Chicago - I wanna hot dog

[Bcakes]

After visiting Japadog in Vancouver I've decided to hit up a local speciality Hot Dog vendor/store in each city I visit. Where should I go in Chicago?

Also other than Pizza and Polish Food what does Chicago do well? I can research restaurants on my own once I get that info. I'm just feeling overwhelmed by the massive amount of food info on Chicago at this point.

Thanks!

[Chew on That]

Portillo's! Go to Portillo's for a hot dog or Italian Beef sandwich!

[Kate is always hungry]

If I were coming to Chicago, I'd go to Carl's Red Hots, my childhood hot dog stand!
Carl's Red Hots
1957 E. 83rd St.
Chicago, IL 60617 773-721-8300

[parleek]

When I visited Chicago with my husband last year, he was very keen on making the trip to Hot Doug's after reading about it on the internet. It was great! I'm not sure I recall the plan hotdog being anything more than a good hot dog, but we still talk about how delicious the sausages were. We sampled a bunch (we had some friends with us too), including the "game of the week", which I recall may have been antelope. We went on a Friday to get the duck fat fries as well. There was a huge line, about an hour I'd say, but it was seriously worth it. And this was after taking public transit there from the Mag. Mile area - about an hour (and then the same again to get back) - it was an outing to say the least, but we're planning on doing the same again this year.

[marciab]

parleek, I'd like to say how happy I was to hear that you took public transit out to have lunch at Hot Doug's! Visitors always seems hesitant to venture out of down town and then are afraid to use public transportation. So many of the best restaurants in Chicago are not down town. Which brings me to my second comment,
Huey's in Andersonville is great for hot dogs; and their cheese fries are fantastic, really good cheese sauce.

[parleek]

Back to Hot Doug's again this year and as with last year it was awesome. A number of selections were sampled including the Merguez Lamb Sausage with Chili-Garlic Mayonnaise and Feta Cheese which was the best of the ones I tasted, and an alligator dog - which was the game of the week, plus friday Duck Fat fries.

Took a friend along this trip and yes, we did take public transit again this year. And I have to say - it was so easy! And actually not as long as I recalled from last year. Red line from Chicago to Belmont and the 77 bus along Belmont to Chicago - 45 minutes tops. And what's up with your public transit workers all being so super friendly?!?

[parleek]

Back to Hot Doug's again this year and as with last year it was awesome. A number of selections were sampled including the Merguez Lamb Sausage with Chili-Garlic Mayonnaise and Feta Cheese which was the best of the ones I tasted, and an alligator dog - which was the game of the week, plus friday Duck Fat fries.

Took a friend along this trip and yes, we did take public transit again this year. And I have to say - it was so easy! And actually not as long as I recalled from last year. Red line from Chicago to Belmont and the 77 bus along Belmont to California - 45 minutes tops. And what's up with your public transit workers all being so super friendly?!?

[Pete Oldtown]

Authentic Thai. Thanks to the efforts of Erik on this board and others, two restaurants here, Spoon and TAC Quick, have translated their "natives only" menus into English and you can try stuff you've never even heard of before. You can search here and at www.LTHforum.com to find copies of the menus and recommended dishes.

Vietnamese is also good here and most of the restaurants are clustered near the Argyle stop on the Red Line.

Other than Hot Doug's, nearly all the hot dog places here are fine. They mostly use Vienna dogs, which are very high quality. A hot dog here is almost a meal by itself.

[turkob]

My favorite spot for a hot dog is Hot Doug's.
http://www.hotdougs.com/

But there are a lot of places that do a good "Chicago-style" hot dog made with vienna beef, and topped with pickles, relish, tomatoes, etc.

Another Chicago specialty is the Italian beef sandwich. I love the sandwich at Mr Beef, but once again lots of places do this sandwich pretty well.

Citysearch site for Mr Beef:
http://chicago.citysearch.com/profile...

[weinstein5]

as turkob mentioned there a manyspots to get a quinltessential chicago style hotdog - one I like just for the decor of it is Superdawg - but there are many around - also word of warning no catsup on the hotdog -

Other cuisines - mexican particularly highend some examples frontera grill, Tomplembompo Salpcion - or Thai food -