Sunday, January 20, 2008

The Bacon Wrapped Hot Dog: An LA Institution


How do you make something better? Add bacon!

To hungry downtowners, the push-cart bacon wrapped hot dog is as much a symbol of the city as the Hollywood sign. It's usually a plain, unsnappy, supermarket hot dog wrapped in bacon and charred on a portable makeshift grill, topped with ketchup, mayo, mustard, grilled onions, peppers and jalapeños. The whole is definitely more than the sum of its parts in this great snack.

There are many purveyors and I can't say that I've tried enough to do a round-up, though that's a fun idea, but my go-to stand is on Lafayette, south of Wilshire, just outside the Parking Violations Bureau Office...it almost makes me look forward to paying parking tickets.

Do you have a favorite bacon wrapped hot dog stand? Let me know so I can compare and contrast.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've never heard of bacon-wrapped hot dogs before! Suddenly I feel like I'm not a true Angeleno.

Outside the Parking Violations Bureau sounds like a great location. Lots of traffic! Hey, maybe the hot dog stands pays off the meter maids to hand out as many tickets as possible in order to drum up business. Suddenly I understand why tickets appear on the windshield so fast...

sku said...

Raven, head toward downtown on Wilshire or Olympic. By Western, you should start seeing numerous vendors. They pop up around 11:30am or so. There is almost always someone selling bacon wrapped dogs at major intersections or near Red Line stops.

Anonymous said...

There's also a flux of bacon dog vendors who regularly appear on the street corners of Santa Monica Blvd.from Robertson to San Vicente Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights when the gay bars are in full swing in West Hollyweird.