My husband Eric and I recently relocated to the Chicago area and after watching a documentary on Hot Dogs I have decided to find for myself the best Chicago Dog in Chicagoland. My quest started with a visit to Poochies a burger and hot dog place we passed by on Dempster St. in Skokie IL. These were our first Chicago dogs in about 4 years and they tasted great, but mind you, we have no other Chicago dogs in our resent memory to set the standard. Poochies may have established the dog for which us to compare all other dogs since it was our first in a very long time.
We went to Poochies on a Sunday afternoon around 3:00 and it was pretty empty as you might expect at that time of day. We walked in ordered two Chicago dogs and a couple of sodas to wash them down. The college-aged girls at the counter were friendly, quick and efficient, managing to gossip about someone or another in their circle while serving up our food. The dogs had all the traditional toppings, onion, relish, tomato slices, jalapeno peppers, a whole dill pickle, mustard, and celery salt. The hot dog bun was poppy seed as is traditional, although it was not steamed, which seemed to help keep the toppings from popping out while eating. The Vienna hot dogs were beefy and delicious and went well with all the salty toppings. We left with full tummies, feeling like we had all the food we needed all for under $10. I was most impressed by the fact that the tomatoes were bright red and tasted like a tomato. All in all this was a great Chicago dog that may set the standard for which we can judge others.
The next Sunday we found ourselves with a similar hot dog craving at about 3:00 in the afternoon. Our first impulse was to head back to Poochies; so, we piled in the car and headed down Dempster St. toward Skokie once again. On our way we passed Herms Hot Dog Palace and took a quick left to try out a new spot. Once again the restaurant was relatively quiet seeing as how it was a Sunday afternoon. We were quickly greeted by what I think was Mr. Herm himself. We looked at the menu for a second, even though we all knew what we were there for; then, ordered up two Chicago dogs, a couple of sodas and a small fry. Once again the order was just about $10 and some change. This was only slightly more than Poochies since we added the fries into this order. Mr. Herm who asked us if we wanted everything-- even the hot peppers and celery salt served the food up quickly. This attention to detail is greatly appreciated and we quickly said, “yes” to everything.
The hot dogs were nice and hot, the poppy seed buns were steamed and all the toppings filled the bun to just about overflowing. Eric looked at them and thought there were too many onions for his liking and tossed a few off, but I kept them all intact and was very happy I did. The steamed bun was a nice detail, but proved to make it harder to keep the copiously topped dog inside the bun. If you set it down too many times (like Eric did) you lost the integrity of your bun and soon began losing toppings. I had an easier time since I caught on that setting it down would cause an explosion and enjoyed every bite with minimal topping loss. The jalapeños provided the perfect zip that really brought out the beefiness of the hot dog the stems were even taken off another detail we both appreciated, although, the pinky white tomatoes added little to the flavor, but in the end did not distract from it. All in all we enjoyed the service from an owner operated joint as well as the atmosphere provided by a mural of the proprietor on the wall, video games, and the world cup soccer game on one of the many televisions. The dogs were delicious and we had fun!
