Hot “G” Dog: The Overview

Even before Hot Doug’s closed its doors in 2014, there was no shortage of places in Chicago selling dressed-up gourmet sausage. With Doug in retirement, Chicago threatened to become the Westeros of encased meats. A whole bunch of restaurants were around to vie for the throne, but none of them felt like a real successor. Until February 2015, when a restaurant with a pretty decent claim opened in Andersonville. Juan Carlos and Octavio Garcia, two of Hot Doug’s four long-time line cooks, quietly opened Hot “G” Dog in the 5000 block of N. Clark armed with years of institutional knowledge and the same suppliers as their former boss.

Courtesy of www.hotgdog.com

Like many, I learned about Hot “G” Dog via a DNAInfo article on 27 April. The initial reviews via Yelp and my Facebook feed were overwhelmingly positive. My buddy Neal, a long-time devotee of Doug’s, wrote: “I went. I waited. I gorged. Hot “G” Dog is the real deal. All your favorite sausages, sauces, and cheeses are there.” My heart skipped a beat. I was out of town, but I drove back to Chicago and ate my first “G” Dog the next day. Since then, I’ve eaten there seven more times. At its best, Hot “G” Dog is great. At its worst, I’ve scraped some bad toppings off and thrown half-eaten sausages away. That’s not the ringing endorsement I had hoped to give, but it’s a promising start.

The sausages the Garcia brothers are slinging taste quite a bit like the food they spent over a decade cooking at Hot Doug’s. Using the same suppliers gives them a distinct palette of familiar flavors that other sausage places don’t quite have. The sausages are also closer to the range, ingenuity, and complexity one could expect from the original Hot Doug’s (rather than the new Wrigley Field concession stand). If you loved Doug’s and find yourself disappointed by the city’s other haute dog joints, “G” Dog is the best place to scratch your itch that doesn’t also require a Cubs ticket. But, it’s still far from being Hot Doug’s, for better or worse.

Here are the key differences:

• The hours are better. Hot “G” Dog is open every day. Monday through Saturday 10:30 ‘til 8:30, on Sundays ‘til 4:30. This is a huge improvement over the hilarious hours Doug was fond of. “I tried to make it as difficult as I could to eat here,” he once told me, “But people kept coming.”
• You’ve got a shot at a quick lunch. Unlike at Doug’s, there’s usually not a line. Even when there is a line, I have yet to see it snake out the door of the restaurant. Service was very, very slow when the DNAInfo article was published, but as of mid-June, the gap between ordering and eating had narrowed to about ten minutes.
• The sausages are the same, the toppings are not. Neal was right when he said your favorite sausages, sauces, and cheeses are at “G” Dog. But don’t expect them in the configurations you’re used to. There are wacky new combinations–some for better, some for worse. The only sausage I’ve seen 100% duplicated from the Hot Doug’s menu is the flagship foie gras/duck/sauternes sausage. It was a permanent special at Hot Doug’s, and it seems to be a permanent special here, too.
• The menu can be hard to understand. One of Doug’s strong suits was describing his food in a way that made me want to order the whole damned menu. Hot “G” Dog hasn’t figured that out yet. They’re kind of bad at it, actually. I’ll come back to that.
• The online specials menu is generally outdated. In eight visits, I have never seen the menu in the restaurant match the menu online. As I edit this in early July, the online menu hasn’t changed in almost a month.
• Some of the specials are great, some are not very good. I think you’ll be able to tell which sausages are which without too much trouble. If not, I’ll be posting some more detailed food reviews in the coming weeks that may help.

Let me circle back to the menu language problem. At best, the menu is full of typos. At worst, it’s hard to understand and doesn’t make the food sound appetizing. For example, on one visit, I ordered a sausage that featured “mandarin tar.” I figured maybe it was teriyaki sauce, but it turned out to be slices of canned mandarin orange. On another visit, there was also a sausage listed as “Yar Pork: Italian beer sauce, marinated mushrooms, feta cheese.” I was right in assuming the sausage was a yak/pork mix. I’m curious as to what the mushrooms are marinated in, or what Italian beer sauce is, but I don’t have any idea, and the person at the counter didn’t know either.

Maybe it’s unfair to hold the Garcia Brothers up to Doug’s standard, but given the amount of stuff they’ve borrowed from the master, it’s hard not to. Their non-specials menu features some very idiosyncratic language from its predecessor. Their slogan drives at the same “crazy sausage emporium” ethos without any of the charm. They use the same ordering pads. They offer duck fat fries two days a week. It’s clear that they want to be seen as carrying the torch, but they’re not ready just yet. I hope they get there. And, in the meantime, I’m mostly glad they’re not just serving carbon copies the hits Doug created. It’s more interesting and fun to see what they do with their culinary experience and instincts. With any luck, Hot “G” Dog will find its feet and become more than an imitation. I will certainly keep checking in on them. They’re too good at scratching the Hot Doug’s itch for me to stay away.

Brian

I’m a tax guy and technical writer living in the city known to its locals as The Big ‘Ago. I self-identify as a fighter against culinary dogma, a sandwich lover, and an overly-earnest hot dog enthusiast.