So let me get this straight, for years the city has fought tooth and nail to condemn these culinary chimeras because of health and safety reasons. Some of the reasons behind this are that the vendors aren’t licensed and governed by the health department, their grills are not safe to cook on and because you can’t be grilling out in the open, they are undermining businesses that pay all kinds of taxes and taking away their business and because it’s just against the law. blah, blah, blah, blah it’s the same rhetoric over and over again. Well, Farmer John is funding a campaign to make the Bacon Wrapped Hot Dog THE OFFICIAL HOT DOG of L.A. Hmm … I’m not sure how this is gonna work, but for every vote they donate a pound of food to a food bank, so I guess that’s a good thing. If the hot dog does become official, I guess we’ll see a “gourmet” lunch truck selling them pretty soon, offering organic hot dogs with bacon. I haven’t been to the art walk in a while, maybe there’s already one out there, who knows. But what I do know is that this isn’t gonna happen and the bacon wrapped hot dog will remain the UNOFFICIAL hot dog of L.A. If the city makes this legit, then they’re full of shit, more so than they already are. It’s just another chapter in the story of how L.A. loves, hates, loves street vendors. Give us your delicious food so when can condemn you later for selling it.
LA EASTSIDE
Life Beyond The River
Give us your delicious food until we can cast you off, take your grub, charge a shitload more, and pass it off as a “personal take.”
It doubles as LA’s Unofficial/Official Hot Dog and laxative agent. Another chapter in co-opted street vending. 🙁
I see where you are coming from but we all know that the best food hardly comes from the restaruants that sell the bacon wrapped hot dogs, but from the vendors.
Any angeleno can tell you that.
Some thing about this whole proposal just aint kosher.
I thought these were legal now. In the fashion area there are a lot of legit-looking carts with grills. These aren’t the little carts but the large trailers with propane tanks. The companies are listed on the signage.
Their messed up pitch:
You are standing on the brink of history right now!
Dear Angelenos and beyond,
New York has the Dirty Water Dog. Chicago has the Red Hot. Even Baltimore has the Half Smoke. It’s high time L.A. got its own dog: The Bacon Wrapped Hot Dog. Born on the streets of East L.A., and sold by street vendors everywhere from Ktown to WeHo, from the Westside to downtown, those delicious Bacon Wrapped Dogs are as So-Cal as surf boards and peroxide.
So now we’re on a mission to make the Bacon Wrapped Hot Dog the official Hot Dog of Los Angeles. And with the support of our sponsor Farmer John, we’ll donate a pound of food to L.A. area food banks for every vote received. With your help, we can bring about a tastier tomorrow for our magnificent city.
—-
Ktown to Weho? Westside to Downtown?
Doesn’t that miss most of LA? What about the Eastside? What about the San Fernando Valley, Lancaster, Harbor City and San Pedro? This from a company HQd in VERNON within spitting distance of Boyle Heights?
The two places I see these dogs sold all the time are the fashion district and Westlake on Alvarado. That and outside nightclubs.
Born on the streets of East LA? Is that correct?
I am not in a position to know, but I remember it was sold in the mid 1990s in Hollywood, around night clubs. It was also sold by the late 1990s just outside of Old Pasadena. I recall them in Tijuana too.
where this hot dog actually came from is debatable by all means. Just because the people who sell them are of Latin@ or Mexican decent doesn’t mean the dog came from East Los. That’s like ASS-U-MING that burritos were born in East LA too. As for those carts in the alleys, they get away with cooking them because of the design and classification of their truck. They’re allowed to cook and grill, unlike other carts. It get’s tricky, but I think the city is adopting a if you can’t beat them, join them policy.
I remember having a bacon wrapped hot dog in Zacatecas when I was 7 years old.
In LA the first place I saw them consistently was in front of Circus/Arena on Santa Monica Blvd. in the late 80’s. They were known as Club Dogs.
Years from now some wise ass will probably rename them surfer dogs or some other ‘L.A./West Coast” archetype.
God damn – we’re talking about a hot dog here- not determining the zoning for a new public school that your kid is gonna attend. Who the F cares if they left out Lancaster, you weirdo! The pitch is harmless (unless your pig at the Farmer John factory).
So the guy with the cart selling danger dogs outside of my bank in Pedro isn’t a “gourmet food truck”?
Mike,
What is a matter with the you !!!! The bacon wrapped hot-dog is an important social issue, we can’t let the “powers that be” steal our bacon wrap hot-dog identity !!!!!
Is that Mike Miur from Suicidal ???
as much as i love me a bacon wrapped street dog con todo, i dunno about getting behind this whole “official hotdog” thing. food for the foodbanks = good. but say “farmer john” and the first thing i think of is that vernon death stench in the air.
Mike Muir of Suicidal Tendencies is way too cool to have said anything like that.
Speaking of Mike Muir, the old working class Venice seems to be vanishing. The ST context is going away.
I remember going to Huntington Park and seeing like 5 vendors lined up on the Walnut Park side of Slauson (Being a CDP, there were literally no rules on that corner). I used to buy my danger dog with a “Jalapeno Toreado”, which felt like consuming thermite to me. You could also buy cigarettes imported from Mexico, 2 for $5 for dessert.
blah blah violation blah blah kroq blah blah.. damn — all that rambling made me hungry. So where’s the best place to get one of these bacon wrapped hot dogs? any suggestions?
Can we get a ruling on a conflict of interest? We did just fine without a city wiener until our pals at FARMER JOHN’S started this campaign, who happens to sell….. WIENERS AND BACON!!!
@downtown of course it is a conflict of interest, but in the past, these obvious acts of self-promotion have resulted in wider recognition. Think of Nathan’s hot dog eating contests and the like. Farmer John is just a supplier of raw materials, so it’s not quite the same coopting as usual situation.
That being said, just like @alienation mentioned, go east on Olympic, make a right on Soto and the smell of death in the air will cure you of any meat cravings you might have for a while.
There is/was a restaurant in the area. I cannot fathom why it is still in business.
Not sure if the adage “any press is good press quite holds up here”, the only thing that stops me eating hot dogs for any length of time is footage of people cramming down during the contest. And talking about the plant in Vernon my mother started a job there in the early 50’s before she could speak english, she lasted one day at a time when her and her parents were eating oatmeal 3 times a day to save for their first house in this country. It had to be really bad to not go back when your that desperate for a paycheck.
RANDOM HERO-I have to agree with you.
Whatever. Bacon and hot dogs kick ass and I’m glad to see a sponsor for something this good. They have a donation signup too at http://votelahotdog.org . I can’t hate on that.
As hotdog street vendor, I know that I can serve a sanitary bacon wrap dog from my so called legal hotdog trailer, with the proper training and a $9000.00 hotdog trailer, and all the Tax, commissary, health department and more fees as well as long hours, we hotdog business owners who are doing business legally, we are been pushed out off business by those small carts who are not in any system nor contributing to this society that is perhaps in a recession last Time I heard.
More over those bacon wrap carts are dangerous, and if you care to know than investigate before you take side, how ever remember this you must support a legal hot dog stand rather than, you know what.
I’m not some racist nor I’m I been a hater, in contrary I’m an immigrant who came to America just like every one else that we are talking about, yet I have chose to do it legal out off respect to the people that trust my food service is professional and prepared to the best off my ability, with a load off culinary experience and much more love for what I do.
Corporations are killing the average pop & mom store! Keep that in mind too