The Slaw Dogs - Pasadena

For the last month I heard a slow buoyancy about a new hot dog joint called The Slaw Dogs. I finally decided to see Google and what it was about. When I read about the unique ingredients that her Specialty Slav Dogs, I was intrigued and when I found out that the Slav Dogs in Pasadena, just 15-20 minutes away from me, my mind was formed. I had to check this place and take some of my club members for the ride. Since I never know when I will make a return visit to a restaurant, I thought it would be a fun, an impromptu hog dog sampling and between the 7 of us, we lubricated 8 different hot dogs along with a few pages. Before I speak hot dogs, let me briefly mention the pages we shared, starting with their beer Battered O-Rings. I'm an onion ring fan and they were fantastic. Light, crispy and not too oily. If you also love onion rings, you should definitely order them. Our sweet potatoes were served first lukewarm, but after they had pointed out that they cooked us a new batch graciously. These sweet potato fries were also light, crispy and sweet, but if they were cooked with chopped fresh herbs, they would rise even higher. I'm not sure exactly what a Belgian färse distinguishes from regular fries. Is it the fact that they are double-footed and/or come with dipping sauces? I liked the Belgian fries we ordered, but I'm not sure what it's about them that they do "Belgian". In general, all fried items we tried were cooked exactly right. I don't think you can go wrong with the fries or onions as a side for your dog. Now we go to the flesh of the thing. Pun intended. As mentioned, we have tried 8 different hot dogs, starting with the picnic dog. The ingredients for the picnic dog included a grilled Vienna all beef link, BBQ sauce, onion rings, potato salad and pimples. This was actually not one of the unforgettable hot dogs for me, although I liked the idea of it; but about half the group called it one of their favs. Next was the Thai Slav Dog with chicken sausage, spicy peanut coconut Satay Dressing, Cilantro-Carrotslaw, crushed peanuts and Siracha aioli. I love the chicken sausage. It was juicy and had good taste, but the rest of the ingredients not for me as much as I thought it should have. I'm not sure why. Perhaps the flavors seemed to spread or compete with each other? Along with another hot dog I will mention later, the Thai Slav Dog was one of the least preferred crew of my hot dog. Life definitely started looking for the Caesar Dog consisting of chicken sausage, chopped Romaine, roast garlic, parmesan, garlic crouton and caesar dressing. Again, this chicken was wonderful and I can tell you now that this was my favorite dog of our sampling. I loved the freshness and the cripple of Romaine, the light saltiness of Parmesan and, of course, the garlic, from roast garlic to garlic. I would definitely order it again. The Yay train continued with The Reuben Dog with a butterflied spicy sausage, pastrami, Swiss, sauerkraut, Russian dressing on grilled rye. With this Pastrami and Hot Dog Duo it brought me back to the time I had an Oki Dog, a "burrito" that also had hot dogs and pastrami as part of its filling. All ingredients went so well together. I liked that there was exactly the right amount of sour to the sour wort and I loved that the bread was grilled to a dark brown versus a pale brown with yellow spots that I saw with other grilled sandwiches in other restaurants. That was a great sandwich. Hot Dog Number 5 was the green monster with roasted green chili, Chipotle Mayo, grilled onion, pepper jacket, spicy garlic salsa. This was not the hit of the monster Mash. In fact, it was the least favorite of the pile. That was also the one I was most happy. The general consensus was that the chili was simply too muddy. One of my dining room partners mentioned that when these special chillies are roasted, the consistency should be softened; but this piece of knowledge has done little to change our minds. Maybe if a crispy component was added to the texture of green chiles, it could be much improved. Our sixth hot dog was one of the specials for the day and not on their regular menu. The market “Cali” dog was made with spicy polish sausage, kumquat Chutney, habanero pickled onion, mint grilled onions and curry ketchup. I loved the addition of the kumquat Chutney that I would never have imagined on a hot dog. It added fresh, tart, citrus notes. I thought there were only too many onions. I could not really taste the coin of the grilled onions, but loved the kick of the Habanero picked onions. Although subtle, the Curry Ketchup radiated. They would think we are done now, but no, two more hot dogs to go with the seventh The A.B.L.T dog with double bacon, chopped Romaine, tomatoes, avocado, fry garlic aioli. Since B.L.T. Sandwiches were one of my favorite sandwiches, the A.B.L.T. dog was definitely a hit with me and I really liked the addition of the roast garlicaioli. I'd rather have a simple Mayo. To finish our hot dog festival, we had the country breakfast dog that was a special one for the day together with the market dog “Cali” that I mentioned earlier. Originally my plan was for us to try only 6 dogs, but when I heard the words fried egg, all bets were out and so we added the two specials to our hot dog line up. The Country Breakfast Dog was simply a hot dog with engraving, bacon, cheese and an over-easy roasted egg. Of course over-easy meant egg with egg yolk. Cutting into the egg and soaking the egg yolk through the rabbit made this one of the measurable hot dogs to eat, but it was definitely worth it. Also with every hot dog came small yellow paprika that I absolutely loved. A nice heat blow didn't hurt anyone. Overall I really enjoyed the hot dogs at The Slaw Dogs with a few exceptions. I thought the creativity that went into coming with the unique ingredients really stellar. A Caesar dog and a country breakfast dog are definitely not something I would have thought of, nor would I have thought to hit a hot dog with Kumquat-Cutney or potato salad. The one thing I want to do is the bungalow. It must be a bit firmer to keep all the ingredients, but I think that is fixable and hopefully, something that Slav Dogs will look into the improvement. What is also beautiful about The Slaw Dogs is that if you feel creative, you can even choose your own toppings as well as from 11 types of hot dogs. You can even choose if you want your hot dog simply burned or “ ribbed”, which means deep fried until the meat comes out of the case. I don't eat hot dogs regularly, but if I felt it, I would definitely see the Slav Dogs climbing down.