It’s time once again to descend into the world of tube-meat. This installment of the Hotdog Round-up features four very interesting contenders, and none is more interesting than the Kobe Dog from StrEat.
Streat, or strEAT, or strEat, is the restaurant that opened in the space of my old workplace, the Red River Texas French Bread. The strEAT gimmick is they serve street food from the global culture. Streat was open only for a couple of weeks when I showed up, and they were still getting their act together. The group I was with ordered a wide range of their food, and everything had something a little off. The Bahn Mi was on a heavy sourdough loaf, the calamari crepe was soggy and runny, and the falafels were black, hard balls (although the owner insisted that was how they were supposed to look). In the case of my Kobe Dog, the bun was old and stale. As for the rest of it, the meat was passable, but the toppings of shredded cabbage and Japanese barbecue sauce take the award for weird condiments.
StrEat Kobe Dog – Grade B minus
As I walked up to the Diamond Shamrock on Airport Boulevard, intending to buy a delicious gas station hotdog, I could see through the window that a guy was cleaning the hotdog rotisserie. He had a dirty, wadded up piece of paper towel that he used to rub between the hotdog rollers. He had the most serious expression as he scrubbed. And whenever he came to a part of the rotisserie occupied by hotdogs, he picked them up by the tips of his bare fingers and moved them to a newly scrubbed section. So I decided instead to eat a hotdog that was still in its factory package.
The Super Chili Cheese Dogs heated well in the microwave, the succulent red chili grease soaking into the buns the way sweetened milk infuses a tres leches cake with moist flavor. The meat had that crisp technicolor taste you can only find through the miracles of chemistry. The cheese garnish unites the trilogy of meat-chili-bun with a stretchy lattice of quasi-dairy goo.
Diamond Shamrock Pre-packaged Chilidog – Grade B
Sandy’s (if it were "Sandies" that would have totally different conotations) has been serving the Zilker Park/Barton Springs community for years by giving them summer food the way it was intended – wrapped in carboard on a picnic table stained with grackle poo.
This unassuming chilidog is exactly what you would expect from a roadside burger stand. The meat is off-the-shelf normal. It tastes like pig and salt. The chili no doubt came from a can and has been sitting in a warmer or refrigerator tupperware until the occasion of need. The diced onions were probably prepped by the morning crew, and the bun was produced by a factory, wrapped tightly, and delivered in a timely manner. It is in short a masterful synthesis of the available elements.
Sandy’s Chilidog – Grade B plus
