Bacon wrapped hot dog carts

[heidih]

For years I have been a fan of the bacon wrapped hot dogs sold off street carts in Los Angeles. I am in a suburb so I do not hit the ones that target the night club crowd. My go to vendor parks on Main near Rosecrans in an industrial area outside of a Bank of America. The hefty dogs are wrapped in bacon and cooked on the griddle. Alongside sliced onion and whole japalenos are also cooking and taking on the bacon goodness. She opens the buns and gets them lubed up and a bit toasty on the griddle as well. I like mine loaded with the grilled onion, catsup, mayo, and relish. I alternate bites of jalapeno and dog. This is an incredible satisfying combo. For the full meal I ignore the chip packets and get a bag of mixed fruit & vegetable (usually jicama, watermelon, cucumber and mango) along with some of the sour spicy salt.

Anybody else a fan or encounter other variations. Share your locations.

On a comical note, despite the fact that these vendors are often health department targets, Farmer John has launched a campaign to make these dogs the official Los Angeles dog.

[pastameshugana]

Never had one - but that sounds good! I'm not really a hot dog fan, but I think I'd eat one of those...

[therippa]

They sell these in San Francisco and I love them! It's the first thing my parents request I make when I go home to visit them in PA. I think the secret ingredient is the mayo...it usually takes some convincing for people to put mayo on their hotdog but they never regret it.

[Dakki]

Used to eat these maybe twice a week - as part of the nightclub crowd. Your description sounds almost exactly right for the ones sold here, except some carts also offer them with the sausage opened down the middle and stuffed with cheese. The jalapeno can be grilled or pickled, depending on the cart. Another difference is that the cart sometimes offers fresh pico to put on them, which I avoided for obvious sanitary reasons. I haven't had them in years and now I'm craving one.

[Pilori]

I go to the "Hot Dog Lady" once and awhile in Echo Park...usually after 9:30 since, as a few others have mentioned, they target the bar/club crowd. Hard to go wrong with pork on pork with some pickled jalapenos!

[Joe Blowe]

Main and Rosecrans, huh? I had no idea you're a local girl

And, I had no idea I could score a bacon wrapped hot dog so close to home

Thanks for the heads up -- will have to do this and gelato at Eatalian back to back!

Edited September 15, 2010 by Joe Blowe (log)

[heidih]

Main and Rosecrans, huh? I had no idea you're a local girl

And, I had no idea I could score a bacon wrapped hot dog so close to home

Thanks for the heads up -- will have to do this and gelato at Eatalian back to back!

Joe it has been a few years as I sold my biz in that area so I hope she is still there. This was always during the day catching the bank and local manufacturing crowd. I was reminded of it when I saw the doofey Farmer John promo. Some folks were talking up Eatalian which is just a block from my old place and we were thinking of going. Perhaps a topic on your experience there?

And on the corner of Redondo and Fig there is Playa Azul- a lovely family run biz. We used to get the shrimp tacos and drool over the fried whole fish which just were not going to work as workplace eating.

[percival]

These are huge in the SF hipster bar scene. $3 for a hot dog that's been slowly browning in bacon fat, with bacon, onions sauteed in bacon fat, and a hot dog bun toasted on the grill with bacon fat. Condiments on the side: ketchup, mustard, mayo.

Good eats? Only if you've already knocked back half a dozen PBR's, at which point your taste buds have already committed suicide...

[Carolyn Tillie]

No real comment on the food itself, but you have to realize that hilarity of your thread title makes it sound like the CARTS are wrapped in bacon, not the hot dog!

[Chris Hennes]

Are you implying that there is something wrong with a bacon-wrapped cart? Talk about appealing to hipsters!

[IndyRob]

When I first read this topic it was lunch time and I was hungry. I needed something fast. In my head I said "Let's do this!" It led to an interesting mini journey.

At the time I didn't have onions or bacon, but a mental addition of the effect of onions seemed plausible. So I looked about for the closest approximation to bacon I had on hand. That turned out to be pepperoni. Yes, odd, I know, but the general concept is similar. I couldn't wrap a dog with pepperoni slices, so I put a couple of rows on some plastic wrap, layed the dog (Boars Head Beef Natural Casing) on them and rolled it up and nuked it for 25 seconds. I wrapped a bun in a paper towel and nuked it for 10 seconds. I had the catsup, relish and mayo and decided just to mix it up into a Big Mac sauce.

It was...not bad. I didn't know if I'd want it again, but it was intriguing. Three days later, I had a mini craving for another. But the Mayo was gone.

Then on Sunday I'm driving home and decided to stop at the store and do it properly. I forgot the onion again, but had the bacon, mayo and fresh buns. I worked out a good method to pin the bacon to the dog for broiling and toast the bun. I used the same sauce, but with the aggressive flavors of the broiled bacon and toasted bun, the sauce faded to the background.

Actually, I think the pepperoni dog was better. I'd still like to experiment with a BLT dog (or maybe a bacon dog with coleslaw), but with some tweaks, I think the pepperoni dog might be a better starting point.

[heidih]

I think what makes the mustard, catsup, mayo, relish thing work is that they are separately applied so every bite is a bit different. Plus you really need to be munching on the grilled jalapeno between bites

[percival]

Best way I've found to get the bacon to stay is just wrap it around the dog while raw, then spear with toothpicks and render at medium till crispy. The toothpicks also help keep the thing from rolling around, making browning on all sides easier. As a whole, the dish is just too salty and greasy. I think sauerkraut and/or a vinegary, mustardy potato salad would help balance it out a lot.

[kalypso]

Best way I've found to get the bacon to stay is just wrap it around the dog while raw, then spear with toothpicks and render at medium till crispy. The toothpicks also help keep the thing from rolling around, making browning on all sides easier.

I've done these a couple times for my employees at work. I've done them straight, but they seem to prefer the version with cheese inside.

To do that, I usually take a slice of regular American cheese and cut it into 4 strips. Then I slit the hot dog lengthwise starting and ending somewhere between a 1/4 and 1/2 inch from each end. The slit needs to be deep enough to fit the cheese slices into so they almost fit, they will overlap somewhat and stick up past the edge of the slit. Each hot dog takes 2 slices of bacon. Start at one end and tightly wrap the bacon around the hot dog generously overlapping the bacon each time you make a lap around the dog. The trick is to wrap tightly and overlap generously. Overlap the 2nd slice of bacon and continue wrapping tightly until you get to the end of the dog. We've never had to use a toothpick to hold the bacon on. Once it's wrapped, I usually use my hands and press the bacon firmly onto the dog.

We've got an 8' flat top at work, one end of which is alwyas set to a cooler temp than the other. I usually just throw them on the cooler end of the flat top and forget about them. The bacon starts cooking slowly at first, then quicker as the fat renders out of the bacon. Every so often my employees will take a turner and roll them so that the bacon eventually gets totally crispy and brown on all sides. It takes about 35-45 mintues, depending upon where my employees have set the temp on the flat top and how long it's been on, to get them fully cooked. Sometimes all the cheese seeps out, usually, if the dog has been tightly wrapped, most of it stays inside. These things are insanely good.

[Jaymes]

In much of the southwest, bacon-wrapped hot dogs are known as "Mexican hot dogs" or "Sonoran hot dogs," and are served with what one usually thinks of as Mexican condiments.

They're wildly popular.

[fyfas]

Writer John T. Edge did a New York Times piece on the Sonoran Hot Dog in 2009.

Link will take you to it...

NYT - Sonoran Hot Dogs