World Dinner Club

World Dinner Club
World Dinner Club

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

The Hot Dog Pilgrimage

Last Friday, after a long day of reviewing excruciating slides on manufacturing processing and sourcing widgets at our midtown Manhattan office, my colleague and I fled swiftly.  I told her that I needed to go on a hot dog pilgrimage to Gray’s Papaya.  She suggested the one not far from our Times Square office, but location is personal to me and I insisted that we had to go 72nd and Broadway to find the hot dogs that I was craving.  I lived on the Upper West Side after college and miss late nights followed by one of these hot dogs.  In the years since, have developed a practice of going to Grey’s Papaya when I am in New York.  The famous recession special that never goes away is two franks and a drink for just $3.50.  Although, I think it was $2.50 in 2000.  (Cursed food inflation!) 


After a long week, I agreed with her that these things were not best eaten by a dry palette and found a bar that was open before 5 pm on Columbus Avenue and threw back three Bass each.  Relaxed and rearing for Grey’s we walked over to 72nd street. The perfect combination of tomatoey onions that have been sweat into near oblivion and extra spicy mustard over a narrow frank and on a not too doughy roll is incomparable.  The casing quietly crunches as you take that first bite and for me every subsequent bite is a chomp, never a nibble, as all good street food should be inhaled rather than nipped at. 

2090 BroadwayNew YorkNY 10023 

at 72nd St.



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4 comments:

  1. As bizarrely basic as it seems - Grey's Papaya in NYC and Pink's in LA are really f*cking high on my bucket list.

    Sure we've got Japadog up here, but at the end of the day, there's nothing quite like the drunken hotdog in the middle of the night

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  2. Absolutely. My co-worker who went to Japadog in Vancouver, based on your recommendation, loved it!

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  3. ...you haven't had a Pearl Brand dog from Boston....even my NYC cousins...who are very particular and vocal about their burgers and dogs...had a Pearl over the 4th....the best dogs! With Spicy Girl Dill mustard of course...makes it even better!

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  4. Wow. Ok, I'll have to try that next time in Beantown!

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