 Just Hot Dogs
I've long lamented the dearth of Chicago-style food in Southern California, and I'm not the only one. Why, get me, Jeff Garlin, and Jennifer Hudson together and the conversation will essentially be limited to Italian Beef sandwiches, Iltaco Pizza Puffs, and good coronary specialists within the Thirty-Mile Zone. Especially Hudson, she can put away like six beef/sausage combos in a single sitting, and dispense with them all in a single shitting.
So as a rule of thumb, whenever I come across something that'll satisfy The Craving, I grab it like it's a fuckin' leprechaun. The number of places that offer Chicago-style food is very finite, and ever-dwindling.
So when I happened to pass by this little Orange County food shack, I quite literally almost jacknifed the car over a barrier and barrelled into it at full speed. A new place to add to the list! In my excitement I almost forgot that I had just left Naugles like 20 minutes earlier, and was swinging through Westminster to get a banh mi from Lee's, for later. Take that, Hudson!
Crazily, Just Hot Dogs not only offers way more than just hot dogs, but their Chicago food is fully frickin' legit. Despite not being hungry in the slightest, I got an Italian Beef with sweet peppers, and it was on par with the better ones you'll find in Chicago—better, I dare say, than Taste Chicago's (sorry, Mr. Mantegna! Please don't revoke my privileges!). I can only assume the elderly Asian couple-proprietors are Chicago ex-pats themselves. Of course, it's not impossible that I hallucinated this whole experience in a post-Naugles haze, but I don't think so, because when I gained consciousness several hours later, there was not just the trash from this meal, but a sandwich wrapper from Lee's, in the footwell of my Suzuki Esteem.
Review by Wimpempy Tarlisle, June 2017 |
