mustard on both sides of the top piece of bread (inside and out).

So it was with some anticipation that we found a new hotdog place had popped up in a neighboring town called Johnniebeefs.  I gave google the name and acquired a phone number and called them to find out about their dog preparation method.  I asked them "Grilled, deep fried, steamed, or..."  The voice on the other end of the line jumped in and said "We boil all out dogs unless it's stated otherwise in the description."

That was my precise sweet spot with steamed in a close second place.  I find the flavor of grilled hotdogs to be too harsh and I'm generally turned off by all the clingy extruded grease they sweat out.

So today we drove for twenty minutes out to this new shop's location and a right when I'd decided on my selection from the more than twenty hotdog offerings Mrs. mandru pointed out the small text at the bottom of the overhead menu board that said "All hotdogs are served on a perfectly steamed poppy seed bun".

Poppy seeds‽ 

For me personally they may as well have posted "We spit in every sandwich and don't wash our hands before returning from the restroom." 

I have a long running war with the bakeries in the local supermarkets over poppy seeds!  I don't know where the affection for poppy seeds comes from but the local bakers all seem to go bat *bleep* crazy for them which is fine as long as it's not in a product that I want to purchase (Like bagels) that has absolutely nothing to do with poppy seeds other that a specifically named poppy seed bagel!

I don't want poppy seeds in my Asiago cheese bagel, I don't want poppy seeds in my jalapeno and cheddar bagel and how can you ever imagine that anywhere in creation that a freaking PLAIN BAGEL needs or is improved by adding POPPY SEEDS‽  (I apologize to anyone sensitive to screaming)

There was also an issue that they seemed to want to douse everything they offered with Celery Salt which is a seasoning that could disappear off the face of the Earth without my ever noticing other than maybe mild relief that I'd not encountered it lately.  I was prepared to strongly request they skip the celery salt but the poppy seed buns perfectly steamed or not caused me to be steamed and my hatred for celery salt to become a moot point.

But that's a whole separate rant I'm not feeling strong enough to go into right now.

We walked out of Johnniebeefs without ordering and drove back twenty minutes to another place we frequent where we know they aren't going to do anything bizarre to our food.

[Art Blade]

Once in a while I like a bread roll the top of which covered in poppy seeds. Once in a good while. But what the *bleep* does a *bleep* hot dog have to do with POPPY SEEDS?! On top, ALL of them?? TWENTY PLUS?!?!?!

That's disgusting. Equally disgusting that hot dog you described with mustard inside and out. WHAT THE BLEEP!

We used to have a hot dog stand next to my favourite media store. They'd make excellent classic hot dogs. Just the buns and the sausage, you were supposed to add the toppings yourself, like mustard and fried onion.

[fragger]

It's a sad state of affairs when even the humble hot dog goes all up-market and "trendified". What in the blue blazes are poppy seeds doing on a hot-dog bun? That's nothing short of sacrilegious There are some things you just don't do. You don't tug on Superman's cape, you don't spit into the wind, you don't pull the mask off that old Lone Ranger and you don't mess around with - hot dog buns (apologies to Jim Croce).

I'm ambivalent towards poppy seeds. I don't dislike them, but I wouldn't lament any permanent disappearance of them either. I mainly hate the way they tend to migrate from my food to my plate and thence to any obscure nook and/or cranny they can manage to roll themselves into (and they can move by themselves - trust me on this). If I eat anything with poppy seeds at my desk, I'm still finding them under the keyboard or behind the monitor or stuck to the bottom of the mouse mat for days afterwards

[PZ]

Perhaps they are adding poppy seeds to infuse the victims with low dose opiates, thereby subliminally making them want to come back for more. 

Sadly I cannot even eat hotdogs any longer - evidently I am highly sensitive to the benzoates added as a stabilizer/preservative to all hotdogs I have seen on the grocery shelves.  One day I'll likely try to make my own, as hotdogs have always been one of my favorite foods.

When I was a teenager living in the midwest, a friend and I would go on quail hunting expeditions. On the way was a department store that had a food place within, and we were able to get 25 cent hotdogs that we could load with all the condiments we wanted.  Of course, I loaded mine with everything they had, and you could not even see the dog, nor could you close the bun 

[Art Blade]

getting HUNGRY again..

[mandru]

Some of the dogs and sausages and the fixings they offered at that shop were genuinely compelling as being real taste treats and they do also offer a few hamburger's with sesame seeds which I have no objection to.  Being unwilling to give up completely I've given the matter some additional thought and I'll try giving them another call to explain my adversion and see if I can get orders prepared on the burger bun as a way to avoid the poppy seeds.

Cut the dog in half and lay the pieces side by side on a burger bun?  Sure that works for me.  I'm far less concerned with the platform it's served on than I am the actual ingredients.

They do have an online site with their full menu which may help explain (maybe illuminate my disappointment) why I seem to be chasing my own tail over something as stupid as finding a good hotdog.

[PZ]

In the past I've split two hotdogs and placed them side by side on regular sandwich bread, then topped with chili, onions, and cheese.  Makes for a filling sandwich with less bread per dog (sometimes I find the ratio of bread to star of the show is a bit too high for my tastes)