On my last day in NYC, I went into restaurant in Bloomingdales called "David Burke," which (at the time) seemed to be a really bad name for a restaurant. Kind of unappetizing! Turns out it's the name of a superchef, this guy (David Burke) who seems to have had the same basic idea that my friend Annie and I had. I kind of don't want to talk about the hot dog now, because I'm a little sad that now Annie and I won't be able to get filthy stinking rich off of our idea.
Anyway, the reason I ate there was because you could see the menu from the street, and on the menu was this:
Kobe beef bad-ass dog
With mustard oil, angry onion jam, all-natural, antibiotic and hormone-free
Or something like that. Okay, I was like. So I went in and ordered it and ate it. Somewhere in there I photographed it (see above). I'm not going to review it properly, because I think food reviewing requires special writing skills I don't really have. Here are some things I was thinking, though; during this process.
- Making a hot dog out of Kobe beef sets an awfully high expectation.
- All this stuff surrounding the hot dog itself made me slightly suspicious. The flame-toasted bun of "real" bread, the deep-fried onion slivers, the "angry onion jam" (a kind of relish, I think), the sheer size of the dog itself (about the size of a baby's arm), and even the sheer lack of antibiotics all seemed just a little like misdirection.
- Even the most pampered, massaged-by-giant-naked-women, beer-fed Wagyu cow has lips, and it has an asshole.
I'm not saying it wasn't good. Hot dogs are good. That's just it, though. All hot dogs are pretty good. I think 99% of the hot dogs available for sale today hover between 5 and 5.5 on an imaginary deliciousness scale of one to ten. At least to my palette, they are incapable of being any better or any worse. I think the only way you can move them up or down on the scale is to be hungrier, or smear them with some horrifying non-food substance (respectively).
Don't get me wrong; I don't think this is a scam, or anything. I'm the first person to say that the Emperor looks fucking fabulous, and anyone who can't see that is a goddamned idiot. I do think that this particular Kobe hot dog may have been wasted on me. While I consider myself an eater and and enjoyer of all things food, I can't say that the Kobe anything really shone through. Still, I give the Kobe beef bad-ass dog from David Burke at Bloomingdales 5.4 stars--a fine rating, as hot dogs go.
8 comments:
Have you been to Hank's Haute Dogs? Super yummy there, dude.
I hear what you are saying dude. It's like you can paint the Jetta a pretty color and give it a spoiler, but it's still a Jetta. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
I have a similar sentiment about any sort of sake or wine tasting thing. I call huge bullshit. It's ok to talk about stuff being this or that, but unless you're being ultra serious (and who wants to be) and spitting each sip out after tasting, you're not gonna really be able to differentiate after a glass or two. I swore that a certain wine was delicious after a wine tasting I went to. Turns out, nah, it tasted like ass. But I was positive! I also got into a huge discussion about wine tasting with my uncle (who happens to be one of those dudes who supplies oak staves to wine companies to put into their metal casks so that their wines have that "barrel aged" flavor.) He likened wine tasting to art critiques in the sense that if you sat around long enough staring at a drawing you could pretty much come up with any story you wanted about the work and it wouldn't exactly be wrong. Hence the "currant, berry, peppery, fruity" flavors you often read about on the backs of wine bottles.
Yeah, wine feels like a scam to me too. But I think it's a valid (or at least fun) human activity to become a connoisseur of anything. I mean, there's a big difference between the inking styles of Jerry Ordway and Joe Sinnott, but it's hard to expect the general populace to care much about any debate thereof. And that's a clear example! I have an opinion about the difference between Mark Farmer's and Dan Green's work, but I think I can only talk about it with one in 500 people. Maybe! WTF! I'm not in a position to meet that many people anymore!
Take us to this 'Hank's Haute Dogs', Fugu .Prove me wrong. I beg of you.
David Burke would be our best customer at the Umami Store of Flavor. This Kobedog is as bad as the $140 hamburger.
At least that thing has foie gras in it. You could run a line of beluga caviar through the interior of a hot dog. It'd still be packed in hot dog, though.
I'm looking for a hot beef injection myself right about now.
Well, hello, zach.
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