Offbeat Eats

Despite its German origins, there are few food items as iconic to American food as the hot dog, and like most any American specialty, it has more than a few regional variations. In most any locale, anywhere in America, you’re never far from a restaurant that, even if not specializing in hot dogs, at least has them on it’s menu. But there are a handful of iconic hot dot restaurants sprinkled across the US that not only focus on hot dogs, but raise the art form to an iconic level with unique selection of sausages, toppings, and presentation. Many will argue about the specific places, but the New York Times does a pretty good job covering the classics in their 2023 Field Guide to the Great Hot Dogs of America. My travels often involve my traveling between NH and NJ, and my travels regularly take me by one of these great icons that’s also one of my personal favorites of the iconic hot dog joints: Rutt’s Hut in Clifton, NJ.

When we first arrived in Anchorage, we walked around the downtown area checking out a few art galleries while waiting for lunch. It’s a bit of a touristy area, with more than a few places hawking tourist trinkets, fishing expeditions, and the like. And one thing you can’t miss while walking around the Town Square Park or Old City Hall Park is a rather large number of street carts serving up…. reindeer sausages. We originally opted not to indulge on our first visit since we had lunch plans, but as we wrapped up our short trip to Alaska, we drove back into downtown Anchorage to turn in our Turo rental car, pick up a few items from a nice little art gallery, and stop by and check out one of them: Tia’s Gourmet Hot Dogs and Alaska Reindeer Sausage.

Sadly, after our trip to Viðareiði, it was time to head back to our Airbnb in Svínáir, have one last night gazing over the Sundini Sound while enjoying the late night sun, and then pack up and head off to the airport (a journey of multiple bridges and tunnels). Our last stop before the airport was heading into nearby Sørvágur to fill up the tank on the rental car, and that brings me nicely to a last little topic on Faroese dining: Gas Stations. One mildly frustrating aspect as a tourist is that the Faroes still follow old-school European shopping hours. By that, I mean that that most everything closes implausibly early, despite the late summer sun. So evening hours for businesses are pretty rate, and most everything much more limited on Saturday. On Sunday, a substantial fraction of places are closed. Add into that, aside from the major towns (Tórshavn and Klaksvík), most of the towns don’t have much in the way of retail, grocery, or light sundries. But that doesn’t mean that people do without. Like Iceland, there’s one common institution that that is there to serve you when most everything else is closed, or you need some food when no other restaurant is to be found. That’s the gas station.

I always enjoy a good hot dog truck, especially ones that can really have fun with the concept. For example, about 6 months ago I really got to enjoy Asia Dog, a funky Asian-inspired hot dog vendor in New York City. So when wandering through Eat X NE in Burlington, one food truck caught my eye, The Hindquarter. The Hindquarter drives around Burlington’s South End in a converted Rescue Squad red truck, serving up a variety of sandwiches, soul food, and sausages to hungry eaters. For Eat X NE, they had a nice broad menu, focusing on fried whole belly clams (clam strips are the work of the devil!), their take on a Banh Mi, a smoked chicken sandwich, and a chile relleno. But one item in particular attracted my attention: the simply named Jumbo Hot Dog.

(Closed) On one of our recent trips to Manhattan, we ended up wandering up Broadway around Madison Square Park, and that’s where we found that UrbanSpace runs a seasonal pop-up market called Broadway Bites, featuring a rather interesting mix of food stalls lined up along Greeley Square Park, located at the intersection of 33rd Street and Broadway. There were quite a few interesting vendors there: the Poffertjes Man (Dutch pancakes), a Cannoli vendor, a grilled cheese stand, and the like. But one in particular attracted my attention, and my mid-afternoon snack hunger: AsiaDog.

As those that have been to this site a lot have noticed, I have a weakness for hot dogs. Indeed, a coworker claiming that “hot dogs are just hot dogs” was one of my inspirations for starting this blog, since there are really quite a few varieties of hot dogs in existence (indeed, I’ve got as far as the Iceland Pylsur in my reviews). One of the more intriguing things I like is when essentially the same concept, like the “Chili dog”, gets some regional variations. When I was growing up (in the Southwest), a chili dog was simply a “chili dog” (albeit with the caveat that the sort of chili that makes a good condiment isn’t the same sort that tastes good in a bowl). The “Coney Island” dog is a variant of this with “Coney sauce”, a meaty, near-chili spicy meat sauce, and can be spotted by that name ranging from Michigan all the way over to Massachusetts. However, nearly the exact same dog as a “Coney Dog”, with a slightly drier and less spicy sauce, goes by the name “Texas Hot” or a “Michigan” (likely in homage to the Coney Island variety primarily coming from Michigan) in Upstate New York and Vermont (and as far north as northern Quebec, my friend Ben has a great story about buying a “Michigan” hot dog at a food cart at a Hydro Quebec station in far, far, northern Quebec). And a particularly good example of the “Michigan” hot dog can be found at Beansie’s Bus in Burlington, VT.

After we did the Cleveland Museum of Art, it was time for a late lunch. We wanted something interesting, but not something that was going to be heavy enough that we wouldn’t be hungry come dinner. After a little bit of discussion, we decided that it was time to check out Happy Dog on the West Side, known known for their wide variety of hot dog toppings. Okay, I can already feel the skeptical vibe coming from some of my readers. The world has a lot of hot dog places, what makes a place like Happy Dog worth some of your precious stomach sapce? And I’ll be the first to admit, hot dogs as a menu item are often a high-risk item: while there are a lot of really great hot dog places out there (Indeed, I’ve reviewed about 20 on this site), there are a lot of dubious ones as well, and for every lovingly-assembled Gold Coast Chicago Dog, or pepper-relished-covered Blackie’s hot dog I’ve had, I’ve also been served up more than my share of Oscar Mayer 10 per lb hot dogs slapped onto a stale bun with ketchup and mustard to know that hot dogs generally aren’t the sort of thing I get without doing some research first. But I’ll tell you that from my visit, Happy Dog isn’t one of those places, instead, they are a great dive-ish joint that’s serving up some really great hot dogs with some good toppings.

N1 is probably Iceland’s largest retailer, running a rather large (by Icelandic standards) chain of over 100 gas stations, ranging from self-service kiosks (which proved to be relatively good at defending themselves from any attempt of mine to exchange a US-based credit card for diesel, even my Chip-and-PIN card) to full service stations. But one thing is almost a given if you are doing like I and travel around Iceland, you will eventually find yourself hungry and in need of food, and through location, time, or other factors, N1 is going to be your best option. Indeed, I’d say that in a substantial fraction of Iceland, the nearest prepared food of any sort is actually an N1 station…

One of our first stops heading west from Klaustur was Skógafoss. Skógafoss is one of South Iceland’s most impressive waterfalls, about 75 feet wide and 200 feet tall, with a large enough water volume that it generates a fair amount of wind and mist. Like most of the major waterfalls, it also has it’s own legend. No, not trolls this time, but Vikings, apparently one early Viking settler, Prasi Þórólfsson, hid a chest of gold under the falls that was never found except for a large ring from the side of the chest. If it’s not those troublesome trolls, it’s the Vikings, I guess. Oh, and Skógafoss also sports a hot dog truck. The Skógafoss Country Wagon can generally be found in the main parking lot of Skógafoss, near the campsites and the laundry area for hikers.

As I mentioned before in my review for Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur… Iceland loves its hot dogs. Virtually every staffed gas station will make you a hot dog. The major towns all have several hot dog carts. And even minor tourist attractions 30km from the nearest paved road will often have hot dog carts. Well, on the fourth day of our driving trip, as we explored the Myvatn area, one place we checked out was the Krafla area, a series of geologically active ridges that include Leirhnjúkur (erupted in the early 1700s in what are known as the "Myvatn Fires") and Krafla (erupted last in 1984, now the site of a 60 MWe geothermal power station). Leirhnjúkur itself is a nice hike where you can see hot ground, steam vents, bubbling pools of mud, etc. It really is an incredible place to visit, with all sorts of neat sights, sounds, and smells, almost like visiting a prehistoric version of Earth. It’s also a place where you can get a hot dog…