as some of you might know, there are few joys in this world greater than a gasstation hotdog. they are the ultimate convenience food, encapsulating all your vital nutritional needs (meat, grease, and condiments) in a single object that you can eat with your hands.
my most recent hotdog purchase was at the "north loop food store", you know, up near the parlor and monkeywrench books.
it was close to closing time, and the dudes inside were emptying the icemelt from their tubs of miller highlife. i walked around the store, but i couldn’t find a single hotdog rotisserie. just before i started to panic, i found it, the hotdog that i knew was there. it was in the far corner of the refrigerator cabinet, the least accessible point in the entire "convenience" store: a pair of pre-packaged chilidogs which had been stewing in their own chili for who knew how long.
after paying for my latenight snack, i was further appalled to discover that the store had no visible condiment facilities. i couldn’t find a single packet of catsup, let alone relish or mayo (i like putting a thin line of mayo on my chilidogs just to kick them up a notch). i made do with the store microwave and then retired to the comfortable and spatious curbside dining area.
although one would normally hesitate to place any bread-product in a microwave, the nuking actually seemed to improve this bun, enhancing its bunlike nature, giving it a simultaneously soggy and chewy texture, hot, wet, and limp. The reddish brown juices of the chili had absorbed into the spongy bun, leaving the pebbly meat chunks high and dry. The chili meat had a texture and a taste halfway between gristle and sausage. The "cheese" shreds which garnished my meal retained the plasticky consistency of a petroleum distillate despite the heat and the radiation of the microwave.
but certainly the high-point of the offering was the dog-meat itself. this flavorful and substantial tube of processed muscle-tissue rescued an otherwise abysmal hotdog experience. this was no spongy pork-meat or dull mechanically-separated chicken dog. this hotdog parted crisply between my teeth. it felt as if whatever animal donated this meat had been clenching all his muscles tight — and kept clenching them even after processing, shipping, and refrigeration.
North Loop Food Store, Chilidog. Overall score: B Minus.
