Duchess Does It Fresh

There is a chain of restaurants in southern Connecticut called Duchess. I always loves this place. Earlier today on the ride from Albany to Fairfield we stopped in one for lunch. The chain is like a McDonalds and better in every way but fries. Here's the counter. Pretty standard.

Their signature burger is the "Big D." And since we loved the burger, my friends Derek's nickname became Big D.

What always bring me back to Duchess is their hot dogs. They have a great "dog with the works and bacon." Crumbled bacon in the bun must be a Connecticut thing. A simple but fantastic Connecticut thing. What is a dog with the works and bacon? Bacon goes in the bun and gets topped with the dog. The dog then gets topped with mustard, relish and kraut. Heaven in a bun.

I took time out from inhaling the dog to show you the bacon in the bun.

Good eating. By the way, my brother is next to me and making fun of me for taking pictures of hot dogs.

Lauren's House of Dogs

I had seen the ad a few times in the Metroland and was curious. I've got the need to cure something, so when I had a little extra midday time today, I made a beeline for Cardona's to pick up some pork butts. After picking up about 15 pounds of pork butt, two small pieces of different Fontina cheese and another chuck of cheese I had never heard of but the sample tasted good, I walked up the sidewalk towards Lauren's House of Dogs. Well, it isn't actually a sidewalk yet. I walked up the crushed stone and around some form work for a future sidewalk.

They serve two kinds of hot dogs, Sabrett's and Old World. They also prepare them a handful of different ways including deep fried. I went with a chili dog and one with mustard relish and kraut. Both were deep fried Old World hot dogs. The chili was a meat and bean chili and not the typical meat sauce. Nothing wrong with that in my book, I didn't grow up here. I did prefer the mustard, relish and kraut dog though. It is a little closer to the dog of my youth. The plate came with a few pickles too. I'd say the dogs were above average, not stellar. I like the place though. It had a very nice feel to it. If I had it to do again, I would have asked for toasted buns. The option is available, I just didn't make the request.

Very friendly people working there. It has been open for about 2 months. I was, however, the only customer during the 15 minutes I was there. I'm sure having the sidewalk torn up and construction delays on Delaware Ave aren't helping. Quite selfishly, I hope they are doing OK. I'd like to go again. There is a list of things on their menu I'd like to try: fries, onion rings, collard greens, dog with onion sauce,  the Hot Dog chimichanga  style (I have no idea what this style is) to name a few. There are also a few things I hope they add. First and foremast, is bacon. I didn't see it on the menu and I'm so used to not seeing it anywhere around here that I honestly didn't think of it until I was eating the chili dog. Crumbled bacon under an average deep fried dog makes it significantly better. The second is a true Chicago Style hot dog. If you are offering Chicago Style hot dogs, really do it. Do the special bun, pickle, sport pepper and celery salt. Offer up the real deal.

A little blog side note: I took these pictures with my cell phone since I didn't have a camera. These photo's represent my first "out in public" blog pictures. Wasn't sure I had it in me.

Hot Dogs Part 1a - Dog Selection

I wish I knew how to take a decent picture. I kind of fried this one with the flash. So I took a few without the flash. Turns out it looks better fried with a flash. Maybe this blog is the excuse I need to get new coutertops. How can I take a decent picture on white tile?

Anyhow, here's a close up of the sauce. I divided what I had into 3 containers. One container is in the fridge, the other two are in the freezer. We are having hot dogs for a quick dinner tomorrow night before the girls go off to gymnastics class. That's what the sauce in the fridge is for. The sauce in the freezer will have to wait a little while (not too long hopefully) to be part of a Kuhn's Chili dog feast. I'm going to try to make chili dogs as close to the original as possible. The first step is dog selection. Any brand recommendations are welcome. I was in a Hannafords today and nothing grabbed me as "The Chosen Dog."

Hot Dogs: Part 1

This weekend, we packed up a car a went to my parents house in Connecticut. We drove down on Friday. Saturday after lunch, the wife and I dressed up to go sit in traffic on I-95. When traffic cleared, we made it a wedding. It was at a really nice place called the Branford House. Right on Long Island Sound and Saturday was a beautiful day for a wedding. The band was good, but I have always found wedding song selection weird. For example, when we were at Chris and Sue's wedding, the DJ actually played Run around Sue. Yes the song has the bride's name in it, but it also says she "goes out with every guy." Last nights odd wedding songs included I Will Survive, Staying Alive, and two from Michael Jackson: Billy Jean and Wanna be Starting Something. Maybe Wanna be Starting Something is appropriate, I don't know the lyrics. But Billy Jean is about be accused of fathering a illegitimate child. "The kid is not my son" and congratulations to the happy couple. With the exception of the traffic it and a few odd songs, it was a really nice time.

Sunday morning, with my parents still willing to watch the kids, we went to Trader Joe's and to follow up on something i had seen online. I like Trader Joe's and if one should show up in the Capital District, I'd shop there occasionally. They have some nice things, but I think most of them can be found in another form here already. If one were closer, I would try more of their refrigerated and frozen products. Today's list included dried apricots (for a friend),  almonds, pistachios, juice boxes, grape jelly and one or two more things I am currently blanking on.

And this brings us to our last stop of the morning and a discussion about hot dogs. Hot dogs have been showing up on blogs I follow. And when I think of my dream hot dog, I remember a place that is tragically gone. In Fairfield, Connecticut there used to be a place called Kuhn's Corner. It was a burger and dog joint. It was heaven on earth.  See those cars parked in front of the strip mall? It used to be there. Progress, huh.
 

Instead of the meat sauce topping found in the Albany area, Kuhn's had a Chili Dog. It wasn't a typical chili dog - which is a hot dog with a bowl of chili dumped on it. They had a secret chili sauce. It sat in a bowl on a hot plate. Simmering for days. All the hot dogs also came with bacon in the bun. So a Kuhn's chili dog was a toasted bun, bacon bits at the bottom of the bun, a hot dog (custom recipe made just for them), chili sauce, and then most people added raw onion. But lets not forget how the hot dog was cooked. The dog was deep fried before going on a well aged griddle to become part of you meal. Yes, deep fried.

The chili sauce, similar to Srirachi sauce, was spicier when at higher temperatures. So ordering it on top of their french fires was an exercise in self abuse. It was delicious, but by the 5th fry, your mouth was on fire with with what can be described as a pleasurable pain. So after reading about other people's hot dogs, I searched for Kuhn's online. Every now and then some place buys the sauce from what I am guessing is the owner's grandson. And during this search, I won the Kuhn's Chili Sauce lottery.

A small shop called Five-O Food Store, ironically located in one of the 3 buildings across the street from the strip mall's parking, sells the sauce on hot dogs. They also sell the sauce by the quart. I couldn't pay for a quart fast enough.

In the past, other places have had it and it was close, but not exactly. I tasted it cold. It tastes like the real deal. There are some old school Kuhn's Corner Style Chili Dogs in my future. I've been smiling since I bought it.