Po-Dog

A couple weeks KMJ and I went to a new gourmet hot dog place up on Capitol Hill for some pre-Thanksgiving weekend chow. Po Dogs is over on East Union and claims to be Seattle's first gourmet hot dog shop. Fresh off a weekend excursion to Chicago in October where I gorged myself on a variety offerings at the infamous Hot Doug's I was excited at the prospect of something even faintly similar here in Seattle.

So we walked down there and found a decent crowd of around 12 people waiting in line(s) around lunch time which was a good sign, not so good was the lack of direction on where the actual line to order our lunch was. The cashier was nice enough but not overly helpful in directing traffic.

After about 15 minutes we got to place our order (Chicago dog, Dub-t dog and Texas dog) and took a seat. The service was pretty quick and we had our dogs within about five minutes or so.

My thoughts on the food:

Chicago dog - The brioche bun is fantastic and the presentation is good. Sport peppers? Check. Celery salt? Check. Spicy Mustard? Check. Tomato? Check. Neon green relish? MIA. But what kind of hot dog is this? The true Chicago dog is made from a Vienna Beef Hot Dog but Po Dogs are using the same hot dog for each of the menu offerings and honestly the Chicago dog just isn't right without the snappier Vienna Beef sausage.

Overall the dog was pretty good, minor gripe is that dogs don't really sit in the buns so all the toppings are piled up over the top of the bun and tend to be a bit messy. Also the price is in my opinion to high for what you get. $6.95 is just excessive. By way of comparison the Chicago Dog at Hot Doug's was not only better (except for the bun) but cost $1.79.

Dub-T dog - A hot dog with crushed potato chips and cheese sauce. Nothing less than fantastic, sloppy, drippy and delicious.

Texas dog - I didn't actually try this one, but KMJ seemed pleased with it

Fries - Excellent! The house made potato chips on the Dub-t dog were also great.

Final thoughts:

Po-Dogs is good concept but needs to really consider expanding their meat horizons and focus on sourcing the most appropriate hot dog type/brand to compliment each of their offerings rather than standardizing on one hot dog and trying to make it work. The big kosher dogs are good, but they are not a Chicago style hot dog. The hot dog buns on the other hand are out of this world and I would buy them on their own if they were available.

Price, price, price! Po-Dogs is offering up a good product but the pricing is in need of adjustment. We got 3 hot dogs, 2 drinks ($2.50 for a can of diet coke) and an order of fries for $25. That's about what it would cost at a Mariners or Seahawks game.

Despite that I'll be back at some point, a good dog is hard to find.