Hot Dogs

Yes, I know hot dogs are terrible, bla bla bla. I don’t care. Lots of things are terrible. A hot dog every once in a while isn’t going to kill me.

When I lived in the City of Kawartha Lakes at the turn of the century, one of my biggest treats on my occasional visits to nearby Toronto was getting a hot dog from a street vendor. When I was in Quebec in 2012, I fell back in love with a steamé all dressed, just about the epitome of the perfect hot dog in my book — cheap, savoury, and with a lovely mushy bun.

Tonight, I decided to walk into the village past 6:30 to get supper from a cart. I didn’t have to go far. There was a hot dog vendor set up next to where the chicken lady has her barbecue.

I decided to try one and was offered condiments and agreed to tomato, onion, and mustard. A spot of relish instead of tomato would have made this  the best hot dog I have ever had!!! The problem with a Quebec steamé is that the whole thing is steamed. I like the steamed bun. I’m not so crazy about the steamed dog. I prefer hot dogs seared in a little fat to give them extra flavour. This hot dog had a steamed bun and a seared wiener!

The cost was 13 pesos for a hot dog! Holy smokes! That brings me back to my dad reminiscing about the days he could buy a hot dog for a quarter and get change!

I’m going to get two next week. 🙂

10 thoughts on “Hot Dogs

  1. Three Pesos! That is “Almost free”! One of those things that must be cheaper on the street than at the grocery store! You have obviously found where the locals eat!

  2. I will confess that I’ve been sitting here going over our conversation and wondering if I heard tres instead of trece and she was too polite to correct me! I’ll know next week… Trece would be roughly the price for a hot dog in Quebec, so I’m guessing that it was tres, but I’m still feeling weird about it!

  3. Nothing like “street meat” to make your mouth water.
    At home my preference is Shopsy’s. Cooked on the BBQ with a toasted bun. And then the works.
    Gah, I’m getting hungry.

  4. Nothing beats a good Chicago Dog. I didn’t know we had a hot dog shop near us until yesterday. I was on my to Tuesday Morning when I almost passed it by. It was sooooo good.

  5. Street food is really picking up in Vancouver. One of the most popular is Japadog. An enterprising Japanese chef cooking hot dogs Japanese style, the are amazing! Served with nori and wasabi mayo dressing etc. if you’re ever back on the left coast let’s meet up and do street food in my town.

  6. As long as one does not think too hard about what’s in them, they are pretty tasty. A little story…

    A friend and I went camping. We took hot dogs to roast over the campfire. We did not like them much and ended up taking some home where she would give her cat a little piece as a great daily until they were gone.

    Some months later she was going to have her hardwood floors refinished and had to move a large area rug. Lo and behold there were little hard pieces of something under one corner. She determined that they were hot dog bits. She later found those same dogs in the grocery case and read the list of ingredients. The first item listed was “bird parts”. That sort of put me off hot dogs of unknown origen.

  7. As long as one does not think too hard about what’s in them, they are pretty tasty. A little story…

    A friend and I went camping. We took hot dogs to roast over the campfire. We did not like them much and ended up taking some home where she would give her cat a little piece as a great daily until they were gone.

    Some months later she was going to have her hardwood floors refinished and had to move a large area rug. Lo and behold there were little hard pieces of something under one corner. She determined that they were hot dog bits. She later found those same dogs in the grocery case and read the list of ingredients. The first item listed was “bird parts”. That sort of put me off hot dogs of unknown origin.

Comments are closed.