A hot dog, to me, is a tube steak in a soft bun with brown mustard and sauerkraut on top. (We won't get into the sweet red onion sauce, because that's unobtainium west of the Delaware River.) It's a simple thing, really, sold all over New York from street carts lovingly known as “dirty water hot dog carts.”
So why the hell are they so hard to find here? We have hot dog carts, and while most of them are of the HOT DOGS HOT DOGS HOT DOGS variety selling border dogs–also awesome–you'd think there'd be someplace that sells them without my needing to sit at a table. With all the fetishes about other New York foods–bagels, pizza, egg rolls–why is it so hard to find the staple of the streets?
Enter the cart at the Home Depot on Katella in Orange. Finally, a real hot dog cart.
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It's non-descript, and it isn't visible from Katella unless you slow down too much, but it's there: a real dirty water hot dog. (Incidentally, that name is an evil misnomer–the hot dogs are fine.) You can get it with brown mustard and sauerkraut, or you can tart it up in whatever other incorrect manner you like.
It's not as cheap as I remember hot dogs in New York being, but then hot dogs in New York are not as cheap as I remember hot dogs in New York being either… and this beats Costco, which was my desperate backup for these many years.
Home Depot is located at 435 W. Katella Ave., Orange. The cart parks out front almost every day.
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