Though Ball Park and Oscar Mayer franks are common at supermarket, you can do a lot much better—specifically with the wealth of hot dogs made in Portland and Oregon. We did a trial run to pick the hotdog most worthwhile of your next barbecue.
Our approach: we prepared 6 basic frankfurters, weiners, and hot dogs from Otto’s, Edelweiss, Hebrew National, Hill’s, Zenner’s, and Olympia Provisions. After barbecuing each over charcoal, 5 staffers tasted each sausage plain prior to tucking it into a Franz hotdog bun with mustard. Our requirements: snappiness, taste, and juiciness.
Which dog ruled supreme?
Best Dogs
Best well-rounded: Hebrew National
We included this widely-available, non-Oregonian hotdog simply for contrast’s sake, however it wound up being the preferred dog of 4 of 5 testers. It has whatever you’re searching for in a hotdog: juiciness, a simple salty, meaty taste, and a tip of breeze from the housing. “It tastes like being eight years old,” sighed one pleased tester. Our one criticism is that these dogs are thin, so the meat-to-bun ratio is low.
Best locally-made beef-forward dog: Otto’s
We anticipated absolutely nothing however success from Portland’s hotdog palace, and Otto’s provided. The old-fashioned wieners at Otto’s, simply a little thicker and much longer than the Hebrew National dogs, have a taste similar to a dried meat stick, however with good breeze and generous quantities of juice. They’re dark reddish in color and made with a beef-pork mix, though beef taste controls here. Otto’s website explains it as having “wonderful snap and delicious creamy meat,” and while we didn’t always detect the velvety notes, we still delighted in the dogs. On its own, it can be a bit brief on salt and taste, once the bun and garnishes were included, this dog truly sang. “It’s really good when you put stuff on it,” said a tester.
Best Oregonian pork dog: Hill’s
This self-described old-fashioned frankfurter, made in Pendleton, Oregon, truly shocked our testers. We’d been burned by the other, thicker hot dogs in our trial run already, and the thick, pale look didn’t do much to attract us. Plus, this dog was 100% pork, instead of others that were all beef or a beef-pork mix. Yet it had that traditional well-spiced, hotdog taste profile, and was juicy with a slightly coarse texture. As one tester commented, “Usually a hot dog has to have beef for it to taste like a real hot dog, but this one is really good.”
Other Decent Dogs
Edelweiss
These dogs were long and of medium girth, and a little paler than others we’d attempted. We all concurred that the breeze was good, however the smooth texture of the sausage and the lighter taste was off-putting to some. “It has a weird eggy flavor that I don’t enjoy,” said one tester. Another didn’t like the method his “teeth slid through it.” A 3rd stated, “It doesn’t really have that hot dog flavor, but the snap is great.”
DIVISIVE DoGS
Zenner’s
The just Zenner’s hotdog we might discover after striking up 4 supermarket was the Coney dog, which was pale and thick and looked absolutely nothing like the Zenner’s dogs we’d consumed and enjoyed in the past at Kim Jong Grillin’ and at Pickles video games. The breeze of this pork-beef dog was good, however after that, it was all problem: boring and excessively smooth, “like baloney in a hot dog.” As one tester put it, “It doesn’t taste like beef or pork to me. It’s just a kind of generic meatiness.” Moral of the story: we have actually taken pleasure in other Zenner’s sausages, simply not the Coney dogs.
Olympia Provisions
These all-pork, foot-long frankfurters didn’t taste like hot dogs, however were still yummy. They are thin with a noticeably brown-orange color, and all of our testers concurred that they’re rather oily, though in a delicious method instead of a gross method. The texture was likewise abnormally coarse for a hotdog, and the herby spices leaned a little strong. “It’s more brat-like than hot dog,” said one tester. Another included, “I believe if I provided it to a kid, they’d resemble, ‘What’s this?! This isn’t a hotdog.'”
