In perusing the holiday sale at threadless.com, I found this shirt. It's sold out at the moment, but you can sign up to be notified when the shirt is reprinted.
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November 2009
11/28/2009
Key caps are where it's at.
Since there won't be a post about Hot Doug's Part Deux (just couldn't fit it in this weekend), I give you another hot dog-related post. This time, in accessory form.
My love of key caps was born a few years ago when my brother gave me a Hello Kitty key cap back in the day. Key caps are much more prevalent now and you can find key caps in just about any incarnation you can think of. This one is available at modcloth.com.
11/05/2009
Belated field reporting from Hot Doug's
I started the original entry on September 2, but I never finished because I'm way behind on uploading pictures. My bad. I figured it's now November and I'm probably going to make another trip to Hot Doug's later this month. And take pictures with a real camera instead of just my cell phone.
The day started out promising. The weather was gorgeous, and we were hungry. However, getting to Hot Doug's at a decent time just wasn't meant to be. First, we had to run errands in the burbs. Then we got held up in traffic due to the Cubs game that day. Then we couldn't turn down the street we needed to because there was a Romanian festival blocking the street. So, we had intended to eat there for lunch. We didn't actually arrive until 3:40 PM. Hot Doug's technically closes at 4:00 PM.
Here's a tip: If you don't want to wait in line (and you WILL wait in line), you can call in an order and pick it up if the order is $20 or more. If you have a large number of people or you're ordering a couple of specials, this shouldn't be a problem. I tried to persuade my brother to order a special with me, split an order of duck fat fries, and a drink and we would be good to go. To quote him, "We're not going to order $20 worth of food!" *sigh* Fine.
At 4:00, a Hot Doug's employee came out and capped the end of the line. Surprisingly, there were still a number of people who were trying to get in the line after that point. He also brought menus with him, and RJ and I were deciding what to order. I was pretty set with what I wanted. I wanted the blue cheese pork sausage with Sir William pear creme fraiche and roasted almonds. I had a couple of back up options in case it was sold out for the day.
At about 4:15, RJ decides that he will get a special. Then he decides to call in an order. We were stymied, of course, as they only accepted orders until 4:00 PM. Yeah. That's my brother for you.
At this point, we became avid clock watchers. We had dinner reservations at 5:30 at Moto, which I didn't want to miss since this reservation took a while to happen (coordinating between schedules and the restaurant schedule wasn't as simple as one would think). At 4:50, we finally were in front of the entrance.
Once we entered the building, we decided to take our chances and follow through the Hot Doug's experience and hope that the other people meeting us at Moto would be able to hold the reservation for the group.
The place isn't that big and it was packed. Most everyone ordered multiple hot dogs/specials. While still in line, we're still figuring out our back up order in case the dog/sausage we want is out for the day. I did end up getting my desired special and RJ ordered the white wine rabbit sausage with sauce moutarde, goat cheese, and spicy calabrese peppers. We also got an order of duck fat fries. Order total: $18.
At this point, we got our order to go and ate in the car. Eating lunch that late worked out well since dinner at Moto took four hours (which was expected). We weren't served any hot dog-inspired dishes either, so I won't get into the Moto experience.