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Hi guys! This weekend I found myself in Los Angeles again, for one day, and we stopped at the most charming little hot dog place before leaving for the airport to go to Lake Tahoe for a Yoga/Music Festival. Let me get back to talking about these hot dogs.
Actually before that, I can try to give you a little background on this place. Scheid and Chris Duffy breifly mentioned before we got here that this aparently had been a really hot spot for rowdy drunks to go to after attending punk and hardcore shows at nearby clubs. It was common catchphrase at some point after a rowdy show to say “see ya at oki dog’s”.
After some mild googling, I learned that the “oki dog” was invented by an Okinawan, named Sakai “Jimmy” Sueyoshi, who moved to America in the 70s, and eventually opened up a hot dog stand to make a dollar. It was open late and located near Hollywood nightclubs and featured a signature dish: a burrito filled with 2 hotdogs, pastrami, and chili cheese. This is exactly what you want when you are sweaty and wasted, right? He is so smart. You can read more about the history here.
Anyway, we went on a hot afternoon, for most of us including me, this was my first meal of the day, so it was a little intimidating. I love this menu so hard, because everything about it rules.
I went for the Oki Dog with a Pepsi, one of the more intense breakfasts I’ve ever had. The Oki Dog seriously looked at me in the face with its hotdog EYES and laughed at me with its pastrami LIPS as I bit into it. I looked at it back straight in its eyes, and it still intimidated me. I felt fear for one of the few times in my life at the fact that my food was looking back at me, staring me down like a champion heavyweight contender, and winning. It beat me, too. I only made it halfway through. I left with my head hanging down, defeated. I’ll be back for a rematch next chance I get.
Oh, and for one more dollar, you can get french fries comparable in quality and quantity to the ones from the Dirty O in Pittsburgh. Except krispier.
I liked this sign on the wall telling you what is in an Oki Dog. PS, you’re eating 3 variations of meat at once. Check out MUST tard. And the smily faces. And the creative spelling. And the penmanship of this sign totally belongs to someone who is constantly saying “Fuck Yeah!!” to himself in his head :
I realized in no other city do I enjoy hot dogs more than I do in Los Angeles. Not a nathan’s hot dog, a papaya dog, a hot dog from Steve’s in Cleveland, a coney from Skyline in Cincinatti, compare to these LA street dogs. The night before going to Oki Dog’s, before going to bed, I had a very sinful eating experience. I wandered around looking for snack around 230 am and saw a lady selling delicious hotdogs from a little push cart very similar to the ones I had outside of The Smell last year. These big dogs are grilled, wrapped in bacon, topped with grilled peppers and onions, and ketchup, mustard and MAYO!! I thanked her graciously and brought it back to my hotel room and ate it in bed.
Ok…I didn’t forget about the NYC restaurant weekly review thing. I did say, however, that I am lazy. I do have two very different places to review and they are both tasty! (one is VEGAN and one is certainly not!)
I wanted to take a moment to let everyone know that people in NYC are sometimes a**holes. (Crap! Can I say that on here?!) Granted, you may have known this already because there are a multitude of reasons to think that. I was referring to the fact that sometimes we will be convinced, like the hipster idiots we are, to spend a ton of money on something because it’s “organic” or “green”. I am guilty of this – BUT this time, it was totally worth it. (and let’s be honest, a lot of times it IS worth it because it’s tasty and good for you but the whole time you’re eating your grass-fed burger you can’t help but think it’s so freaking expensive and how you’re kind of an idiot for buying it)
Enter the fancy, pretentious organic ICE CREAM TRUCK! If you are a NYC resident chances are you’ve seen one of these around town. The company is called VAN LEEUWEN ARTISAN ICE CREAM and they drive around town in big, yellow trucks. Recently, one of these trucks has made it’s permanent summer residence around the corner from my workplace, in front of the Standard Hotel in Manhattan. Conveniently located right off the Highline and also in a neighborhood where people have lots of $$ to spend.
Here is a photo of their truck I found online. So last week everyone at work kept coming back with ice cream and talking about this truck. It was one of those killer 89 degree days so I took a stroll around the corner to track down the EARL GREY ICE CREAM everyone was talking about. They also have other, pretentious flavors such as: Red Currant, Ginger, Hazelnut and something called Giandujia.
Here is my delicious, melting cone. I must say, the EARL GREY rocked my tastebuds. It was amazing. And they are actually reasonably priced when compared with other ice cream places in town:
Van Leeuwen Small: $3.95 (which was a good amount for me)
Red Mango Small (no topping): $2.95
Mister Softee Small Cone: $1.95
So despite the fact that it seems pretentious, the company is really good. They only use “paper products” made from sugar cane husks and corn husks, and they donate money to charities. Their ice cream is also truly delicious so I suggest sucking it up and getting one next time you feel like a piece of frozen heaven.
Here is their cute, yet flash heavy site: http://www.vanleeuwenicecream.com/
Also on a completely UNRELATED note, a few of us had a Harry Potter themed dinner party to celebrate the midnight release of the the new movie Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. We made things like “Quaffle Pie” and “Sirius Black Beans and Rice“.
By far the best was the topping Jed and Elias made for their sundaes – a picture is worth 1,000 words:
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Hi everybody! It is still so freaking hot as HELL outside, and since HELL is affiliated with Satan, and Satan is affiliated with Evil, and Killing is Evil, and a lot of times when that happens, BLOOD is involved, I decided to make some SANGRIA tonight, and it is delightfully easy and refreshing! And when you make some, you can think about how it’s like, you know, you’re chugging blood, and that’s so cool.
Hey! It’s really easy, this is how I made mine. First, I got some fresh fruit:
Oranges, slice them thin or chop them into chunks!
These are Italian sugar plums! Do the same to these bad boys.
And strawberries! Slice these up as well.
To destroy some illusion, here’s a picture of me taking a picture of the strawberries.
Get some RED WINE! A red table wine is good! I was highly recommended this bottle at the liquor store by the nice store clerk. This is a very sweet Italian red wine. It is very delicious and so sugary and is as close to candy as red wine can get I think. The unicorn on the label is also a nice drawing.
And finally, my final ingredient is SPRITE!!!!
There are of course infinite variations on making Sangria, but this batch I made this evening was especially refreshing and chug-worthy.
I made myself a big glass of it and drank it alone and watched Home Alone 2 with my boyfriend. I put the chopped fruit on the bottom of the cup. Then a couple ice cubes on top of that. Then I poured on the red wine, enough so that the fruit and cubes were submerged, and then a nice good splash of sprite. Finally, I got some chopsticks and aggressively poked and mixed it around so that the fruit penetrated the liquid much better. Here is the cup that I am chugging right now:
Typically, you can add additional sugar to the mix, but the wine I got was already candy level sweetness. If you are looking to get wasted faster, you can add more booze to it as well, such as brandy or triple sec. Also, use whatever fruit you feel like. Other fruits that work well are nectarines, lemons, pineapples, apples, berries, peaches, honeydew could be rowdy, whatever.
I love sangria, because the first time my mom ever served me wine, I thought it was sangria. It was a fizzy red wine that was so refreshing and sugary. When I asked her what it was, she said it was MERLOT and MOUNTAIN DEW!!! It was WILD!!!
Here is a picture of my mom picking some greens from the family garden a couple weeks ago. She is so wonderful!
It is so HOT and HUMID today. WHAT A HOT JULY EVENING!! As a fun little refreshing treat, I made some fruit soup. It is very easy to prepare as you will see.
First, choose 3 exotic tropical fruits. Mine came in cans. I chose RAMBUTAN, LYCHEE, and JACKFRUIT. The bonus of fruit in cans is that it comes with a delicious fruit infused syrup, which is a great addition to the soup.
Get a large bowl, and dump the contents of the three cans into it, syrup and all. Put the bowl in the fridge to chill.
While that is chilling, I would like to introduce you to a very great thing. This is a small bag of multi-colored 5-minute tapioca pearls:
As you can see, it was $1.69. To prepare the tapioca, get a huge pot of water going and let it come to a boil. Empty the bag into the water and start gently stirring it around. They’re ready when they start to float.
Afterwards, I strained and ran it under some cold water, so that they are cold and not hot anymore.
So now, all you have to do is dump the cold pearls into your fruit bowl in the fridge, and THEN, you grab a can of coconut milk , shake it up, and open it with a can opener, and then dump THAT into the bowl as well. Give it a GOOD STIR!
And that’s it really. It’s really good. To serve, I ladled into rice bowls and added an ice cube or two to the soup. It makes it extra cold, and also, the soup is quite sweet and rich, so as the ice melts, the cold broth becomes extremely chuggable. Easy!!!
I hope you guys caught the feast last weekend, the fried dough was off the chain. For $4.00, you could have purchased a paper sack FULL of fried ecstacy, and drenched in the finest, whitest, purest powdered sugar. I mean, I’m sure it’s pretty hard to fuck up fried dough, but oh man, how greasy and crispy on the outside and how chewy and steamy on the inside! Sorry, I don’t have a picture, I ate it all before I even thought about it.
Here are other fun pictures from the feast in Williamsburg.
I know I hyped up the fried dough pretty hard, but the italian sausage on a hoagie was also excellent. I am enjoying it here with a grilled bell peppers and onions, and also a chili pepper that stretches the entire length of the bun. I also know that this pictures is sideways as hell.
Okay, if you still want fried dough, and you are in Williamsburg, I would HIGHLY recommend going to TONY’S PIZZA at 355 Graham Avenue. The dough they are frying is pizza dough, and it is still piled mile high in powdered sugar. It rules. They taste almost as good as those beignets at Cafe du Monde in New Orleans, except way greasier. Okay, maybe I’m exagerating, they are not amazing, but they will suffice if you are fiending for fried dough and you are in the neighborhood. I can’t think of what else might be better for dessert after eating some pizza.
Their pizza is also cheap and delicious offering both NY style thin crust and midwest style poofy crust. Here is what their sausage and pepperoni slice looks like:
These are the fried dough balls. I washed this all down with a can of coke, and will definitely be on my way to getting fat. See ya later!!!
