Well, hello there
welcome to my food blog. my name is mia. i'm a 28 year old food obsessed indonesian (jakarta born and raised, woot woot) who's been living (happily) in brooklyn, new york, for the past (almost) ten years. i am not a chef, nor a culinary writer. but i know what i love (read:food) and i'm here to share the love.
to reach me:
miahungrylongtime@gmail.com
Old, but not stale.
complete listicle:
restaurants:
joe's shanghai (manhattan)
apt 138 (bk)
la isla (hoboken)
vanessa's dumplings (manhattan)
crif dogs (manhattan)
picollo roma (hoboken)
am-thai kitchen (bk)
bar food:
the green rock (hoboken)
food events:
indo food fest (queens)
mia attempts cooking:
pasta puttanesca
Other hungry blogs
Wednesday, March 25, 2009, 10:47 PM
Good Dogs Bad (Photo) Jobs
Update: Some photos have been anonymized by request of disgruntled party. All "Mr. Manfriend" references have now been replaced with "SOMEDUDE". Thank you.This entry is about the best hot dogs I've ever had..so far anyways! After this experience I am now officially a hot dog connoisseur. Yup! No more street dogs from them NYC carts (always next to the raunchy smelling peanut carts by the way), only "gourmet" dogs for me from now on!
Before I go about my hot diggity dog night (okay that's the only time I say hot diggity I promise), I do have to apologize.
The night before the diggity night (oh man! okay no more now), I bought a new camera. I was all excited about my new sweet pink shutter machine that I just started snapping away, not realizing that the setting was on the lowest picture resolution in the planet. I think it was -7000 DPI. DPI being Don't Post It. Wow I just came up with that.
So my friends, all the pictures are damn blurry and sucky. I'm so sorry. I know it's a sin to take blurry food pictures, but what can I do? I was a bad, bad girl.
So you'll forgive me?
Yeah? Okay, let's move on.
It was a lovely New York afternoon. This girl was hungry. Hungry for cheap food.
Then her friend SOMEDUDE suggested Crif Dogs. And the girl said, hells yeah!
Crif Dogs is located in the used-to-be-cool East Village area of the island of Manhattan. Or Man-less-ttan. Seriously, all the cute guys moved to Brooklyn! Go Brooklyn! It's on St. Marks, between 1st and A. I think. I wasn't paying attention because SOMEDUDE was grumpy and all rushy-rushy, and I was starving!
This is an easy way to spot the place:
Yes it's a big hot dog with "Eat Me" on it. Hello Captain Obvious!
This is SOMEDUDE in front of the place:
I told you he was grumpy! But cute, so cute.
So we went inside and discovered that we were the only two customers in there. But then again, it was around 5.30 in the afternoon on a week day, not really dinner time yet.
The place was cute. It was in a basement, so low ceilings and dark. Lots of knick knacks and character, but honestly, I didn't give a flying dog! Okay, I'm sorry for that one.
oh! oh! to the side, there's this archaic looking phone booth (seriously real crappy looking) and it's actually an entrance to a secret speak-easy-y bar called PDT (stands for Please Don't Tell, har har). Supposedly you walk in, pick up the phone, say the password and someone will open the back "wall" of the phone booth and you walk right in to this pretty lounge bar joint where you can buy a lovely Old Fashioned for eight hundred bucks. Okay I'm exaggerating. The whole phone booth thing is a cute gimmick, but I ain't got no time for gimmicks! I was there to get my dogs.
Anyways here's the "phonebooth":
And yes, to me "Please Don't Tell" obviously means write about it on the interwebs and tell everyone. Because I'm that kinda gal.
Back to the dogs! Woof!
Here's the front-of-house and kitchen area (check me out using an industry term):
They have SO many different kinds of hot dogs and really they all sound amazing.
The dogs range from $2.50 to $5, which you might think a bit pricey for a damn hot dog, but dudes, amazingness. TRUST.
By the way, it's BYOB here. Yeah!
And oh, they also have specials for us cheapos:
So we ordered. After annoying SOMEDUDE by taking three days to make a decision, I went with the "Spicy Redneck", which is a dog wrapped in bacon, deep fried to perfection, then topped with chili, sour cream, coleslaw, and jalapenos. OOOOooh lordy! SOMEDUDE got the two NewYorker and a soda special, which look like regular dogs to me. He got em with some mustard and boatloads of sauerkraut. We also got a large waffle fries.
Then we sat and wait. Here's SOMEDUDE looking slightly less grumpy:
I think it's a fake smile. But at least he's trying.
Yes, he has a shaved head. And a beard. But boy, isn't he adorkable?
Me likey!
Although the second this arrived at our table, I forgot all about him.
Oh yeaaaaahhhhhh baby!
Here's his newyorker special:
Man they were good. The Crif dogs are really good. Definitely taste better than those hot dog carts' dogs. No mystery meat there.
Here's our bag of crispy waffle fries:
And here's my Spicy Redneck:
My friends, let me tell you. That shi* was bananas!
Like I said, the dog itself was great, real good stuff. But wrapped with bacon and deep fried? Ooooooh. I'm in fatty-heaven! The bacon was so crispy and tasty. And the toppings? Perfect. The chili was good and not too much, the sour cream was barely there but complements the whole thing harmoniously. The coleslaw? OH MAN. It was yummers times a million. It provided a crunch factor. How is it possible that I've lived all these years without ever having the dog-slaw combo? Mind boggling, really. The only downside for me was that there was not enough jalapenos. It was definitely a little spicy, but not spicy enough for me. But then again, I am Asian. We. like. fire.
You see that bacon? Aahh.. bacon is such a good wrapping material. From now on I will wrap all my packages with bacon before I send them out.
So we inhaled the meal in two seconds.
Best two seconds of my life (well that day, best two seconds of my day. i don't want you to think i'm lame).
Now I understand this girl:
It made me almost wanted to buy this:
Almost. Almost.
It was perfect. Yummy and light. Light because I had one (and a half) hot dog, not because it was low-fat or anything duh.
Then we had a few beers and walked to the train station. This is where we were, only a few dogs I mean blocks from Crif:
SOMEDUDE is very happy at this point.
Give me smile, come on:
Almost. One more time:
As for me, I was a very, very happy girl.
PS: It's even better when you're all boozed up.
Rating:
= 4 hungry mias: really good! but too much of these you'll get fat! and probably broke.|