2.43 Hot Doug’s
Posted on December 22, 2008
Filed Under American, Best of the Best, Extra Hard Core | 1 Comment
Today’s meal features the famous Chicago hot dogs turned up to 11 at Hot Doug’s, which bills itself as “The Sausage Superstore and encased meat emporium.” During our research phase, we found that Hot Doug’s not only have the classic chicago style hot dog, it also had a great variety of sausages, even better, the daily menu posted on their website had listed antelope and rattlesnake as featured sausages. I was giddy walking in to this place. This is exactly what 50meals is all about: Hard core, deviant food.
We got in on the monday after thanksgiving, which means the line was not particularly long, thankfully. It was contained in the store and did not snake… or, sausage… out the door as I heard it would on the weekends. It took us a while to size up the menu and approach THE Doug to place our order. So here’s Doug taking our order.
One thing I wanted to mention right off is that Doug and his entire crew were extremely courteous and helpful, they even helped get us a large table for our big party in the extremely crowded dining room.
First up is the Cranberry and apple wild boar sausage. It’s not as wild as it sounds, but it did have a good flavor and a bit of sweetness from the cranberry and apple.
Corn dog. Back to normal for just a little while, this is just a perfectly normal corndog, which is to say, ordinary but still a classic.
Unfortunately they only have duck-fat fries on weekends, and they were closed over thanksgiving weekend. I hear the duck fat fries are out of this world and will certainly return to try it my next time in town. In the mean time here’s some very cheesy cheese fries. The fries are natural cut like In-n-out but it’s also well-done for that nice extra crunchiness. They drowned it in cheese and even though it must be so bad, it is SO good.
Chardonnay and Jalapeno rattlesnake sausage with ancho-lime mayo and smoked gouda cheese.
Amazing, I was a little scared but the texture of the meat is so fine and the flavor quite mellow but satisfying. It’s actually probably the best tasting sausage of the day.
The Elvis — Polish sausage, served Chicago style. Totally solid, and if it weren’t for all the other crazy stuff, this is what I’d order along with a Chicago style hot dog.
The Antelope. For some reason they ran out of the usual toppings and had to substitute something else on top, which overwhelmed the antelope sausage’s flavor. By itself, the antelope sausage was very good, but the weird toppings ruined it for me.
Onion-pork sausage with bacon-garlic mayo, duck pate and truffle-basalmic cream. This one was off the hook with its simple sausage and extravagant toppings, it tasted great but I preferred the simplicity of the snake sausage a bit more. so I’d call this my second favorite out of the lineup.
And finally, the original. This is the Chicago style hotdog, served with big chunks of tomatoes, onions, relish, mustard and a pickle. It’s surprisingly tangy and light for a hotdog, the overall texture is crisp and it tasted so clean, what with the tomatoes and pickles. The dog itself is delicious as well, but the combination is sublime.
This is probably my favorite meal in Chicago, having all these new and exotic stuff to eat was just so exciting. The snake was awesome and the Chicago style dog certainly did not disappoint, along with the corn dog and the cheese fries as comfort foods, this meal was both challenging, exciting, and pleasing.
What an awesome meal! A big special thanks to everyone who braved the cold and the scary sausages with me. Rich, Shi-Fong, Susie, Mama Lee and Shu-Wei. We’re back to LA for our final stretch of meals. Until next time, Chicago!
Hot Doug’s
3324 N California Ave
(between Henderson St & Roscoe St)
Chicago, IL 60618