C'mon Get Happy, Dog!

With two visits in less than seven days I can safely say that it's been a Happy Dog kind of week. I chalk my not-so-sudden desire to consume encased meats with beer chasers up to the start of baseball season, but that's neither here nor there.

After my first visit to the Happy Dog I began to somewhat systematically taste and test as many of the toppings and sauces as my palate would allow. To date there are 15 options I've yet to try, but my apologies to the cabbage and bok choy based toppings: it ain't gonna happen.

The first trip to the HD this past week was for my birthday and the construction of the Breakfast Birth-dog:


Since these images never turn out quite perfectly it's a hot dog topped with: bacon, egg, chipotle hollandaise, habanero pickled onions, and nacho cheese. The perfect marriage of comforting breakfast fare and spicy zing. I got my tater tots with chipotle ketchup, raspberry crunch mustard, saffron aioli, and "killer" steak sauce. While I'm glad to have tried it, I wasn't blown away by awesome with the raspberry mustard. The rest were all solid in their own right, especially the steak sauce, which makes A-1 look like Z-26, if you get my meaning. And I think you do.

We swung by again last night after an evening work event for more hot dog on beer action. I took the topping approach in a totally new direction this time and came up with the Asian Invasion Dog:



For the sight impaired and/or those reading this on an iPhone this one goes like so: hot dog with teriyaki onions, marinated portabello mushrooms, wasabi peas, Thai chili-garlic sauce, and black truffle honey mustard. Like a pan-Asian vacation on a hot dog! Got some tots with mustards, both traditional yellow and dijon, along with Momocho's habenero hot sauce and chipotle hollandaise (my favorite). Both the mustards were incredible, making their store bought cousins seem weak and wimpy in comparison. Momocho's habanero was excellent if not what I expected. It's thick and creamy, like an aioli, whereas I was expecting something thin and vinegar base. Regardless the spice/taste balance is perfect, plenty of fire, but not so much that it overwhelms any other flavors or leaves you burning in agony afterward.